interview
by Wayne Roberts
The
author of some 250 research papers and nine scientific books, Arpad
Pusztai (left) was nonetheless an unknown toiler in the obscure
vineyards of gut-microbial interactions until August I 998. That's when
he got his ISO seconds on TV and spilled his guts on the health and
ethical implications of genetic engineering.
Within days of his
TV appearance, Pusztai lost his job as senior researcher at Scotland's
prestigious Rowett Institute, his $3.6-million research team was dismantled,
and his scientific credibility vilified. He also became internationally
famous as a defender of scientific method and responsibility whose career
was martyred in the age of biotechnology.
Rare among scientists
who've managed experiments with genetically engineered materials, Pusztai
is free to speak his mind, for reasons soon to be explained. During
a speaking tour of Ontario and Quebec in February 200 l,Wayne Roberts
met the no-nonsense, high-energy 69-year-old for two hours.
Alternatives:
How are you adapting to life as a controversial scientist?
Pusztai:
This one controversy will last me a lifetime. I don't want another one,
thank you. I was a very conventional scientist for 49 years. It never
occurred to me that one day I would be in this sort of situation.
Science is controversial with a small c. Science is always debating
things that normally excite 50 experts or so. But this one also excited
the general public.
I had never done
anything as controversial as this because I'd never worked on anything
that was already released on the market, in foods that give the public
no choice, that we don't even know we are eating.
Our society is catastrophe-driven.
One reason why genetic engineering has become a burning issue in Europe
is because we've had a few catastrophes. The last one with "mad
cow" was peaking just when the debate over genetically modified
organisms got started. So the parallels and dangers were brought into
very sharp focus. We all have a feeling about food and anyone tampering
with it. Particularly after the mad cow crisis, it's playing with fire.
Alternatives:
Were you a critic of genetic engineering when you started your research?
Pusztai:
When we started in 1995,we were really enthusiastic. I said it was inconceivable
that there would be any problem.
The only thing we should be given credit for is that, despite our confidence,
we were bound by our findings. We are speaking from experience, not
ideology.
Alternatives:
How did a person like you, with a lifelong interest in gut issues, get
involved in research on genetically modified potatoes?
Pusztai:
The gut is an excellent indicator. Two parts of our bodies come in contact
with the outside world: the skin and the gut. It's only when something
goes through the gut wall that it becomes part of us. The gut is the
central motor of the whole business: digestion, absorption, the endocrine
system, the immune system. That's why the gut is so much more autonomic
or independent than any other part of the body. That allowed us to design
experiments where we just put GM foods into the gut and studied the
impact.
In 1995, the Scottish
Office of Agriculture, Environment and Fisheries commissioned me to
co-ordinate a three-year research program to identify possible hazards
to animal and human health or the environment from genetically modified
foods and develop a risk assessment blueprint for regulatory authorities.
We fed GM and non-GM
potatoes to different groups of young rats. We found the growth rate
and immune response was less when the feed was genetically modified.
The dissections showed significant differences; the pancreas, testes
and small intestines were significantly larger (sometimes as much as
20 percent) in rats that ate genetically modified feed. At the very
least, these worrisome changes fly in the face of the view that genetically
modified products are "substantially equivalent" to conventional
products, and thus don't require strict safety testing.
Alternatives:
Were these differences the result of the gene used in the genetically
modified potatoes or in the technology itself?
Pusztai:
The industry jumped to the conclusion that the gene used to increase
pest resistance in the potato was wrong. If this is creating problems,
the companies said, we'll take another gene.
What we never expected
was the effect of the genetic engineering technology. I grew up with
this reductionist idea: one gene, one enzyme. It's a terrible oversimplification
to portray this as the way we're going to solve everything. Yes, you
can do that in vitro,in an artificial system, but that is not how it
happens in the body. We're not a cell culture.
It's crucial to
know that we selected the gene - GNA (galoris nivalis agglutinis) from
a snowdrop plant - on the basis of six and a half years of studies showing
they weren't harmful. It is a most benign gene. It may even have useful
properties that can block E. coli bacteria.
Science is based
on a quantitative comparison. To test whether the problem was with the
gene or genetic engineering technology, we set up controls for a three-way
comparison: the parent line of non-GM potato [reference group], a test
group of potatoes with GNA, and another test group of potatoes genetically
engineered with GNA.
In our testing,
we not only found significant differences between potatoes that were
or were not genetically modified. There was variability among the GM
potatoes themselves. That is indirect experimental evidence of a technology
problem. Common logic tells me the genes must have landed in different
parts of the potato genome and affected it differently; it's as simple
as that. This doesn't say much for the mythical concept of "substantial
equivalence" the basis of most government regulations of GE. Two
potatoes look the same, taste the same, so they must be the same; this
is not really very scientific.
Alternatives:
So is biotech not really a technology?
Pusztai:
I say "technology" with inverted commas because the main requisite
of technology is predictability. You cannot build a bridge if you cannot
predict what sort of load it can take. That is the main problem with
genetic engineering as it's done today: it's unpredictable.
It's a blind archer
shooting at a target. The arrow may land in the middle of nowhere, it
may land in the middle of a functioning gene, it may interrupt a particular
gene's functioning, it may interact with the regulatory network of what
these guys call junk DNA - what we don't know, we call junk.
This is the big
difference between genetic engineering and conventional breeding, where
big chunks of the genome are moved together with its regulatory elements.
In genetic engineering, they are using naked pieces of DNA from viruses,
the hottest spots of DNA recombination. They are also using other things
that are problematic. They put the whole thing into plasmids, which
are very mobile and can move things across species. They put that into
the plant genome and they don't know what it's going to do or combine
with. How can you think up a testing technique for a combination that's
not supposed to happen, when you don't know its features? This is why
Richard Lacey has said we don't know how to do risk assessment; we don't
even know what questions to ask.
This is very poor
science, which is triggered by a product and a profit. In our case,
the product was at the end. You do your science, you find out how it
works, then you start asking if you can make any use of it. But with
the genetic industry, you think up a product, you hire a lot of people
who come up with the method of doing it, and then you get it out; steam
hammer this gene in and see what happens ... and presto... we can all
go to the bank and collect the money.
Pusztai:
The public was eating GM foods that had not been studied in the same
way as our tests. The question we were confronted with was: So, what
can you do? Keep quiet? Or publicly indicate concern? Remember that
I was given this considerable amount of money - $3.6 million - by the
taxpayers, so my first duty was to them, not to the biotech industry.
On August 10, 1998, I appeared on the popular investigative TV show,
World lnAction. The host tried to interview Monsanto. Monsanto has a
public telephone line so anyone in the public can inquire about genetic
engineering; the TV host called the telephone line and was rebuffed
because she was from the media and that was of course shown on the program.
The companies think in this age of communication there is a benefit
to no communication.
I was interviewed
for I 50 seconds. I said we were eating something that hasn't been tested,
and in my opinion ought to be tested on guinea pigs in the laboratory,
not unwitting human guinea pigs.
Alternatives:
What happened after the program was aired?
Pusztai:
The interview was broadcast on a Monday. By Tuesday afternoon, there
was a media explosion. Reporters were camped out in our driveway. In
Germany, they had hourly updates on national television. But I never
said anything, even though I had been suspended that day.
Alternatives:
What do you mean, you never said anything?
Pusztai:
Everybody who receives money from the Biotechnology Biology Science
Research Council has the same contract I had, about 700 pages. You must
have your director's written permission to talk in public. It is a lifelong
gag. It is not just contrary to science.
It is contrary to
human rights. The director can say anything about you, the institute
can say anything about you, and you have no right of self-defence. I
could not say anything. That's the reason there were all these rumours
about my research being shoddy. We could have cleared up the whole business
right at the beginning.
Even now, I am the
only one on the research team who can speak. I was called to testify
in parliament about genetic engineering in 1999, and so I was released
from my contract. If it weren't for this, I wouldn't have been able
to publish the results from our research in The Lancet. My wife, who
was head of the research group at the Rowett, still cannot speak about
the experimental details.
I suffered long
enough - seven months of gagging when all that venom was poured over
me. Most active scientists have absolutely no time to think about the
consequences of their research. So in a sense, that seven months of
gagging was extremely useful to me.
Alternatives:
And what are you doing now?
Pusztai:
Norway is awash with oil money, and they want to do research on the
impact of feeding genetically engineered soya to salmon, one of their
most prized fish. They are going to farm this predatory carnivore and
teach it to eat vegetables. I am working on that research.
We cannot fall into the same trap as the genetic engineering companies.
They say there is no point doing research because genetic engineering
is all safe. We cannot say there is no point to research because it
is all unsafe. We must give due attention to the scientific process.
Wayne Roberts
is co-author of Real Food for A Change, and is co-ordinator of the Toronto
Fool Policy Council.
Reprinted from
Alternatives Journal: Environmental thought, policy and action,
27:3 (2001). Annual subscriptions $25.00 (plus GST) from Alternatives
Journal, Faculty of Environmental Studies, University of Waterloo, Waterloo,
Ontario N2L 3G1 <www.alternativesjournal.ca>.
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