Who Is Arpad Pusztai
and Why Has He Been Silenced?by She Sees
from The Flowering Tree,
Newsletter of The Good Medicine Society
Fall 1999In 1956, after the Hungarian revolution against communist rule failed, Arpad Pusztai, a 26-year-old nutritionist, left Hungary and went to Scotland. For the past 35 years, Dr. Pusztai has worked as a senior researcher at the Rowett Institute in Aberdeen, Scotland, an internationally recognized government center for research in human and animal nutrition and biological sciences. Over the past 30 years, Dr. Pusztai has assembled a research team of 18 scientists, published three books and over 275 research papers, and has become a world expert on lectins, natural plant toxins which defend the plant against predators and disease-causing pests.
In 1995, Dr. Pusztai and his team began a research project funded by the Scottish Office to explore the safety of genetically engineered foods. The lectin used in his experiments had been found to be safe for consumption on its own. However, when feeding rats potatoes that had been genetically altered with this “safe” lectin, preliminary results showed unexpected and worrying changes in the size and weight of their bodily organs. Liver, heart, and brains were decreasing in size. There were also indications of a weakening of the immune system.
In January of 1998 Dr. Pusztai appeared, with the Rowett Institute’s permission, on BBC’s Newsnight and voiced his concerns about the weakening of the immune systems in the rats fed genetically modified (GM) potatoes. In April, 1998 Granada TV’s World in Action approached Dr. Pusztai and again with the institute’s consent he gave an interview which was broadcast in a documentary in August, 1998. He again talked about the problems they were finding and told viewers that he would not eat GM food. He told the audience that he found it “very, very unfair to use our fellow citizens as guinea pigs…”
The next day he was suspended by the Rowett Institute and described by his long time employer as “an old man who had muddled the results.” His research team was dismantled, his data suppressed, and over the past year his reputation has been assaulted by scientists with government and industry ties. He was also unable to speak out in his own defense or to discuss his research findings, because his contract with the Institute contained the Biotechnology and Biological Science Research Council’s code that prevents publicly funded research scientists from speaking out about any concerns they may have regarding the research they are doing. This “gag” code is to prevent scientists from becoming “involved in political controversy on biotechnology and biological sciences.”
In February of 1999, six months after his suspension, 21 scientists from around the world released a statement confirming Dr. Pusztai’s interpretation of his research: the rats in the feeding study had indeed suffered from decreases in size of vital organs and compromised immune systems. The Rowett Institute and the Royal Society, an independent academy promoting the natural and applied sciences, have both continued to attack Dr. Pusztai and his research. The British government’s Chief Scientist, Sir Robert May, has publicly stated that his work is “garbage.”
“I am old enough to remember the Nazi occupation of Hungary and under the Soviets. This reminds me of that…I never expected this.” Dr. Pusztai does admit that he broke the Research Council’s code by publicly discussing his study before the research had been published and peer reviewed. He felt compelled to do this because the “facts…indicated to me there were serious problems with transgenetic foods. It can take two to three years to get science papers published and these foods were already on the shelves without rigorous biological testing…”
Today, Dr. Pusztai defends himself from a web site he has established. There he has placed all of the communication between him and his critics. He feels that transparency is the most important issue and that he has “nothing to hide from the public and the other scientists.” He also feels that even though his statement of concern has cost him his job, he would do it again. “We are talking about our food. I hope for all our sakes that they are right when they say there is nothing wrong with GM food. Otherwise we will be in real trouble.”
Dr. Pusztai’s web page: www.freenetpages.co.uk/hp/a.pusztai/
from The Flowering Tree,
Newsletter of The Good Medicine Society
Fall 1999
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