Internationally-renowned scientists Susan Bardocz and Arpad Pusztai, formerly with the Rowett Research Institute in Scotland. In 1998 they released controversial research on the adverse effects of genetically-modified potatoes. The action ignited public awareness of the GMO debate, which resulted in their being fired, refused access to their research and an attempt was made to discredit their findings and reputations. A conflict of interest on the part of the Blair government, Monsanto, Sainsbury and the Rowett Institute may have influenced the dismissal of Pusztai's findings by the Institute and the Royal Society group which subsequently analyzed them.

Arpad Pusztai and the GMO Debate
By Linda Dawn Hammond

There is inconclusive but disturbing evidence that the ingestion of GM food may depress our immune systems and lead to such things as shrinkage of the brain, damaged vital organs and resistance to antibiotics...

In the three year study headed by researcher Susan Bardocz, during which feeding trials were conducted with rats being fed GM and non-GM potatoes, rats on the GM diet were observed to develop at a different rate than their counterparts, experiencing major weight changes in the vital organs which suggest that the digestion and absorption rate of the GM potato nutrients is less than that of regular potatoes. GM potatoes analyzed in the study contained significantly less protein than the non-GM potatoes- almost 20% less protein than the appropriate parent line. The result was that rats fed GM potatoes suffered a variety of symptoms- such as partial liver atrophy, reduced brain size, stimulated spleen and thymus, depression of some of the functions of the immune system, and enlargement of the pancreas, jejunum and testes.
The respected scientist who discovered some of these potential risks and announced them publicly in 1998, Arpad Pusztai, was subsequently fired from his research position at the Rowett Institute in Scotland and his findings discredited under suspicious circumstances. Together with researcher and partner Susan Bardocz, Dr. Pusztai worked at the Institute for over twenty years and published eleven books and 330 scientific papers.
Upon examining Dr.Pusztai’s results, 20 Scientists from 13 nations demanded his rehabilitation but a specially convened and unnamed Royal Society group in 1999 maintained that the experiments were "flawed".
Conflict of interest allegations arose when shortly after Pusztai’s firing, pro-GMO Prime Minister Tony Blair appointed "Lord" Sainsbury, the supermarket billionaire, as Science minister at the Department for Trade and Industry and member of the Cabinet Biotechnology Committee in the UK. Sainsbury got to head the Office of Science and Technology, which monitors government funding of research and controls official science policy. At the time of his appointment he owned the rights to the genetic enhancer, the booster to the key gene used in GM food technology. Sainsbury put his holding into a blind trust 3 days after his government appointment and now claims that the patent to the "cauliflower mosaic gene" is owned by Monsanto. The patent’s inventor worked at the Scottish Crop Research Institute as the deputy director during Dr Pusztai's research project.
An ironic footnote- Lord Sainsbury’ s supermarket chain subsequently "spearheaded" the move to provide a wary UK public with organic and non-GMO products.
Confusion and dissent reign in the GMO debate but one thing remains clear- if the biotech companies have their way, destined to replace the potato is an unidentified imposter of the GMO variety- possibly inferior in protein levels and digestibility, unproven in terms of safety, and unlabelled. The next potato famine may result not from dearth but bio (tech) supply!