MONDAY 8 MARCH 1999

DR ARPAD PUSZTAI and DR STANLEY EWEN

  180. The force of your statement was that genetically modified foods are being released onto the market without control and without people knowing whether they are toxic or not, or whether they have other damaging effects; that is the force of that statement. And I find it puzzling that the answer to that, as a justification, is that there was only one paper ever published. I say, again, what is the evidence that damaging, genetically modified food is being released into the public, so that they are, effectively, guinea-pigs?
  (Dr Pusztai) No, I did not say that.

  181. That is the transcript from the World In Action programme?
  (Dr Pusztai) What I said was that you are going to find it out by releasing it; that is the guinea-pig, to me.

  182. The transcript is that "it is very, very unfair to use our fellow citizens as guinea-pigs". Now I am asking you what the evidence is, and your response is there was only ever one paper published; now that is not evidence?
  (Dr Pusztai) No, but you use guinea-pigs in the laboratory to find out something; that is the point.

  183. We could say it is unfair to starve human beings; it does not mean to say we are starving human beings; you can make a statement that it is unfair to do something. Are you saying it is unfair to use our citizens as guinea-pigs because they are being used as guinea-pigs, or are you making a moral statement that it is unfair to use our citizens as guinea-pigs?
  (Dr Pusztai) I think that it is a perfectly good way of finding out, using guinea-pigs in the lab., that is a perfectly good way of going about it.

  184. But that was not what you said. You said the general public, effectively, are being used as guinea-pigs, and I am asking what evidence there was for it?
  (Dr Pusztai) But if you have no guinea-pigs and it is you who is the guinea-pig then I do not really see why it is not logical; logically, it is quite alright, to me.

  185. Could I ask, how should genetically modified food be tested?
  (Dr Pusztai) I think that is what all this business is about. We tried to come up with new ways of testing. Remember that I do know what the companies did, I looked at that, and with that knowledge behind me I could see which way we could stretch this, to come up with new things, and we used genetically modified potatoes as a sort of testing model. That was it.

  186. Yes. Could I ask Dr Ewen, you have looked at Dr Pusztai's, or did a lot of the pathology on the samples, and—
  (Dr Ewen) One experiment.

  187. And I have read, as well as your submission to us, an article in The Guardian, on 13 February, which was quite disturbing, in terms of the stomach wall, the enlarging—I am not a biologist so I do not follow in detail—but is there something very disturbing in that effect that it had on the lining of the rat's stomach?
  (Dr Ewen) I have not actually read the piece that you mention.

  188. It is similar to what is in your brief?
  (Dr Ewen) But, yes, the thickening of the mucosa, I think, is a difference, and, therefore, if there is a thickening, it causes me concern, as a pathologist.

  189. Does it mean that carcinogenic materials could pass into these elongated structures?
  (Dr Ewen) I would not like to speculate by using the word "carcinogenic"; this is a simple growth, like a hyperplasia, it just means that cells are added.

  190. Why was there that difference? Again, in this article, rather than the brief, there is speculation that it may have been due to the cauliflower mosaic virus, used as a promoter.
  (Dr Ewen) Those words are not mine. I have not read the article in The Guardian.

  191. But is it possible that it is that, that it is the promoter that is causing the problem?
  (Dr Ewen) I would like to widen it to the construct rather than, necessarily, singling out one part of it.

  192. Could I just say: you have not done any experiments that demonstrate that cauliflower mosaic virus is expressed in any of your tissue samples?
  (Dr Ewen) No, indeed, I have not. I would love to.

  193. You are very critical of the advisory committees, because they cannot commission their own research, or they cannot test GM foods themselves, and the only data that they have available to them is what the companies themselves produce?
  (Dr Pusztai) Precisely.

  194. On the other hand, that is exactly what happens in testing a new pharmaceutical product, it is the basis of the pharmaceutical regulation; why do you think GM foods should be treated differently?
  (Dr Pusztai) I do not know what they do with pharmaceuticals, but I know that they are tested much more extensively; that is for a start. The other is, of course, that pharmaceuticals are not staples; we only take them from time to time, we do not eat them all the time.

  195. That is true. And do you feel that the members of the advisory committees, as presently constituted, are competent to assess data, from the scientific point of view?
  (Dr Pusztai) I think they are doing a job under very difficult conditions. Obviously, if they are coming together once or twice a month, or two months, and they will have to go through a very extensive, scientific input, without means of actually checking some of the perhaps potentially controversial issues, then that is a difficult job, and it is up to them how they do it, how best they do it, but you notice that there are not many new things coming on.

  196. So you would be happier, I take it, with some strengthened system; can you give any indication of what you would like to see?
  (Dr Pusztai) I think, as I say, I would certainly like to have more input by actual practising scientists, rather than, let us say, those who are perhaps doing more administrative science. It is now almost a European business, and I do not even know myself that which other scientists are working on, in related fields, I do not know how the committees know that. So there seems to be, again, a sort of communication gap, they may not get the most up-to-date and best scientific advice, and it would certainly be strengthened if you had a few more actively working scientists on, at least relating to, the committees.

  197. Both of you have expressed concerns about the current regulatory system, and, obviously, you have called into question the expertise of the Advisory Committee on Novel Foods and Processes. Do you know what the composition of those committees are?
  (Dr Pusztai) I used to know, for example, Professor James was on it, Professor Burke on it, some of them I knew reasonably well. I did not say that they are doing a bad job. What I am saying is that they are doing a very difficult job under difficult circumstances, with not many possibilities that perhaps asked those questions, like we asked; they may not have the answers to them.

  198. You have named two scientists, but do you know any of the others, because you have just said that there are not any who are close to the science? What gives you that impression?
  (Dr Pusztai) I think that, judging from all the people whom I knew, and I cannot give you more examples because, at the moment, I cannot remember their names, but, for example, there was—again, I cannot remember, I am sorry. But I did know personally quite a few of them, and I know that they keep a very strong connection with science, but they are not active scientists, let us say, they are having so many overworked committees and all sorts of commitments—for example, Professor James must have been on at least on half a dozen different committees, and he also has a responsibility for running an Institute, he also has all sorts of external commitments. The day is only 24 hours, so he may not have all the time to spend, let us say, to go into the lab to see the sort of work going on.

  199. I wonder if I could ask Dr Ewen the same question? What changes would you make, either in the composition of the committee or its remit?
  (Dr Ewen) Of course, I am not a nutritionist, I am just a hospital pathologist, but it does seem to me that we must always keep the consumer firmly in view, and, to that extent, sometimes, I feel that there may be undue bias against the consumer.