First press report we've seen on the great debate and below that sour grapes from Trewavas - in response to a kind enquiry from his pal Prakash. I'm relaiably told that his description of the audience as mostly activists is nonsense - my informant says he'd have recognised themn if they had been! Also note TT has found a new scapegoat -- it's all down not to Greenpeace, for once, but the Ecologist!
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1. GM watch
The Herald (Glasgow)
By Catherine Brown
April 7, 2001

Is it or isn't it safe to eat GM foods? Put two distinguished scientists on a platform arguing for and against and sparks fly. Add an audience of more scientists, GM lobbyists, Scotland's Green MSP and followers, and the debate which was organised by the McCarrison Society last Saturday in Edinburgh is as hot as it gets.  

First off was the pro-GM Anthony Trewavas, Professor of Plant Biochemistry at the University of Edinburgh. Let's look at all the other things we eat which may not be safe, he suggests - spices for instance.  

He reckons that curries could be just as bad for us as GM foods. Let's look at all the experiments which have been done (around 30) which have proved that GM foods are safe to eat.  

With one exception, of course - Dr Arpad Pusztai's study which questioned GM safety after discovering some adverse results when feeding GM potatoes to rats.  

The much-criticised Pusztai, however, is on the platform next to defend himself. Let's talk science, he says. Let's look at the small print in a piece of research published by the US Food and Drug Administration on the GM Flavr Savr tomato. How do we rate this as a quantitative comparison?  

"The study of this GM tomato claimed that no differences were found between rats fed GM and non-GM," he says.   "Yet the tomatoes had been harvested from different locations and at different times which will have an effect on their content and therefore the final results. The rats were a different size, too.  

"This is very poor science. People accuse me of poor science. But using rats of a different size means the amount of food they will be eating will be quite different. The results will have a standard deviation from here to Jerusalem!"  

And this was not the only "scandalously poor study'' which he highlighted. Pusztai believes there has been an "exercise in public sedation". What is needed now, he argues, are laboratory tests which are independent of the GM industry.  

At present Norway is funding two major GM testing programmes. What is also needed is less double talk, such as the much-quoted comment by John Krebs, the chairman of the Food Standards Agency: "There is no evidence the GM food is unsafe."  

"Yes" says Pusztai, "It's true. But no-one's proved yet that it's safe."

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2. Trewavas comment

Prakash: Recently Tony Trewavas of the University of Edinburgh debated Arpad Puzstai.  I asked Tony how it went.  Here's his response:

From: Tony Trewavas <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>

Subject:  Re: Pusztai - someone lies again

Actually the "debate" was a damp squib. I covered the areas of GM food which I thought were essential for a general audience; Pusztai covered Flavr Savr and showed one slide of his own work which actually was raw potato compared with mashed on the intestine convolutions (that was the major difference but the potato lines were not substantially equivalent.

The audience was about 80% activist and ignored anything said although one who accused me of rhetoric over testing I was able to present a list of 68 references on GM food testing. I suspect most who are in the activist camp get their "science" from a magazine called "the ecologist" which is just a front for environmentalism and like so much uses carefully selected material to argue for political programmes