Dr Arpad Pusztai's previous response to the Australian biotechnologist Dr Roger Morton, "Re: Response to Pusztai and apology", drew 3 responses from subscribers to the pro-GM AgBioView list. One was from a US law professor, one from Morton himself and the other from a Canadian government scientist, Bob MacGregor. Below are Dr Pusztai's responses to Morton and MacGregor.
*The full Morton-Pusztai debate on GM food safety can now be found on the ngin website at: http://members.tripod.com/~ngin/pusztaidebate.htm
items:
1. ngin update on the Morton-Pusztai debate
2. Dr Pusztai's repsonse to Bob MacGregor
3. Dr Pusztai's latest repsonse to Roger Morton
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1. ngin update on the Morton-Pusztai debate
The Morton - Pusztai debate on GM food safety began in December 2000 when CSIRO scientist Dr Roger Morton posted to the pro-GM AgBioView list a wide ranging and detailed critique of a document called 'GM myths'. Some of Dr Morton's comments related directly to the work of Dr Arpad Pusztai and to the related issue of the safety of GM foods.
A great deal of the focus of the Morton-Pusztai debate has been on a bibliography produced by Dr Morton in support of his claims as to the safety and adequacy of testing of GM foods. Morton claimed with regard to this bibliography that "the vast majority of the publications mentioned are full peer-reviewed publications in journals".
Following Dr Pusztai's first critique of this bibliography (which concluded, "All in all, if this is the best that an enthusiastic proponent of GM foods can come up with in support of their safety, we are really in trouble"), Morton made some minor revisions while continuing to defend the bibliography as containing a "quite substantial" number of "publications with actual data" given "how few GM crops are in the market place".
In his second critique Dr Pusztai pointed out that the revised 53-item bibliography still only contained a very limited number of peer reviewed studies of which just 5 were examples of the animal testing of GM foods. In fact, a small number of other peer-reviewed animal studies do exist but were not included in Morton's list, including Pusztai and Ewen's GM potato study published in the Lancet, leading Pusztai to comment:
"Clearly, even though this article and a few others in Domingo's list in Science were most definitely peer-reviewed papers, they obviously did not come up to the pro-GM scientists' standards, as exemplified by the 41 non peer-reviewed references in the original and in the amended list.
I am afraid, even now I and, I guess, a lot of other scientists would regard the contents of these 41 "references" as little more than opinions."
In Morton's repsonse to this, "Dr Pusztai - please read your own paper", Morton, interestingly, made no further attempt to defend his bibliography, focusing instead on Dr Pusztai's GM pea study, which Morton had included in his revised bibliography of research supposedly supporting the safety of GM foods. Morton has argued that this paper of Pusztai's shows no detectable evidence of harm and that its title should have stated this.
In Morton's response a marked change of tone is noticeable, eg he writes, "I am not so sure that I believe you when you tell me Dr Higgins came up with this title", "12% higher fecal N excretion and 4% lower body water content is potentially harmful??? - go on make a case for this then. Make a case as to how these differences a [sic]potentially harmful. Do now, what you should have done earlier, in the paper", "Go on - I dare you...", etc.
Morton also challenged Dr Pusztai's assertion that the US has till now had, in effect, self-regulation of GM foods, commenting, "I don't think this is true : - any one care to comment?" This drew a supportive response on the AgBioView list from Drew L. Kershen from the law school of the University of Oklahoma. However, within days, and quite coincidentally, came news of a just-published Consumer Federation of America report which appears to support Dr Pusztai's view as to the flimsiness of US regulation, concluding that it "is, at bottom, an elaborate and complicated regulatory charade based upon a few regulatory policies posing as science'' The report was co-authored by Thomas O. McGarity of the University of Texas law school. McGarity specifically refers to the self-regulatory aspect of the US system, saying there is no way of knowing how many manufacturers or importers have applied the substantial equivalence doctrine on their own in order to conclude that they do not need to consult with the FDA prior to marketing biotech foods.[Reuters, January 12 2001, Report Damns U.S. Regulation of Biotech Foods]
The third response to Pusztai, from Bob MacGregor, also focused on Dr Pusztai's GM pea study. MacGregor stated, "One point that Roger didn't mention has baffled me: how can one leap to the conclusion that a difference -- even a statistically-significant one -- between intestinal weight with one variety versus another is evidence of harm?"
Below is Dr Pusztai's responses to MacGregor and Morton, which we are also forwarding to the AgBioView list. All Dr Pusztai's responses, and other material relevant to the debate, can be found on the ngin website at: http://members.tripod.com/~ngin/pusztaidebate.htm
ngin
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2. Dr Pusztai's response to Bob MacGregor:
You cannot have it both ways. When regulation is based on substantial equivalence, as it is, if a GM crop and its non-GM parent line are not substantially equivalent then the GM line cannot be accepted on the basis of the present regulations. I have nothing to do with this aspect of regulation and I am not going to say whether I think this is good or bad. However, one cannot pick and choose which of the regulations one needs to obey!
The next question is, then, whether an established significant difference has any biological meaning. Here, obviously, personal judgment and expertise will come in but, as a minimum, when a difference exists it must be obligatory to follow it up and establish whether the difference signifies any pathological etc. significance.
What you cannot do is to dismiss it just because in your opinion, and based on a possibly incomplete or poor understanding of the topic, and/or a lack of experience, you may think that it is of no importance. There used to be a word for this in the past, humility. We may not know everything and therefore one is under an obligation to ask for the advice and help of experts before new experiments are designed and carried out.
I am not going to speculate on the reasons why differences in the weight, size and structure of the gastrointestinal tract were observed in any particular instance because there are good and proper experimental techniques to probe into these reasons and in most instances such experimental work can give you precise, biochemical and quantitative reasons for the underlying gut enlargement. But I can asure you that there are always good material reasons for this and even if the "innate characteristics of the plant" change because of the gene transfer, these methods can still be applied to clear up the problem. Had we been given time we would have been able to nail down these reasons, be it with our GM potatoes or GM peas.
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3. To Roger Morton:
I think it is high time to close this debate because it is now getting too personal. I could, of course, say that Dr Morton should look at Tables 2 & 4 (I am sure he actually did) and then politely ask me why I thought that the real and significant differences in Tables 2 & 4 were not shown by the results of Table 3. Perhaps, I might have been able to enlighten him. You see, when one wants to score points over one's opponent in a debate, it shuts off the channels of communication.
Why does Dr Morton think that "no detectable detrimental effect" is better than no detrimental effect, particularly if we may have detected detrimental effects? When the alpha-amylase inhibitor even partially stops starch degradation in the small intestine, the extra load of undigested starch accumulating in the enlarged caecum/large intestine can have a detrimental effect. In fact, it could kill the animal. This actually happened in our pre-study with alpha-amylase inhibitor (non-GM) also published in Journal of Nutrition. So you see, just like with beauty, knowledge is also in the eye of the beholder. Thorough knowledge of one's topic is never a bad thing when it comes to evaluating one's own experiments.
One cannot give a more frappant example of the potential problems due to the personalizing of the debate. When Dr Morton says that "I am not sure that I believe you when you tell me Dr Higgins came up with this title", does he think that apart from himself and possibly a few other similar people, this business has any interest for anyone else? Our initial exchanges were to the point and pertinent to the GM debate. I am afraid, this has very little enlightement to offer to the general interested reader.
For gut enlargement and its significance, see my reply to Dr MacGregor.
We are back again to our GM potatoes. I said this before and I say it again: we were the lab which had done the testing and produced the data for the commercial company. As referred to before, because of our work the Rowett and Axis Genetics had already drawn up a commercial agreement on profit sharing if and when the GNA potatoes went through the regulatory approval process.
I am glad to see that even American lawyers see the holes in the USA regulatory process. In fact, there are no holes because since the FLAVR-SAVR tomato study in 1992/93, there has been no compulsory regulation. In effect, up till now it has been self-regulation!
On the final point, Dr Morton ought to ponder a little when he dares me to give him a plausible hypothesis to explain the results. I have to remind him why I was condemned by the scientific establishment in August 1998. It was, according to them, because I openly and without peer-review revealed experimental details of our GM potato work. Apart from tiny little details, such as the fact that I did no such thing, it just shows the hypocrisy of the whole system. Just take those 40 odd articles Dr Morton quoted in his reference list which had never been peer-reviewed but which still with great confidence asserted things which, at best, could only be called opinions. As they were favourable to GM, they are alright. I am not going to oblige him or anybody else to crucify me for my views and opinions. If we were friends and had a confidential discussion over a pint of beer or a glass of some good Australian wine I could expound on my views. A lot of things have been said about me but nobody tried to assert that I am stupid and by rising to the bait I definitely would be. On a more philosophical note, personalized debates and using demolition charges to remove opponents does not further the cause of science and honest scientific debate.
I am sure, we have had our space and time on the internet, we should give others a chance too.
Arpad Pusztai