INDEPENDENT (London) | October 15, 1999
BRITAIN'S OLDEST medical journal faces public condemnation from the nation's most eminent body of scientists in a row about the quality of GM research in a report to be published today.
The conflict began with an experiment involving raw potatoes and laboratory rats, developed into a public scare about the safety of genetically modified food and has continued in a public slanging match between Britain's Royal Society and The Lancet journal.
The Royal Society, which was accused by The Lancet of taking a "breathtakingly arrogant" approach to GM food research, has now condemned the medical journal for publishing flawed research on GM potatoes.
Today, The Lancet finally publishes part of the experiments on GM potatoes carried out by Dr Arpad Pusztai, a scientist who was suspended last year from his position at the Rowett Research Institute in Aberdeen for making unsupported claims about GM safety in a television documentary.
Even before the journal is officially published, a wave of disapproval from the scientific establishment has washed over its editor, Dr Richard Horton. The biggest complaint of all came from Sir Aaron Klug, a Nobel laureate, distinguished molecular biologist and president of the Royal Society. "I think it is not a good idea [to publish the study]. It gives it an authority that this paper should not have," Sir Aaron said yesterday.
Publication of the paper, written by Dr Pusztai in association with Professor Stanley Ewen of Aberdeen University, gives the study "an authenticity it does not deserve, because it will be judged by the standing and reputation of The Lancet", said Sir Aaron.
"The Royal Society would not have published this paper ... since it confirms the society's original judgement that the experiments on which the paper is based were flawed," Sir Aaron added.
Other eminent scientists and august bodies have sided with the Royal Society - Britain's de facto national academy of sciences. Professor Ray Baker, the head of the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, said The Lancet's decision to publish flawed research ran counter to the internationally accepted "gold standard" for presenting research results.
"At a time when the public are looking for clear and authoritative guidance from scientists on genetic modification, it is irresponsible for The Lancet to publish a paper which has been deemed unworthy of publication by referees," said Professor Baker.
"At the very least, The Lancet should make clear the views and reservations of the referees alongside the paper."
In fact, Dr Horton has written a commentary explaining that the paper has been extensively revised three times over a period of many months on the insistence of a panel of six specialist referees - a nutritionist, a human pathologist, a veterinary pathologist, an agricultural geneticist, a plant molecular biologist and a statistician.
Dr Horton says that three of the six referees recommended publication. One, the statistician, pointed out flaws that were corrected, one objected outright to publication and the other argued for publication on the grounds that not to do so would lead to accusations of a conspiracy to suppress information. This referee, however, strongly dissented from the study's conclusion, saying it was wild speculation.
Despite this referee's concerns, The Lancet has allowed Professor Ewen and Dr Pusztai to conclude that the damage they witnessed to the intestinal linings of rats fed GM potatoes might be due to the process of genetic modification. They say that other GM plants, including GM soya eaten by humans, could have a similar effect.
Another of the referees, Professor John Pickett, a plant biochemist at the Institute of Arable Crops Research at Rothampsted in Hertfordshire, was scathing of The Lancet's willingness to publish even with an editorial making it clear that the work does not vindicate Pusztai. "You never do that normally with a paper. If a paper doesn't warrant publication on the basis of peer review, it doesn't get published," said Professor Pickett.
"The public expects the scientific community to look after its affairs and it expects that when scientists come out with information that it is based on scientific acceptability. The rules are being relaxed to let it be published.
"I don't think that scientists should really be talking about provocative issues to the public when their work has not been accredited with proper publication, and support from the peer-review system."
Dr Pusztai fed the rats raw as well as boiled GM potatoes and compared these animals against a control group fed on normal potatoes and potatoes "spiked" with a plant toxin used in GM research. The potatoes, which were grown and developed by Professor Pickett, were never intended for human consumption and were a purely experimental line.
The Royal Society, which was shown the finished paper before publication, said the work is flawed because too few animals were used to give statistically significant results, and the diets were incompletely controlled, which is crucial because rats fed on raw potatoes effectively starve. "Once again, there was a lack of rigour in the experimental design and statistical interpretation," it says.
John Gatehouse, a plant scientist at Durham University who worked with Dr Pusztai on the early research, agrees. He has also written to The Lancet to complain of the publication. His letter, which has not been published, says the research as it was eventually carried out by Dr Pusztai lacked proper controls, its results were anecdotal and its assertions unsupported. "What really annoys me is that this pathetic piece of drivel is being set up as a vindication of the original claims that GM food stunt your growth," said Dr Gatehouse.
He also dismissed a second piece of research published alongside the Ewen/Pusztai paper and purporting to show that lectins bind to white blood cells: "This is a classic piece of ambulance-chasing research of the utmost triviality which was deliberately tagged on to take advantage of the scare over GM. Quite frankly it would not be published in any other scientific journal," he said.
Dr Horton said that the final publication of the Pusztai research means that the debate can now begin. "That debate is the stuff of science," he said.
Speaking last week, Dr Pusztai said: "It is in the public interest that this article comes out. This is valid scientific evidence, independently obtained, and it is credible. It must be credible if it has been refereed."
The Government said last night it felt vindicated over the publication of Dr Pusztai's work by The Lancet, saying the journal's editorial calling for a cautious approach to interpreting GM research was entirely consistent with its own thinking.
"As The Lancet have said; publication of Dr Ewen and Pusztai's findings is not, as some newspapers have reported, a 'vindication' of Dr Pusztai's earliest claims," says a statement from the GM Communications Unit of the Cabinet Office.
"A Lancet reviewer has also confirmed that the 'experiments were incomplete' and that `the results are difficult to interpret and do not allow the conclusion that the genetic modification of potatoes account for adverse effects in animals'," said the GM unit.
WHAT THEY SAY ABOUT PROF PUSZTAI'S RESEARCH
"It is irresponsible for The Lancet to publish a paper which has been deemed unworthy of publication by referees." -PROFESSOR RAY BAKER
"It is not a good idea [to publish]. It gives it an authority that this paper should not have." -SIR AARON KLUG
"We've tried to draw a line under the Pusztai affair by saying 'right here are the data, let's now have a debate about them'." -RICHARD HORTON, EDITOR OF THE LANCET
BY DOCTORS, FOR DOCTORS
THE LANCET was founded in 1823 by Thomas Wakley, an English doctor, and is the longest running general medical journal in the world.
Every article is peer-reviewed using experts drawn from the journal's database of more than 8,000 scientists and doctors. With a circulation of about 40,000, and a readership estimated to be five times that number, it is published weekly from offices in London and New York.
Opinion differs over the origin of the name, The Lancet. Both versions are appropriate. It either refers to a surgical instrument for lancing boils, referring to the corrupt medical profession of the 1820s, or to a form of window in churches that throws "lances" of light.
EX-COLLEAGUE'S HIGHLY CRITICAL LETTER THAT THE LANCET WOULD NOT PUBLISH
This is an edited version of a letter not published by 'The Lancet'
To The Editor, The Lancet
From Dr John Gatehouse,
University of Durham
Dear Sir,
I am a former collaborator of Drs Stanley, Ewen and Arpad Pusztai. Dr Pusztai, in publicising his work, has consistently failed to properly describe the material on which he has based his various claims.
The transgenic potato plants and plant tissues supplied to Dr Pusztai were experimental material. They were not intended for consumption by animals except as part of the feeding trials in the programme, and were certainly not intended for human consumption, or for release as an agricultural or food product.
The article describes data that lack proper controls, and the results presented are essentially anecdotal. It makes a large number of unsupported assertions or assumptions. There has also been a total failure to take the established safety assessment protocols for transgenic crops into account in either designing the experiments, or evaluating the data.
Asserting that there is some undefined problem with transgenic plants in general on the basis of the data presented by Ewen and Pusztai is simply unscientific; it is the attitude of the medieval witchcraft trials.
No scientific evidence has ever been produced to support views reported as being those of Dr Pusztai, saying that "GM food will stunt your growth" or "GM food will damage your immune system"; and yet the present rather modest contribution is being reported to vindicate Dr Pusztai's claims.
