Vegan & organic diet guide: Toxic GM-potatoes?
Vegan & organic diet guide: Toxic GM-potatoes?
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    • Toxic GM-potatoes?

    There has been some controversy on the safety of GM foods, like potatoes. Dr. Arpad Pusztai showed through his experiments that rats that were fed with GM potatoes where lectin was expressed from snowdrop suffered damage to immune systems and resulted in stunted growth. This lectin is toxic to insects, nematodes and toxic to mammals. However, his findings were criticized, and publication of his studies showed no signs of stunted growth or any damage to the immune system.




    His findings showed that GM potatoes expressing lectin had effects on parts of the gastrointestinal tract of the rat. However it was considered that these effects could have arisen because of overall biological effects of GNA-GM potatoes; more so on the small intestine and caecum.

    This publication was followed by criticism from the paper saying that there were insufficient tests about the safety of GM foods. A follow up debate followed after the journal. The data supplied by Pustztai was sent to six independent reviewers having expertise in statistics, physiology, quantitative genetics, clinical trials, growth and development and immunology.

    They found that the data was insufficient to support its conclusions as the experiment was not well designed using blind 'measurements' and were inconclusive about the chemical differences that were found in the strains of GM and non-GM potatoes. The data showed some dietary differences that were consequent to non-systematic dietary enrichment. There was insufficient application of statistical techniques in analyzing the results, and lack of consistency between and within the experiments.

    Though Pusztai's findings were rebutted, there is still a lingering controversy due to the strong, but opposing views on the conclusion and data. There are also claims of misrepresentation of the results by Rowett Research Institute, and also concerns from scientists over the overstatement of his findings by the NGOs.

    Pusztai then sent research protocols to 24 independent scientists of different countries who were experts in medicine, physiology, nutrition, toxic pathology, microbiology and biochemistry. These scientists, however disagreed with the review committee's conclusions and said that Pusztai's research was good, and justified his conclusions. Due to publicly defending Pusztai's research, Dr. Andrew Chesson, the vice chairman of European Commission scientific committee and former top scientist of Rowett Institute was fired.

    This led to many reports stating the politicization of peer review process and misrepresentation of Pusztai's reports by newspapers and scientists.
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