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Gm food row: do the research first!
18 May 1999
Friends of the Earth today welcomed the Royal Society's admission that more research is needed into the health effects of eating genetically modified (GM) food. Yesterday, the British Medical Association also said that more research is needed into the health and environmental effects of GM food and crops.
But FOE has criticised the Royal Society over the way in which it reviewed the controversial work of Dr Arpad Pusztai, the scientist at the centre of a GM storm last year. While saying that Dr Pusztai's work was flawed, the Society refused to name the 6 scientists who had reviewed it. The Society also appears to have refused an invitation from Dr Pusztai to talk to its reviewers. The reviewers didn't even have all of Dr Pusztai's results before reaching their conclusions.
Last year, FOE revealed that the Government's own health research on GM food will not be complete until 2001. Key environmental tests (“farm scale trials”) have only just begun,and cannot be properly completed until the end of a four year crop rotation. The value of this year's trials was undermined by a Cabinet Office memorandum leaked to FOE which admitted that there were too few sites to produce satisfactory scientific results.
Friends of the Earth food campaigner Adrian Bebb commented:
"Instead of attacking one scientist's work because he dared to speak out, the Royal Society should be calling loud and clear for the research to be repeated. That's the only way of finding our for certain what the risks of GM food and crops may be.
The BMA has pointed out that scientific studies must be completed before commercial licenses are granted. Friends of the Earth says: keep the experiments in the laboratory, not on supermarket shelves or in a field near you. Will Mr Blair have the nerve to ignore the nation's doctors as well as environmentalists? The case for a five year freeze on GM food and crops grows stronger every day.”
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Published by Friends of the Earth Trust
Last modified: Jul 2008
