Two expert groups in Britain rebut scientist's criticism of GM food

Two expert groups in Britain have rejected research highlighted last year in a television documentary on genetically modified foods during which a scientist claimed the public was being used as "unwitting guinea pigs".

Both the Royal Society and the UK government's Advisory Committee on Novel Foods and Processes (ACNFP) in separate reports dismissed the work of Dr Arpaud Pusztai.

He claimed on a World in Action programme on ITV that rats fed genetically modified potato suffered stunted growth, damaged organs and impaired immune systems. Dr Pusztai's employer for 37 years, the Rowett Research Institute in Scotland, dismissed him after the programme.

The Royal Society represents Britain's scientific establishment and it asked six unnamed experts to review the work. Their report, issued yesterday, described it as "flawed in many aspects of design, execution and analysis" and said no conclusions should be drawn from it. The Royal Society invited Dr Pusztai to comment on the report, but he declined.

The ACNFP in its report issued on Monday also expressed serious doubts about the design of Dr Pusztai's studies. Its chairman, Prof Janet Bainbridge, said that the work had been "severely distorted by the recent media campaign" which cast doubt on the safety of GM foods.

The Royal Society yesterday refused to back a call by the British Medical Association for a ban on GM foods but acknowledged that harmful effects of such foods could not be categorically ruled out. It called for more research.

This view was echoed in another report, released yesterday, by the House of Commons Science and Technology Select Committee, which urged the UK government to press for international agreement on the separation of GM and conventional crops.

The committee asked for efforts to find ways of monitoring any long-term impact on health of consuming GM foods. It also called for regulations to stop retailers claiming GM-free status unless this could be proved.

The committee report also expressed concern about "serious problems" caused by lack of resources given to UK government advisers studying the planting of GM crops. "The cost of extra staffing will be small compared with the cost of failure of the advisory system," it concluded.

The environmental group Friends of the Earth criticised the Royal Society for refusing to name the six experts asked to review Dr Pusztai's research.

The Rowett Research Institute said it would be studying the reports and hoped that they would "draw a line under the events of the past 10 months".