Campaigners against genetically modified crops in Britain last
are calling for trials of GM potatoes this spring to be halted
after releasing more evidence of links with cancers in laboratory
rats.
UK Greenpeace activists said the findings, obtained from Russian
trials after an eight-year court battle with the biotech industry,
vindicated research by Dr Arpad Pusztai, whose work was criticised
by the Royal Society and the Netherlands State Institute for Quality
Control.
The disclosure last night of the Russian study on the GM Watch
website led to calls for David Miliband, the Secretary of State
for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, to withdraw permission
for new trials on GM potatoes to go ahead at secret sites in the
UK this spring. Alan Simpson, a Labour MP and green campaigner,
said: "These trials should be stopped. The research backs
up the work of Arpad Pusztai and it shows that he was the victim
of a smear campaign by the biotech industry. There has been a
cover-up over these findings and the Government should not be
a party to that."
Mr Simpson said the findings, which showed that lab rats developed
tumours, were released by anti-GM campaigners in Wales. Dr Pusztai
and a colleague used potatoes that had been genetically modified
to produce a protein, lectin. They found cell damage in the rats'
stomachs, and in parts of their intestines.
The research is likely to spark a fresh row about GM crops in
Britain. Graham Thompson, a Greenpeace campaigner, said: "It
is important because it backs up the research by Pusztai, which
was smeared at the time by the industry."
Brian John of GM Free Cymru, who released the findings, said
the research was conducted in 1998 by the Institute of Nutrition
of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences and has been suppressed
for eight years.
It showed that the potatoes did considerable damage to the rats'
organs. Those in the "control groups" that were fed
non-GM potatoes suffered ill-effects, but those fed GM potatoes
suffered more serious organ and tissue damage.
The potatoes contained an antibiotic resistance marker gene.
The institute that carried out the studies refused to release
all the information. However, Greenpeace and other consumer groups
mounted a protracted legal battle campaign to obtain the report.
In May 2004 the Nikulinski District Court in Russia ruled that
information relating to the safety of GM food should be open to
the public.
The institute, however, refused to release the report. Greenpeace
and Russian activist groups again took the institute to court,
and won a ruling that the report must be released.
Irina Ermakova, a consultant for Greenpeace, said she had conducted
her own animal feeding experiments with GM materials. "The
GM potatoes were the most dangerous of the feeds used in the trials
... and on the basis of this evidence they cannot be used in the
nourishment of people."
Greenpeace said the Russian trials were also badly flawed. Half
of the rats in the trial died, and results were taken from those
that survived, in breach of normal scientific practice.
Email
