GMO Myths and Truths

lacked proper controls. Both claims are easily
shown to be false by a reading of the study, which
subsequently passed peer-review by a larger-thanusual
team of reviewers and was published in The
Lancet. 82
Criticisms of the study design are particularly
unsound because it was reviewed by the Scottish
Office and won a GBP 1.6 million grant over 28
other competing designs. According to Pusztai, it
was also reviewed by the BBSRC, the UK’s main
public science funding body. 77 Even Pusztai’s
critics have not suggested that he did not follow
the study design as it was approved – and if his
study had lacked proper controls, the BBSRC
and the Scottish Office would have faced serious
questions.
Interestingly, one of the critics who claimed
that Pusztai’s experiment lacked proper controls 83
had previously co-authored and published with
Pusztai a study on GM peas with exactly the
same design. 84 In fact, the only notable difference
between this study and Pusztai’s GM potatoes
study was the result: the pea study had concluded
that the GM peas were as safe as non-GM peas,
whereas the potato study had found that the GM
potatoes were unsafe.
Pusztai’s GM potato research continues to be
cited in the peer-reviewed literature as a valid
study.
Ignacio Chapela
In 2001 biologist Ignacio Chapela and his
colleague David Quist tested native varieties of
Mexican maize and found that they had been
contaminated by GM genes. 85 The findings were of
concern because at the time, Mexico had banned
the planting of GM maize out of concern for its
native varieties. Mexico is the biological centre
of origin for maize and has numerous varieties
adapted to different localities and conditions. The
GM contamination came from US maize imports.
Chapela started talking to various government
officials, who, he felt, needed to know. As his
findings were approaching publication in the
journal Nature, events took a sinister turn.
Chapela said he was put into a taxi and taken to
an empty building in Mexico City, where a senior
government official threatened him and his family.
Chapela had the impression that he was trying to
prevent him from publishing his findings. 86,77,87
Chapela went ahead with publication.
Immediately, a virulent smear campaign against
him and his research was launched, with most
of the attacks appearing on a pro-GM website
called AgBioWorld. While AgBioWorld has many
scientists among its subscribers, the attacks were
not fuelled by scientists, but by two people called
Mary Murphy and Andura Smetacek. Murphy
and Smetacek accused Chapela of being more of
an activist than a scientist. Smetacek suggested
that Chapela’s study was part of an orchestrated
campaign in collusion with “fear-mongering
activists (Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth)”. 77
Murphy and Smetacek successfully shifted
the focus from the research findings onto
the messenger. The journal Science noted the
“widely circulating anonymous emails” accusing
researchers, Ignacio Chapela and David Quist, of
“conflicts of interest and other misdeeds”. 88 Some
scientists were alarmed at the personal nature of
the attacks. “To attack a piece of work by attacking
the integrity of the workers is a tactic not usually
used by scientists,” wrote one. 89
Investigative research by Jonathan Matthews
of the campaign group GMWatch and the
journalist Andy Rowell traced Murphy’s attacks to
an email address owned by Bivings Woodell, part
of the Bivings Group, a PR company with offices
in Washington, Brussels, Chicago and Tokyo.
Bivings developed “internet advocacy” campaigns
for corporations and had assisted Monsanto with
its internet PR since 1999, when the biotech
company identified that the internet had played a
significant part in its PR problems in Europe. 77
Attempts to uncover the identity of Murphy
and Smetacek led nowhere, leading the journalist
George Monbiot to write an article about the affair
entitled, “The fake persuaders: Corporations are
inventing people to rubbish their opponents on
the internet”. 90
Chapela’s finding that GM genes had
contaminated native Mexican maize was
confirmed by tests carried out by the Mexican
government, as reported in Chapela’s published
study and in a separate article. 85,91
GMO Myths and Truths 33