Talk:Pusztai affair

Does the article need a section for later events?

The Royal Society has continued to cite the Pusztai affair as an example of fraud and a reason the public dont trust GM. To do this they are making false claims.[1] For example they have claimed they reviewed the Lancet paper itself not the unfinished research and they also claim that the Pusztai study has since been refuted by two primary research studies. Of the two papers they cite, one is unpublished and the other is an opinion piece rather than actual research. Neither are peer reviewed. Additional Pusztai himself commented on the affair last year. Should any of this be included.Wayne (talk) 07:31, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

Yes, to a section on later events. An advantage of having this in its own article is that it can go beyond Pusztai. His experiments are still regarded by many opponenets of GM as the most compelling evidence of the harm caused by GM food. However, I would verify the information above before adding it. GM Watch is not a reliable source for those claims. AIRcorn (talk) 05:52, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

In 2008, on the tenth anniversary of his TV show, Dr. Pusztai reflected: "On this anniversary I have to admit that, unfortunately, not much has changed since 1998. In one of the few sentences I said in my broadcast ten years ago, I asked for a credible GM testing protocol to be established that would be acceptable to the majority of scientists and to people in general. 10 years on we still haven't got one...

"All of us asked for independent, transparent and inclusive research into the safety of GM plants, and particularly those used in foods. There is not much sign of this either.

There are still 'many opinions but very few data;' less than three dozen peer-reviewed scientific papers have been published describing the results of work relating to GM safety that could actually be regarded as being of an academic standard; and the majority of even these is from industry-supported labs..."

I would like also for their to be clarity on what Pusztai actually believed was the cause of the differences between rats feed GMO potato versus non GMO, that the insertion of gentic material apparently damaged unrelated parts of the DNA. And a mention of the threats to the Lancet and the source.

The well published controversy over this report and the actions of government and the agricultural business community is one reason why GMO foods are much more limited in Europe.

06:00, 7 November 2014 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Elemming (talk • contribs)

References

Reword needed

In the section on the experiment it says: "Subsequently they experimented" which implies they did this as an additional experiment after finding unexplained results in their primary research. The feeding experiment was always part of the original contract and the methodology used had been approved by the government's GM experts before the Rowett won the contract. In fact the experts stated that Rowetts feeding study methodology was superior to any other presented and was a factor in Rowett winning the contract. Needs to be reworded to remove the implication.Wayne (talk) 08:59, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

Egil Robert Ørskov

[...] claimed he was told that [...] phone calls went from Monsanto [...] to Clinton to Blair

Is this really encyclopaedic? That someone (apparently) unrelated to the events claim they heard rumors about a conspiracy? Whatever his qualifications as an expert on ruminant digestion (which the article seems to stress), this seems weak. Evaluating the veracity of rumors does not seem to be his primary field of research. Especially since the sources do not establish that this claim was significant, or even relevant, to the whole affair. If this must be mentioned, it should be covered in terms of how the UK media responded to and reported this claim. --Vilding1 (talk) 17:42, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

I agree, this seems less than encyclopedic. If there is a more solid source saying about the phone calls, that might be worth adding but a rumor that someone heard is far from a reliable source. I removed that paragraph. 24.9.63.64 (talk) 01:23, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Multiple sources within Rowett supported the phone calls and it was reported by several major newspapers. The paragraph probably does need rewording though and have more refs. Wayne (talk) 03:32, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

One of the sources you used calls it a conspiracy theory.[2] Orskay was asked about it in an interview and said "he would not be surprised if it was true, but that he did not have any intimate knowledge of the calls happening". Thats in stark contrast to what the article says. It probably should be mentioned but it needs to be presented much more accurately. Of the other sources one is GM watch, which is not reliable, and another is also by Rowett Rowell. The book doesn't provide much evidence beyond rumour. AIRcorn (talk) 10:59, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

If you check you will see that I added what Orskov said to the article. He did not have intimate knowledge because he was told by others who might have but he still believes it could be true. The media reported the calls and Pusztai supporters used that information which makes it relevant, especially so as it was still being reported by the media 10 years later. It is conspiracy theory that has a high probability of being true. Such influence is a known practice within the industry, for example, in my country the government was warned by Bush that he would place trade penalties on Australia if we didn't accept GM. James also lied about receiving any phone calls at all which gives weight (the pro-GM Guardian said "make of it what you will") to the calls being relevant in the context of the controversy. Wayne (talk) 18:05, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

I reworded it so it was attributed to Rowell (I meant Rowell, not Rowett above) and Randerson. It could very well have happened, but we cannot report what is "true" just what is said. Also changed "claimed" to "said" or "wrote" per WP:SAY and paraphrased the longish quote. For some reason I couldn't access the Tom Horlick-Jones book at Google books again. From memory it contained some info about a politician that spoke out about the affair and maybe some other information that could be added in. I will try from another computer and see if it lets me in. AIRcorn (talk) 05:05, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

Awesome guys! It reads so much better now. Sorry if I jumped the gun in deleting it, I guess I really should've worked on it. 24.9.63.64 (talk) 19:52, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

POV

This article is riddled with violations of WP:POV, WP:OR, WP:RS and WP:SYNTH. The extensive criticism of Pusztai's work is summed up as follows

" On 19 February the Royal Society, which had never before conducted an independent peer review (SYNTH, OR), publicly announced a peer review committee would review his work and on 18 May the board issued the results at a press conference condemning Pusztai's methodology.[12] [13][14] The same day the House of Commons Science and Technology Select Committee also attacked Pusztai.[15] Behind the scenes coordination was partly revealed by a memo showing that the government had set up a Biotechnology Presentation Group which used both findings to publicly support GM in Parliament only three days later (SYNTH, POV, OR). The Royal Society had also set up a "rebuttal unit" headed by Rebecca Bowden, who had been the coordinator for the Pusztai peer-review, to push a pro-biotech line (SYNTH, RS) and counter opposing scientists and environmental groups. Dr Bowden confirmed the groups role was to coordinate biotech policy but denied it was a spin doctoring operation.[2]"

The article needs a complete rewrite in encyclopedic terms. JQ (talk) 04:05, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

Agree. I meant to do some work on it a couple of months ago, but got distracted with other stuff. I will try and gather some reliable sources and get into it within the next few weeks. However, feel free to fix/delete anything you can now. AIRcorn (talk) 04:20, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

There is no SYNTH or OR. The above was used to support Pusztai by the media. NPOV requires us to present arguments given by both sides. We just need to check which sources. Wayne (talk) 05:52, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

I had a quick look around. The first sentence can be found in an article by Pusztai in Science as Culture, Volume 11 Number 1 March 2002 and also in an article in the Guardian. The Guardian article also supports the "rebuttal unit" claim as does Rowells book Don't worry, it's safe to eat which goes into more detail than the Guardian. Rowells book also supports the remaining claim. There are also quite a few other media sources that repeat all the claims by referencing the guardian and Rowell. I dont have the time atm to insert the refs where needed so will leave it to you guys or I'll do it later. Wayne (talk) 07:24, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

A large part of the problem is that the article relies too heavily on Rowell's book. It is not reliable enough to say what actually happened, just what Rowell thinks happened. It needs to be worded better to make that clear. AIRcorn (talk) 05:44, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

Puzstai is also a Primary Source in this instance so his references also need to be attributed. AIRcorn (talk) 05:47, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

I'll see what I can find to support the Puzstai article. I recommend reading it as it is not primarily about the controversy but GM safety in general (re:testing, not whether GM is good or bad) and is surprisingly informative and neutral. Wayne (talk) 08:31, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

Regarding this edit where the Rowett's proposal was peer reviewed. Removing the words considered to have the most sound methodology and replacing it with chosen is very POV as the Royal Society condemned the methodology making it relevant that the article be clear that the methodology had previously passed peer review. The proposal was the studies design (i.e. methodology) and this was exactly what was reviewed so cant be rejected because th ref was written by puzstai Wayne (talk) 13:06, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

Puzstai is saying it had the soundest methodology and since he wrote it is his proposal he is not reliable for that statement. It is still says it passed peer review. AIRcorn (talk) 13:32, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

In regards to not being intended for human consumption. That claim is made by a newpaper reporter and is semantics. The potatoes may not have been intended for that purpose at the time they were tested but they were intended for eventual human consumption, the process of commercialising them would not begin until the study was completed. Wayne (talk) 14:06, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

Isn't that what it says. Although the potatoes used were not a commercial variety and not intended for human consumption a contract was signed with Cambridge Agricultural Genetics that included a profit-sharing agreement if potatoes developed using this technology were approved and released commercially. AIRcorn (talk) 08:33, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

Not quite. The implication of that sentence is that there was no intention to ever market them for human consumption. They were always intended for eventual human consumption but had not reached a stage where it was economical to take steps in that direction. Wayne (talk) 08:44, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

I've removed the POV tag I attached in July, as the article is now properly encyclopaedic. I cleaned up a few remaining examples of POV language on both sides. Congratulations to the editors who have put in the work to make this a useful article. JQ (talk) 21:34, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

According to Randerson the potatoes were not a commercial variety and Pusztai even says they were to be used as a model. It is important to say that the potatoes that were "used" in the experiment were not intended for human consumption without saying the technology was never going to be used. Could add "in the experiment" after used to make this clearer? AIRcorn (talk) 09:00, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

"exempt from the testing required for new food products"

The source does not say that new food products are conducted to any testing, let alone that substantially equivalent ones are exempt from tests. AIRcorn (talk) 08:30, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

"companies did not want to have to conduct toxicological experiments, which would delay access to the marketplace by at least five years, and would add approximately $25 million per product to R&D costs...The adoption of the concept of substantial equivalence by the governments of the industrialized countries signalled to the GM food industry that as long as companies did not try to market GM foods that had a grossly different chemical composition from those of foods already on the market, their new GM products would be permitted without any safety or toxicology tests."Beyond substantial equivalence Nature 401, 525-526 Wayne (talk) 16:08, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

This does not support the claim that new foods products undergo tests (toxicology or otherwise) or that substantially equivalent GM food is exempt from any such tests if they do exist. AIRcorn (talk) 07:35, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

Current position of major environmental group

Does anyone have a reference for any major environmental group that has recently made a comment on this work with the benefit of looking back in hindsite. I had a look through Greenpeace, but everything on GM potatos was about Amflora. I would imagine they still see it as strong evidence of the dangers and I think a quote to that effect would tie off the article nicely (changing the last section to "post-publication" or something similar). AIRcorn (talk) 13:33, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Used Ermakova's experiment as Environmental groups drew parallels with Pusztai. AIRcorn (talk) 06:18, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Pusztai affair/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Cwmhiraeth (talk · contribs) 13:37, 18 February 2012 (UTC) I will be undertaking this review and welcome comments from other editors. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 13:37, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

Initial comments

My initial assessment is that the article covers the topic competently and is well referenced from reliable sources. However, the subject of the article is a difficult topic on which to write clearly. There is confusion about who did and said what, whether pressure was applied to whom, whether the potato lines were substantially equivalent, etc. This makes it important for the article to provide clarity and not introduce any extra confusion. There are a few instances where I think this has not been done. There are a number of dates mentioned without a year. In many cases the year is, I deduce, 1998 but paragraph 4 of the "Announcement" section definitely needs a year, and a month as well, following as it does the other years mentioned in the previous paragraph. The last sentence of paragraph 3 in this section also needs clarification.

The prose is generally good with good spelling and grammar but there are a lot of long sentences which have little or no punctuation in them. These would be easier to read with more punctuation, particularly commas.

One more point. The statement "the animals were pair-fed, meaning they were given the same amount of food" doesn't really explain what pair-fed means. I assume that, of each pair of rats, one had a control diet and the other one a GM test diet, and that these were equivalent to each other because they included the same amount of food. Perhaps that could be explained in the article. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 20:14, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks I will get to work on this within the next few days. AIRcorn (talk) 08:00, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

I have had a go at addressing your above points.[3] I moved a paragraph so hopefully the chronology works a bit better and clarified a few sentences you mentioned above. Not a fan of too many commas, but I split and rearranged some of the longer sentences to hopefully make them read better. AIRcorn (talk) 23:50, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

• Good. One further point, "Red Desiree" potatoes appears several times in the article, sometimes capitalised and sometimes not. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 11:32, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Well spotted. Capitilised all of them. AIRcorn (talk) 12:06, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Rate	Attribute	Review Comment
1. Well-written:
	1a. the prose is clear, concise, and understandable to an appropriately broad audience; spelling and grammar are correct.
	1b. it complies with the Manual of Style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation.
2. Verifiable with no original research:
	2a. it contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline.
	2b. reliable sources are cited inline. All content that could reasonably be challenged, except for plot summaries and that which summarizes cited content elsewhere in the article, must be cited no later than the end of the paragraph (or line if the content is not in prose).	Well sourced as far as I can see.
	2c. it contains no original research.
3. Broad in its coverage:
	3a. it addresses the main aspects of the topic.
	3b. it stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style).
	4. Neutral: it represents viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to each.	POV tag removed in November 2011.
	5. Stable: it does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute.	Now stable after improvements made in late 2011.
6. Illustrated, if possible, by media such as images, video, or audio:
	6a. media are tagged with their copyright statuses, and valid non-free use rationales are provided for non-free content.	There are no images.
	6b. media are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions.	Images not required for this topic.
	7. Overall assessment.

One-sided

After reading http://www.badscience.net/2007/03/scary-potatoes/#more-378 I wonder how much more NPOV this article can be.

I mean, really, the article reads more like a conspiracy theory than a case of bad science (which it is, make no mistake).

GA? No! NPOV? Yes! --84.130.175.14 (talk) 15:24, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

I agree. Much of this article seems to be hijacked by anti-GM activists. As an example, the non peer-reviewed reference you mention (no 36 on 14 April 2013 in the section Follow Up) that Greenpeace claims shows rats fed GM soybeans lead to even greater organ damage than Pusztai's rats should be deleted from an Wikipedia.

As Ben Goldacre describes, when he rang up the Russian "Greenpeace consultant" about this report, she admitted there were no tumours. There were cysts. One of her main conclusions in the study was that both types of Russet Burbank potatoes tested should NEVER be eaten by people because of "...changes in the blood and internal organs of laboratory rats (in the liver, the kidneys, the large gut, a change of the dimensions of heart and prostate gland and others.."

Russet Burbank potatoes are one of the most commonly eaten potatoes in the world.

The reference also admits that the studies "were not carried out according to the accepted protocols for the biomedical assessment of GM food and feed."

In other words all rubbish.

I propose deleting this reference and associated wording from the article.SylviaStanley (talk) 21:40, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

Happy for that to be removed. I was looking for some followup and that was the best I could find. It did say that it was widely criticised. As for this being bad science, I have heard that many times, but so far there has been very little evidence presented (the linked one merely makes the statement without explaining how). I looked a lot for information when writing this, even scouring this[4], and would love some scientific papers showing that this is bad science beyond what is already presented. It seems more like inconclusive science to me. BTW, I have been called a few things over my lifetime, but anti-GM activist is a first. AIRcorn (talk) 02:04, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

This article needs an explanation of why

From what I understand, Pusztai deliberately engineered a poisonous potato and fed it to rats. The rats were poisoned. Pusztai's purpose was to make people fear all genetically engineered foods. Am I right in my understanding of this? 69.243.28.88 05:18, September 21, 2013‎

The use of the Jackbean potato (the poisonous potato) was an erroneous claim that persisted. It wasn't included in the study. Pusztai stated that he supported GM food but would not eat it until it had been adequately tested. Wayne (talk) 07:24, 30 November 2013 (UTC)

Flaws in the study / "Edit war"

I made the following addition to the lead. WLRoss reverted it and wrote "should not be given added weight by being in the lead", so I added it to the relevant section instead. Then Jytdog reverted it as an "edit war". If my understanding is correct---possibly it is not---this is not an edit war and the edit can be added back.

The Royal Society of Medicine declared that the study ‘is flawed in many aspects of design, execution and analysis’ and that ‘no conclusions should be drawn from it’. For example, too few rats per test group were used to derive meaningful, statistically significant data.--Forp (talk) 20:35, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

The information was already in article so adding it again was unnecessary. The flawed in many aspects of design, execution and analysis claim was contested as Pusztai's study design and execution was approved as the best of the eight peer reviewed study proposals submitted to the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council before the contract was awarded. The low number of rats claim was also contested as the number of rats used was the standard practice in the industry for this type of study (Monsanto use even less for their studies). As there is no counter argument in the lead to balance it, having this criticism in the lead gives it too much weight. Wayne (talk) 07:40, 30 November 2013 (UTC)

Hi User:Forp; the reason I called it an edit war, is because when people start reverting each other - even start doing it - without discussing what is going on, on Talk, that is the essence of edit war. It is true that nobody went over the WP:3RR line, but that line defines when the edit war goes too far. It is already going on when the line is crossed. The heart of Wikipedia is slowing down and talking about stuff when there is disagreement... thanks for coming here and starting the discussion.Jytdog (talk) 17:43, 30 November 2013 (UTC)

References

suggestion

Don't know if this belongs here, but here are a number of points that can be included in the article, giving Arpad Pusztai as the source:

Arpad Pusztai disputed the frequently made claim that the potatoes were not intended for human consumption. According to him, the safety testing was considered a formality, and the potatoes were intended to go on the market the following year.

After the controversy the potatoes and all documentation relating to their modification were destroyed, making a repeat of the experiment impossible.

Arpad Pusztai also said that prior to the media controversy, the Rowett Institute were very excited by the results of the experiment, and publicised them even though they had not at that time been published in any journals.

Following the controversy, the Rowett institute initially claimed that they weren't doing any experiments on GM crops, and then changed their story repeatedly.

I personally remember a day after the controversy broke hearing a news report (BBC I think), that Arpad Pusztai had made a public apology because the whole thing had been a big mistake, the experiment hadn't actually even been performed and it was all the fault of one of his students who had mistakenly released control data. (Can anyone find a source for this?) Arpad Pusztai wasn't actually able to speak to journalists at the time this fictitious statement was being circulated because all phone calls to his office were being rerouted to the office of Philip James.

At the time that I spoke with him, his wife Suzanne was still under a legal gagging order. I don't know the reasons for this, and she couldn't talk about it.¬¬¬¬ — Preceding unsigned comment added by Pignut (talk • contribs) 11:26, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

thanks for your note, but Wikipedia has a policy called WP:VERIFY, which states that everything in Wikipedia needs to be based on published, verifiable sources. The kinds of things you discuss above cannot be used in Wikipedia - imagine how crazy and full of nonsense Wikipedia would be if we could add things based on what people say they remember! Jytdog (talk) 15:08, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

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