Potato controversy presentation

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Poisonous Potato Controversy Spanning the Biotechnology Information Gap in the UK

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Transcript of Potato controversy presentation

Page 1: Potato controversy presentation

Poisonous Potato Controversy

Spanning the Biotechnology

Information Gap in the UK

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Introduction

• A large media event occurred in 1998 when scientist Arpad Pusztai, who "was considered a world expert on plant lectins", reported in a television interview that he had found that rats fed potatoes genetically modified by the English biotech company Cambridge Agricultural Genetics to contain lectin, a natural insecticide in snowdrop plants had caused harm to rats.

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The Start

• Dr Pusztai have claimed that feeding GM potatoes to rats damaged their immune systems and caused pathological damage to the gut.

What it implies

• Shows that there is harm in GM foods that could cause great damage.

• The present regulatory process is inadequate.

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What Dr. Pusztai did

• Pusztai performed a series of experiments on some genetically modified potatoes

• Desiree red potato variety, • modified with a gene taken from snowdrop

(Galanthus nivalis agglutinin) or GNA plants, that caused the potatoes to express snowdrop lectin - a protein which Árpád Pusztai had previously shown to be toxic to insects but harmless to mammals.

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Desiree red potato

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Snowdrop (Galanthus nivalis agglutinin)

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Pusztai’s Experiment

• feeding rats on raw and cooked genetically modified potatoes, using Desiree Red potatoes as controls. One of the controls was unmodified desiree red potatoes mixed with snowdrop lectin.

 "We had two kinds of potatoes - one GM and the other non-GM. I had expected that the GM potato, with 20 micrograms of a component against the several grams of other components, should not cause any problems. But we found problems. Our studies clearly show that the effects were not due to that little gene expression, but it depended on the way the gene had been inserted into the potato genome and what it did to the potato genome."

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The Controls

Potato Potato INSERTEDINSERTED with snowdrop lectinwith snowdrop lectin

Potato Potato MIXEDMIXED with with snowdrop lectinsnowdrop lectin

CookedCooked& &

RawRaw

GMGM Non-GMNon-GM

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Pusztai’s Findings

• The rats fed on the genetically modified potatoes showed intestine damage and harm to their immune systems.

• These effects were not observed in rats fed on unmodified potatoes, or unmodified potatoes mixed with snowdrop lectin.

• The team concluded that the effects observed were a result of the genetic modification, not the snowdrop lectin.

The stated objective of Dr Pusztai's experiments was to The stated objective of Dr Pusztai's experiments was to determine the effect of feeding GM potatoes to rats, but determine the effect of feeding GM potatoes to rats, but the experimental design did not allow that objective to be the experimental design did not allow that objective to be addressed because there were no suitable controls.addressed because there were no suitable controls.

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GM Potato GM Potato showed damage to rats showed damage to rats

immune system and the intestineimmune system and the intestine

Non-GM Potato mixed with lectinNon-GM Potato mixed with lectin

did not show any problemdid not show any problem

Non-GM PotatoNon-GM Potato

did not show any problemdid not show any problem

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The Experimental Research was faulty because:

•  The experiments were poorly designed.• Different diets were added without sufficient

controls.• Few rats were tested and were given non-

standard control diets.• Data analysis was improper and a failure to

account for inconsistencies in results between experiments.

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The Royal Society Concluded

• The work is flawed in many aspects of design, execution.

• They found no convincing evidence of adverse effects from GM potatoes.

• Dr Pusztai's experiments lacked the appropriate controls and replications to draw any conclusions.

*THAT THE WORK WAS "FLAWED IN MANY ASPECTS OF DESIGN, EXECUTION AND ANALYSIS AND NO CONCLUSIONS SHOULD BE DRAWN FROM IT". MOREOVER, EVEN IF THE EXPERIMENTS HAD BEEN PROPERLY DEVISED AND CARRIED OUT "IT WOULD BE UNJUSTIFIABLE TO DRAW FROM THEM GENERAL CONCLUSIONS ABOUT WHETHER GENETICALLY MODIFIED FOODS ARE HARMFUL TO HUMAN BEINGS".

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Who contradicted Pusztai

• Rowett Institute – Phillip James, director of Rowett• Royal Society – forefront of defending the GM

Technology• House of Common Science and Technology Select

Committee – with Royal Society• Biotechnology Presentation Group – set up by the

government• Rebuttal Unit- by the Royal Society• Prof. John Pickett – against the publication of

Pusztai’s data.• Sir Peter Lachman- Sec. of the Royal society.

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Aided Pusztai

• 13 countries – supported Pusztai’s result• Dr. Stanley Ewan – co- author of Pusztai’s paper• The Green Groups – claimed that Pusztai had

been vindicated.• The Lancet – Published Pusztai’s paper

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What happened in the end

• The potatoes were subsequently destroyed, along with all the details of their modifications and Cambridge Agricultural Genetics Subsequently ceased business.

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What were the effects of the controversy

• More issues arise contradicting GM Technology• Environmental Issues

– Safety of food

– Natural or Genetic Engineering

– Contamination

• Risk- Manufactured Risk

• Approach of the public to GMO- Decision making

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‘Umpteenth assault against common sense’ - La Repubblica, Italy

‘‘Technological revolution’ - Technological revolution’ - Les EchosLes Echos, ,  France France

‘‘Just the beginning’ - Just the beginning’ - NovinarNovinar, Bulgaria, Bulgaria

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