Blair, Clinton and "Political" Science

claim that Pusztai had not carried out the long-term tests needed to prove the results.

But the clumsy efforts of Prof. James and Rowett Institute to justify the firing and defaming of Pusztai were soon forgotten, as other scientists and government ministers jumped into the frenzy to discredit Pusztai. In defiance of these attacks, by February 1999, some 30 leading scientists from l3 countries had signed an open letter supporting Pusztai. The letter was published in the London Guardian, triggering a whole new round of controversy over the safety of GMO crops and the Pusztai findings.

Blair, Clinton and "Political" Science Within days of the Guardian piece, no less august an institution than the British Royal Society entered the fray. It announced its decision to review the evidence of Pusztai. In June 1999, the Society issued a public statement claiming that Pusztai's research had been "flawed in many aspects of design, execution and analysis and that no conclusions should be drawn from it."4

Coming from the 300-year-old renowned institution, that statement was a heavy blow to Pusztai's credibility. But the Royal Society's remarks on Pusztai's work were also recognizable as a political smear, and one which risked tarnishing the credibility of the Royal Society itself. It was later revealed by a peer review that the latter had drawn its conclusions from incomplete data. Furthermore, it refused to release the names of its reviewers, leading some critics to attack the Society's methods as reminiscent of the medieval Star Chamber.5 . Research by Andrew Rowell revealed that the Royal Society's statements and the British House of Commons Science and Technology Select Committee's similar condemnation issued on the same day, May 18, were the result of concerted pressure on those two bodies by the Blair Government.

The Blair Government had indeed set up a secret Biotechnology Presentation Group to launch a propaganda campaign to counter the anti-GMO media, at that point a dominant voice in the UK. The Pusztai debate threatened the very future of a hugely profitable GMO agribusiness for UK companies.

Three days after the coordinated attacks on Pusztai's scientific integrity from the Royal Society and the Select Committee, Blair's so-called "Cabinet Enforcer:' Dr. Jack Cunningham, stood in the House of Commons to declare, "The Royal Society this week convincingly dismissed as wholly misleading the results of some recent research into potatoes, and the misinterpretation of it-There's no evidence to suggest that any GM foods on sale in this country are harmful:' Making his message on behalf of the Blair Cabinet unmistakable, he added, "Biotechnology is an important and exciting area of scientific advance that offers enormous opportunities for improving our quality of life."6

Public documents later revealed that the Blair Cabinet was itself split over the GMO safety issue and that some members advised further study of potential GMO health risks. They were silenced, and Cunningham was placed in charge of the Government's common line on GMO crops, the Biotechnology Presentation Group.

What could possibly explain such a dramatic turnaround on the part of James and the Rowett Institute? As it turned out, the answer was political pressure.

It took five years and several heart attacks, before the near-ruined Pusztai was able to piece together the details of what had taken place in those 48 hours following his first TV appearance in 1998. His findings revealed the dark truth about of the politics of GMO crops.

Several former colleagues at Rowett, who had retired and were thus protected from possibly losing their jobs, privately confirmed to Pusztai that Rowett's director, Prof. Philip James, had received two direct phone calls from Prime Minister Tony Blair. Blair had made clear in no uncertain terms that Pusztai had to be silenced.

James, fearing the loss of state funding and worse, proceeded to destroy his former colleague. But the chain did not stop at Tony Blair. Pusztai also learned that Blair had initially received an alarmed phone call from the President, of the United States, Bill Clinton.

Blair was convinced by his close friend and political adviser, Clinton, that GMO agribusiness was the wave of the future, a huge-and growing-multibillion dollar industry in which Blair

could offer British pharmaceutical and biotech giants a leading role. What is more, Blair had made the promotion of GMO a cornerstone of his successful 1997 election campaign to Britain." And it was well-known in the UK that Clinton had initially won Blair over to the promise of GM plants as the pathway towards a new agro-industrial revolution.?

The Clinton Administration was in the midst of spending billions to promote GMO crops as the technology of a future biotech revolution. A Clinton White House senior staff member stated at the time that their goal was to make the 1990's, "the decade of the successful commercialization of agricultural biotechnology products." By the late 1990's, the stocks of biotech GM companies were soaring on the Wall Street stock exchange. Clinton was not about to have some scientist in Scotland sabotage his project, nor clearly was Clinton's good friend Blair.

The final piece of the puzzle fell into place for Pusztai, thanks to further information from former colleague, Professor Robert Orskov, a leading nutrition scientist with a 33-year career at Rowetl. Orskov, who had in the meantime left the institute, told Pusztai that senior Rowett colleagues had informed him that the initial phone call behind his 'dismissal came from Monsanto.8

Monsanto had spoken with Clinton, who in turn had directly spoken to Blair about the "Pusztai problem." Blair then spoke to Rowett's director, Philip James. Twenty four hours later, Dr. Arpad Pusztai was out on the street, banned from speaking about his research and talking to his former colleagues.

Orskov's information was a bombshell. If it was true, it meant that a private corporation, through a simple phone call, had been able to mobilize the President of the United States and the Prime Minister of Great Britain on behalf of its private interests. A simple phone call by Monsanto could destroy the credibility of one of the world's leading independent scientists. This carried somber implications for the future of academic freedom and independent science. But it also had enormous implications for the proliferation of GMO crops worldwide.9