DON'T WORRY [IT'S SAFE TO EAT]

Eighteen months ago I wrote a review of a number of books analysing the direction of university education. In it I observed that education was being seen increasingly as a product, the student as a customer and the degree a set of transferable skills. The same obsession with a 'knowledge-driven economy' highlights one of the central themes of this book, the increasingly close alliances between big business, government and academe which, according to the biologist Steven Rose threatens 'the whole climate of what might be open and independent scientific research'. He adds that 'the old idea that the universities were a place of independence has gone'.

As one might surmise from the title, this book tells 'the true story of GM food, BSE and Foot and Mouth'. Speaking in 2002, Tony Blair said that the UK science base is a key national asset (note the economic language) and that biotechnology was one of the driving forces at the forefront of scientific developments. This translates into lucrative research grants, investment opportunities and resulting employment and prosperity. Blair is continuing a process set in motion by the previous administration of building bridges between business, science and government on the basis of technology becoming a major wealth creator in the 21st century. This means 'entrepreneurial universities' partially funded by industry and therefore, as some scientists have found to their cost, beholden to it. Another structural factor has been the realignment of the research councils: the Agriculture and Food Research Council has been replaced by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council which, as its name suggests, is a strong supporter of agri-food research. With all these aspirations, any scientist publishing findings that might derail this juggernaut had better watch out.

Before coming back to the GM issue, it is worth pointing out that the pattern of marginalising dissenting scientists is clearly visible with respect to BSE and FMD. As Rowell puts it: 'Macro-economic policies and trade concerns overruled those of common sense, precaution, animal welfare and health protection'. Two of the scientists whose stories are told in this book are Dr. Arpad Pusztai and Dr Ignacio Chapela. Pusztai was a senior researcher at the Rowett Institute in Aberdeen who was working on a project feeding GM potatoes to rats. His task was to find out if these potatoes genetically modified with lectin were 'substantially equivalent' to parent potatoes. Things came to a head in the early summer of 1998 with a series of TV interviews about Pusztai's research indicating that the rats had slight growth retardation and a compromised immune system.

Rowell does a good investigative job in untangling the sequence of events and assessing the comparative merits of the Rowett and Pusztai stories. One strategy was to claim that the lectin in question was Con A, known to be toxic – so why the surprise at the results? In fact this is pure misinformation, since the lectin in question was GNA, the snowdrop lectin. Things moved so fast that within two days of the Monday World in Action programme, Puzstai had lost his lab. His work was stopped, his team dispersed and his study has never been replicated. The initial support from Rowett turned around 180 degrees as a result of a sudden intervention on Tuesday afternoon, denied by the Rowett itself: two calls from 10 Downing Street spelling out the disastrous economic and political consequences stemming from the implications of Dr.Pusztai's research. Rowell claims that the sequence of calls was Monsanto – Clinton – Blair – Rowett.

Whatever the truth of the matter, the fallout was severe. Professor Philip James missed both his knighthood and the Chairmanship of the Food Standards Agency, for which he was eminently qualified. The Royal Society was called in to assess the results and duly issued its report saying that the study was flawed – Rowell indicates that the RS and the House of Commons Select Committee were under some political pressure since the Government was so keen to get the biotechnology roadshow back up and running. Moreover, huge amounts of molecular biology funding were also at stake, propping up both the science base and the economic prosperity of the UK.

Ignacio Chapela's story has structural similarities. In a study of maize in Mexico, he and his colleague David Quist, based in Berkeley, found not only GM contamination, but also that the GM DNA seemed to be randomly fragmented in the genome of the maize, i.e. the transgenic DNA did not seem to be stable. Quist and Chapela knew how explosive their findings would prove, so they wanted to make sure they were correct. At this point the Mexican Biosafety Commissioner intervened, telling Chapela that he was a serious problem in the way of adopting GM technology. For him, biosecurity was about securing the investment of those who had put their money into the technology!

The results were eventually published in Nature, unleashing a massive campaign of intimidation that eventually resulted in the journal retracting the paper. Once again, the paper was called flawed and the evidence dismissed as 'not credible' but this time the Internet was also put to work, as George Monbiot documented. The sting operation was the work of a PR company retained by Monsanto. Eventually the Mexican authorities backed Chapela's conclusions, remarking that 'this is the world's worst case of contamination by genetically modified material because it happened in the place of origin of a major crop'. But what if such gene flow is part of the biotech plan? Any hope of an alternative (agro-ecological) agriculture disappears by default.

Rowell's last chapter gives some specific indicators of possible moves towards safe food and public interest science. Encourage supermarket support for local growers, control the proportion of fruit and vegetables sold in supermarkets, reduce food miles; curb the supply of cheap sub-standard imports as a means of maintaining standards; encourage a voice for local family farms (the new organisation FARM – see News and Notices); pay farmer a decent price and promote local food; raise animal welfare and transport standards. On GM, Rowell recommends a new set of principles: consumers, not companies first, legal liability for GM hazards, scrapping of the 'substantial equivalence' argument, no genetic pollution and no patents on GM resources. There is also a need to rebuild public interest science and therefore trust in the real integrity of science and the scientific process. Current relationships lack public transparency and accountability. Perhaps we can take a leaf from the Royal Society of Canada, who warned that 'the co-opting of biotechnology science by commercial interest contributes to the general erosion of public confidence in the objectivity and independence of the science'.

Changing the culture is no easy matter, especially when relationships between regulators and regulated are so embedded and the Government calls for ever-increasing participation by industry in universities and research. However, a well-informed public is an essential element in any progress and books like this will help this process, especially when they contain specific and constructive policy proposals. An eye-opening book.