With Árpád Pusztai, Zsuzsa Bardósz, Jeffrey Smith, Stanley Ewen, Ian Pryme and Nina Fedoroff

In August 1998, leading food research scientist, Dr Árpád Pusztai, gives a short interview on British television. During the interview he drops a bombshell. He states that he believes genetic modification may be a good thing, but that long-term tests must be carried out before anyone can say for sure that it is safe to eat genetically modified food. Given the current degree of knowledge, he wouldn’t want to eat any.

Dr Pusztai's reasons are simple – he has carried out tests in which rats were fed genetically modified potato. They suffered serious organ diseases, inflammations, damaged immune systems and retarded organ growth.

Pusztai’s comment has a devastating impact on the gold-digger mood of the GM food industry. At this point, in 1998, two-thirds of the food eaten in the USA and Britain contains genetically modified ingredients – something the public is largely unaware of. Pusztai does know, and he has this fact in mind when he gives his infamous BBC interview.

Within hours, Pusztai is under attack. He’s forbidden from giving out any further information about his research, his papers are confiscated and he’s denied access to his lab. Within 3 days, he is sacked from his job and excluded from the Royal Society, the UK‘s leading association of scientists. Pressure from the highest political authorities has lead to Árpád Pusztai’s personal and professional ruin.

(Language Versions: German, English)