CSIRO Scientist's GM Deception

Health scientists have accused CSIRO Plant Industry Deputy TJ Higgins of making innacurate claims, following a CSIRO campaign urging Australian chefs not to boycott genetically modified (GM) food products.

As reported in last week’s Crikey, Higgins wrote on CSIRO letterhead to more than 50 chefs who had signed Greenpeace's GM-free Chef's Charter. But his letter campaign has "backfired spectacularly", according to Greenpeace spokesperson Louise Sales, who says health scientists and chefs are angered over public resources being used for pro-GM lobbying.

Sydney restaurateur and cookbook author Holly Davis told Crikey some chefs are "very concerned. I thought that CSIRO was an impartial research organisation."

Dr Higgins, whose promotion of GM foods is strongly supported by Australia’s Chief Scientist Jim Peacock and Victoria’s Chief Scientist Gus Nossal, is CSIRO’s co-inventor of the GM Field Pea, abandoned because toxicologists found it caused immune problems and lung damage in mice.

Does this finding contradict Dr Higgins' assurances to chefs that "independently reviewed tests have not found any connection between health problems and GM"?

No, according to Dr Higgins. In a letter to Crikey, he wrote:

My GM pea research emphasises the effectiveness of case-by-case evaluation of GM plants and the important role science can play in decision-making around the introduction of GM crops. The research does not imply that all GM plants are inherently bad. Food Standards Australia New Zealand undertakes comprehensive evaluation of GM foods to ensure they are safe for human consumption.

But these claims are "simply wrong" says nutritional biochemist and epidemiologist Dr Judy Carman, whom the West Australian government commissioned to undertake independent studies into the safety of GM foods.

Carman told Crikey: "TJ Higgins' GM pea provides a clear example of the failings of our current GM food regulatory regime. The pea failed miserably on all the [independent health] tests conducted.” And despite Higgins' claims, “these tests are not required by our food regulator".

Her assertions are backed by health advocate Dr Kate Clinch-Jones, a director of the Institute for Health and Environment Research, who is concerned that preliminary independent studies, which suggest allergic responses, organ damage and precancerous growth in mice fed GM foods, have not been followed up.

Dr Higgins is also accused of making innacurate claims on two other fronts.


First, his claim to chefs that:

It is untrue to say that GM food has not been tested for human safety. It has, and very widely. These independently reviewed tests have not found any connection between health problems and GM.

This is disputed by toxicologist Dr Aprad Pusztai, who co-authored a study on Higgins' GM Pea.

"There is only one partial clinical study with one GM crop (RR soybean) done in Newcastle and published in 2004," says Pusztai.

This study apparently produced worrying evidence that GM material might survive in the human gut -- a finding which, says Pusztai, is "hardly a resounding confirmation of Dr Higgins' claim. No other human study has been published."

Higgins, as a plant industry scientist, is not qualified to make the claims in his letter campaign to chefs, says Dr Pusztai.

"He has no background or track record in nutritional research and thus he should refrain from making comments on the safety or otherwise of any GM product."