Big public companies have commercial interests that result in censored research results and crucial questions that go unanswered. Microbiologist Àrpàd Pusztai found 36 significant differences between rats that had eaten genetically modified potatoes and rats that had eaten "normal" ones.
Among the first group the liver was less well-developed, but when Pusztai announced this in a television interview, he was fired. After publication of negative research data in Nature magazine, his colleague Ignacio Chapela was attacked online in a viral marketing campaign to discredit his results.
The editors of Nature proceeded to write an editorial admitting that they should not have published the data, bringing their prestigious publication's independent reputation into question. The same applies to universities that accept large sums of money from businesses performing food research.
Can scientists still be trusted?
