Liam Donaldson

This article is part of the Pharma_Portal project of Spinwatch.

Professor Liam Donaldson was appointed the UK government's chief medical officer in 1998.

In 2002, Donaldson received a knighthood in recognition of his achievements in health and health care.

Donaldson and GM

After Dr Arpad Pusztai went public with his doubts about the safety of genetically modified (GM) foods, followed by the publication in 1999 of the British Medical Association report calling for an indefinite moratorium on GM crops, no less than four reports on biotechnology were rushed out in the space of just two days. All trumpeted the safety of GM foods and crops, and all condemned Pusztai's research, which suggested the opposite. The first report was by the government's chief scientific advisor, Robert May, and its chief medical advisor, Prof Liam Donaldson (the May/Donaldson report). The others were from the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee; the Royal Society, of which may was then a leading Fellow; and the Nuffield Council on Bioethics report.

These were four reports containing one theme and this conveniently timed package enabled Blair's then 'Cabinet Enforcer', Dr Jack Cunningham, to announce that Dr Pusztai's work had been 'comprehensively discredited.' Sir Robert May added that Dr Pusztai was guilty of 'violating every canon of scientific rectitude' by speaking publicly about his results before the paper had been peer reviewed and published.

Dr Pusztai has commented:

Can you believe that four major reports could come out, all condemning me, within two days? That is stretching belief. It's clear that there was a concerted effort to discredit me... In 1956, when I was living in Hungary, I got a Ford Foundation Scholarship and they said I could go wherever I wanted. I chose England because I thought the British were fair, and that they would tolerate even an oddball like me. But then I found out about these machinations and duplicity... I made my 150-second testimony on TV's World in Action because I had facts that indicated to me there were serious problems with transgenic food. It can take two to three years to get science papers published and these foods were already on the shelves without rigorous biological testing similar to that of our GM potato work. I did indicate my concern and it cost me my job.

For the full story of Dr Pusztai's research and the attempts to discredit him and his findings, see Arpad Pusztai.