Smear campaign fails to silence scientist who spilled GM beans

0 Comments | Sunday Herald, The, May 23, 1999 | by Pennie Taylor, Health Editor

DEFIANCE is built in to Arpad Pusztai's genes. His father, Janos, was a highly-decorated Hungarian war hero who led resistance to German occupation during the second world war. "They put a high price on his head," says Pusztai. "But that didn't stop him from doing what he knew was right."

More than 50 years after his father's death from kidney failure - a direct result of the harsh physical conditions he endured hiding out in the Carpathian mountains with his partisan brigade - Pusztai has cause to reflect on the consequences of standing by your convictions. "I know my head is above the parapet and that they are going to shoot at it," he says. "But if they think I am going to run away, they are mistaken. They selected the wrong person for this."