At the end of June the lobby group Sense About Science finally issued the report of its Working Party on peer review. The report and an acompanying press release can be found here: http://www.senseaboutscience.org.uk/peerreview/index.htm

An article about the report (see below) from the Education Guardian states, "The public and the media could expose wild and bogus scientific claims if they asked tougher questions about the status of research, a working party of leading scientists said today."

Sense About Science is a controversial organisation and its Working Party on peer review has attracted criticism since its inception. At an early stage the Wellcome Trust, well known for its generous support of work on the public understanding of science, set out in a letter to Sense About Science why, after careful consideration, it was declining to be part of the Working Party which drew up this report or to provide any funding for its work. Among the reasons the Wellcome Trust gave were: "The proposed make-up of the Working Party is extremely narrow" and "runs the risk of being seen as a closed and defensive strategy", and the letter talks of the project being based on "many assumptions" and very little "direct evidence".

The "extremely narrow" group which made up the Working Party included 3 members of the ideologically extreme LM network (Fiona Fox, Tony Gilland and Sense About Science's Director, Tracey Brown, who wrote up the Working party's report) as well as the former Vice President of the Royal Society, Brian Heap, and the Society's former Biological  Secretary, Peter Lachmann. Liaising with the group was the Royal Society's media and PR man, Bob Ward.

Early press comment suggested that this report and a parallel report expected from the Royal Society itself would be aimed at issues like GM and the work of researchers like Dr Arpard Pusztai. The report does not disappoint in this respect, containing multiple general references to GM along with MMR, mobile phone radiation and other "scares", as examples of concerns not based on rigorous peer reviewed research. Interestingly, however, in relation to GM not a single specific example of this problem appears to be given.

The report does contain a specific, though indirect, reference to Stanley Ewen and Arpad Pusztai's research  on feeding GM potatoes to rats. As the form of this reference reveals a lot about the character and agenda of those pushing forward this Sense About Science project, it is worth quoting the point in the report that contains the reference in full:

"3.6 Some science commentators have tended to present complaints about peer review without first explaining why it is used. In 1999, Richard Horton, editor of The Lancet, described peer review as "usually ignorant" and "frequently wrong"57 after the journal was criticised for publishing research on the effects of feeding GM potatoes to rats, which had been turned down by another leading journal. He did not, though, explain why The Lancet would continue to base its publication decisions on reviews that are "usually ignorant". Horton also argued that BSE had made the public deeply sceptical about science and that The Lancet was encouraging a more open debate by publishing the GM paper. Being vague as to whether decisions about scientific publication should be based on peer review or on editorial ideas about the needs of public discussion is unlikely to diminish public scepticism, or to promote well-informed debate, and indeed it does not appear to have done either."

[The reference [57] is to: Horton (2000), Genetically modified food: consternation, confusion and crack-up. The Medical Journal of Australia, 172: 148-149. http://www.mja.com.au/public/issues/172_04_210200/horton/horton.html ]

The report gives the impression that because Ewen and Pusztai's research had, as it claims, already been rejected by "another leading journal", Horton  was forced to defend his own publication of the research by attacking the value of peer review and suggesting publication was in the interest of public debate, ie the issue of scientific merit had been set aside.

The clear inference of this is that the Lancet's publication of Ewen and Pusztai's research wasn't based on normal peer review criteria. This, however, could not be further from the truth:

1. Far from being rejected by "another leading journal", the Pusztai research was only ever submitted to The Lancet.

2. The editor of The Lancet not only subjected the research to peer review, he subjected it to an especially stringent version, sending it to double the normal number of referees.

3. In the article by Horton to which the Working Party's report refers, Horton explicitly states that, "five out of six of The Lancet's reviewers judged that Ewen and Pusztai's work should be published".

4. Although Horton has spoken of the importance of the Pusztai paper's publication in relation to open public debate, he has also made it clear that, "Stanley Ewen and Arpad Pusztai's research letter was published on grounds of scientific merit, as well as public interest".

We asked Arpad Pusztai for his comments on the Working Party's claims. Pusztai comments, "They keep up their noble tradition and prove that even in a short para they can be just as untruthful as in their much longer reviews and reports about me.  As usual, you were right and I can confirm that we always intended our paper for the Lancet and have NEVER submitted it to another major or minor journal."

Interestingly, Horton in the article referred to by the Working Party, far from defending his decision to publish the Pusztai research against the refusal to publish of "another leading journal", in fat contrasts the support for publication of a clear majority of The Lancet's reviewers with the results of a partial "peer review" of Pusztai's then unpublished research which was undertaken by a group organised by the Royal Society.

The Royal Society's review was based not on a properly prepared paper, like that which Pusztai and his collaborator Ewen submitted for review to The Lancet, but rather on a far-from-complete internal report intended for use by Pusztai's research team at the Rowett Institute. Elsewhere, Horton has described the Royal Society review as "a gesture of breathtaking impertinence to the Rowett Institute scientists who should be judged only on the full and final publication of their work."

The Royal Society has not, however, been in the business of waiting for publication before asserting its views. In fact, there are clear indications that its intention has always been the exact opposite.

In February 1999, for instance, nineteen Fellows of the Royal Society condemned Pusztai, in all but name, in a letter published in the national press. Among the signatories was Peter Lachmann who sat on the Sense About Science Working Party which drew up this report.

In May 1999 the Royal Society published the partial "peer review" of Pusztai's unpublished research. After Richard Horton publicly criticised the Society's behaviour, Lachmann responded with a letter to The Lancet, attacking both The Lancet and the British Medical Association for "aligning" themselves "with the tabloid press in opposition to the Royal Society and Nuffield Council on BioEthics".

The Royal Society's partial review was organised by members of a working group appointed