The published work was criticised on the grounds that the unmodified potatoes were not a fair control diet and that any rats fed only potatoes would suffer from protein deficiency. Pusztai responded to these criticisms by saying that all the experimental diets had the same protein and energy content, and that the food intake of all rats was the same. In an interview, Pickett later said that Lancet editor Richard Horton must have had a political motive for publishing the paper because the referees had rejected it. According to Pusztai this claim was repeated by academic critics who assumed that Pickett's use of the plural suggested that the study had failed peer review.
