On June 22, 1998, an interview on Granada Television's current affairs programme World in Action, Pusztai said that rats fed on the potatoes had stunted growth and a repressed immune system. A media frenzy resulted. Pusztai was suspended from the Rowett Institute. Misconduct procedures were used to seize his data and ban him from speaking publicly. The Rowett Institute and the Royal Society reviewed his work and concluded that the data did not support his conclusions. The work was criticized on the grounds that the unmodified potatoes were not a fair control diet and that any rat fed only potatoes would suffer from protein deficiency. Pusztai responded by stating that all diets had the same protein and energy content and that the food intake of all rats was the same.