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Genetically modified (GM) foods
In 1998, American biotech company
Monsanto launched a GBP 1m advertising campaign to convince
the British public that GM food was safe. Their "Food,
Health and Hope" campaign claimed that they had conducted
"rigorous tests" over 20 years to ensure that their
crops were "as safe and nutritious as the standard alternatives."
Following a wave of complaints, the Advertising Standards
Authority condemned the adverts for being "confusing,
misleading, unproven and wrong." [119]
For a glossary of terms relating
to GM foods, click
here
GM foods have not been
adequately tested
In 2001, a Joint FAO/WHO Expert Consultation
on Allergenicity of Foods Derived from Biotechnology detailed
a protocol for evaluating the allergenicity of GM foods.[122]
No GM crops currently available on the US market have been
assessed by either the FDA (Food and Drug Administration)
or the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) using this protocol.
In 2002, the Codex Alimentarius Ad Hoc Task Force on Foods
Derived from Biotechnology agreed on a "Draft guideline
for the conduct of food safety assessment of foods derived
from recombinant-DNA plants."[123]
Thirty five countries,
including the US, agreed on this document and recommended
that it be adopted by the full Codex Alimentarius Commission.
In the case of trade disputes, the World Trade Organization
considers that, in terms of food safety, the standards or
guidelines of Codex Alimentarius are deemed the global science-based
standard and, thus, immune to trade challenges, i.e. they
are not considered to be a non-tariff trade barrier. At present,
the US has not subjected GM maize to the complete safety assessment
laid out in this document.
The FDA does not require safety testing for GM crops and has
not formally approved any of the GM corn varieties being grown
in the US.[120]
Instead, the FDA conducts "voluntary safety consultations"
with companies, allowing them to carry out their own testing.
An example can be seen in a letter from the FDA to Monsanto
on the safety of its MON810 Bt corn: "Based on the
safety and nutritional assessment you have conducted, it is
our understanding that Monsanto has concluded that corn grain
and forage derived from the new variety are not materially
different in composition, safety, or other relevant parameters
from corn grain and forage currently on the market, and that
they do not raise issues that would require premarket review
or approval by FDA."[121]
Correspondence between the FDA and Calgene on the safety of
the GM FlavrSavr tomato (see below) shows that, even when
the company finds health problems in animal tests, the food
is still released onto the market without any need for labeling.
Consumers International reports that the letters for all 52
"safety consultations" done since the Flavr Savr
tomato contain basically the same language, i.e. the FDA simply
repeats what the biotech company has told it, without any
independent testing.[120]
Substantial equivalence
"Substantial equivalence" is a legal concept invented
by the biotech industry. GM companies claim that a GM food
is "substantially equivalent" to (i.e. "the
same as") the non-GM version, and therefore does not
require labels or extensive testing. It is, however, substantially
different enough to allow patenting.
Substantial equivalence is an unscientific concept that has
never been clearly defined, and there are no legally binding
rules on how to establish it. [124]
Corporate testing
Health-risk assessment of GM foods
compares only a few known factors (e.g., some nutrients, known
toxins and allergens) between GM and the equivalent non-GM
crop. If these limited factors are similar, then the two foods
are assumed to be substantially equivalent and therefore safe.
Short-term animal feeding trials are conducted in some cases,
but there is no requirement for human trials for either toxicity
or allergy testing. No independent testing or checks of the
company's claims are required.
Genetic engineers usually avoid
testing whole foods. Instead, they try to isolate the modified
part of the food and test that. However, the modified protein
is usually present in the food at very low concentrations,
if at all. This makes it difficult to collect enough of the
protein to test it, so researchers put the foreign gene, known
as a 'transgene,' into bacteria, which can produce large amounts
of protein very quickly, and test that instead.[125]
This is completely meaningless for at least three reasons.
First, different species do not process genes in the same
way. In the cells of every living creature is the machinery
to translate genes into proteins, but like three different
factories that use the same raw material (soybeans) to produce
tofu, biofuel and fabric, the 'factories' inside bacteria,
plants and animals turn the same starting material (genes)
into very different proteins. They have different processing
machinery in their cells and, like the disastrous pregnancy
drug thalidomide, even small differences in processing can
cause a major difference in the function of the final product.
Second, the transgene is not the only potentially harmful
change produced during genetic modification. When a transgene
is inserted into animal or plant chromosomes, its position
is random. It may disturb or destroy an existing gene. Genes
do not work independently, but in highly complex relationships
which are not fully understood. Any change to the DNA at any
point will affect it throughout its length in ways that cannot
be predicted, even by biotechnologists.
Third, in addition to the transgene, genetic engineers must
also introduce other genes or pieces of DNA to control or
monitor it, including promoters, transcription terminators,
antibiotic resistance marker genes and reporter genes. Data
on the safety of these are scarce, even though they can affect
the safety of the GM crop.[129]
Genetic engineering is not the
same as traditional breeding
In traditional breeding, plants or
animals with desirable traits such as good flavor or resistance
to disease are chosen for breeding, and their genes reproduced
naturally through mating. Corn can cross-pollinate with corn
and pigs can mate with pigs, but it would be impossible for
a tomato to reproduce with a fish, for example.
But with genetic engineering, genes can be 'cut and pasted'
in a way that would never occur naturally by breeding, to
create new species that have never existed before. For example,
a gene from a salmon could be introduced into a potato, extra
copies of a 'growth gene' could be inserted into a chicken
to make it grow bigger, faster, or a gene to produce a pesticide
could be introduced into maize.
Genetic engineering can introduce transgenes which have never
before been part of the food chain, such as a transgene from
a non-farm animal, a bacteria or virus, a flower or even from
humans, and their effect on the human body is unknown.
The evidence
No GM foods approved for human
consumption have undergone long-term feeding trials in
animals or humans. Biotech giants
| 53%
of Europeans would pay more for non-GM food.[126]
|
| 66% of Europeans
would not buy GM food even if it tasted better,
and would not eat eggs from hens fed GM maize.[126] |
| 95% of EU
citizens want the right to choose and 71% simply
do not want GM food.[126] |
| Less than
a third of UK consumers thought the idea of food
produced from a GM plant acceptable while 45% said
they try to avoid GM food and ingredients. 64% were
concerned they could be eating GM ingredients without
knowing it. |
claim that they have done "rigorous
testing" into the safety of GM foods, but this alleged
data cannot be found
in any peer-reviewed scientific
journal.[127]
Requests for safety data are labeled "hysterical,"
and concerned consumers are "anti-science luddites"
or "uninformed technophobes." GM giants often
make public calls for "open debates based on science,"
but several researchers and journalists with scientific
evidence questioning the safety of GM products say that
these companies have bribed, threatened, censored and
intimidated them into keeping quiet.
Only one scientific study on human consumption of GM food
has been published in a peer-reviewed journal, and it
showed alarming results after a very short time. Other
studies on animals and anecdotal evidence have shown that
GM foods can cause allergies, rare disorders, disabilities
and death. Even animals choose not to eat it. |
Spud u dislike
In 1998, Dr Arpad Pusztai sparked a long running controversy
after he revealed the results of his experiments at the Rowett
Research Institute in Scotland, which indicated that GM potatoes
had harmed rats.[128]
After rats were fed GM potato containing a snowdrop transgene
for just 10 days, Dr. Pusztai found increases in the thickness
and length of some sections of the stomach and intestines.
He also saw indications of a weakening of the immune system.
However, these effects were not due to the transgene. Pusztai's
team discovered that the changes were due to the 'extra' DNA
that is inserted during genetic engineering. Specifically,
they believed the changes were due to the promoter.
A promoter is a short piece of DNA at the beginning of a gene
which acts like an on/off switch. The promoter in the GM potato
was taken from the cauliflower mosaic virus - the same promoter
which is used in GM tomato paste, soya oils and maize found
in hundreds of products on supermarket shelves.
Following Dr Pusztai's revelations in a television interview,
which had been authorized by his employers, his work was confiscated,
he was forced to retire and was banned from publicly speaking
about his work. The editor of The Lancet, a leading British
medical journal which was due to publish his data, was allegedly
threatened by a senior member of the Royal Society that his
job would be at risk if he published controversial research.
Another team of scientists who had looked at the same GM protein
used in Dr Pusztai's potatoes found that it binds to human
white blood cells.
Guts
In the world's first known trial of GM food on human volunteers,
published in the British Journal of Nutrition, GM DNA was found
to move into human gut bacteria, raising serious health questions.[130]
After eating just one meal of a burger and milkshake containing
commercial GM soya and maize, the GM DNA survived passage through
the small intestine and moved into bacteria in the gut. In three
out of seven samples, researchers found bacteria had taken up
the herbicide-resistance transgene from GM food at a very low
level.
Like the promoter in the GM potato experiments,
many GM crops have antibiotic-resistance "marker genes"
inserted into them. These are extra genes that 'mark' the
DNA and give scientists an easy way to identify GM cells or
tissues.
Movement of transgenes between species
can create new viruses and bacteria that cause diseases, spread
drug and antibiotic resistance and trigger cancer by jumping
into the DNA of mammalian cells.[131]
If DNA from antibiotic-resistance marker genes can find its
way into the human stomach, as the human experiment suggests,
then people's resistance to widely used antibiotics could
be compromised.
In 2002, the British Medical Association
(BMA) called for an end to field trials of GM crops because
of fears that these antibiotic-resistance genes could move into
non-GM plants and "possibly into pathogenic organisms causing
human disease."
It is already known that GM DNA in the diet can move into organs
around the body. Researchers at the University of Cologne, Germany,
have found that when mice were fed GM DNA, the DNA was found
in the gut wall, intestine, white blood cells, spleen and liver.
When fed to pregnant mice, the DNA passed into the placenta,
fetus and remained in the newborn mice.[131]
Moving transgenes
The movement of transgenes from food into bacteria or viruses
has huge potential for creating new diseases. Viruses containing
transgenes could cause famine by destroying crops or cause human
and animal diseases of tremendous power. The widely used cauliflower
mosaic virus (present in the GM potatoes used by Dr. Pusztai
and in commercial tomato paste, soy and maize) is a potentially
dangerous gene. It is very similar to the Hepatitis B virus
and related to HIV.
There has already been one known human victim of the movement
of a transgene between species. A French boy developed leukemia
last year after a transgene used in a controversial 'gene therapy'
to cure severe combined immune deficiency (SCID) inserted itself
into one of his chromosomes. The therapy involved removing bone
marrow cells from his hipbone, infecting them with a GM virus
containing a transgene that is present in healthy children but
missing in children with SCID, then returning the cells to the
body. However, the transgene moved into one of the boy's chromosomes
and disrupted a gene involved in the development of blood cells.
The result was completely random and unpredictable.
Renowned geneticist Dr. Mae-Wan
Ho has also suggested that the deadly E. coli 0157:H7
bacteria, which was not known to exist before 1982, was created
when the genes to make the powerful shiga toxin (from the
bacteria Shigella) moved into a more harmless strain
of E. coli.[132]
FlavrSavr
In May 1994, the FDA announced that FlavrSavr, a tomato genetically
engineered by Calgene to delay softening, was as safe as tomatoes
bred by conventional means. "We have approached our review
of this product with scientific rigor and a commitment to full,
public disclosure of that science," said FDA Commissioner
Dr. David Kessler. "Consumers can be confident that we
remain committed to assuring that foods produced by genetic
engineering are as safe as food in our grocery stores today."[133]
This is in complete contrast to an FDA internal memo dated June
16, 1993. A "wholesomeness" study conducted by Calgene
had found gross lesions in the stomachs of four out of twenty
female rats fed GM tomato for 28 days. Male rats did not have
lesions.[134]
Seven out of forty rats fed Flavr Savr died within two weeks
for unstated reasons.[129]
In humans, this type of lesion could lead to a life-threatening
hemorrhage, especially in elderly people who use aspirin to
prevent thrombosis.
However, Calgene claimed there were no significant differences
in total protein, vitamins and mineral contents and in toxic
glycoalkaloids. Therefore, FlavrSavr and non-GM tomatoes were
"substantially equivalent."
Calgene dismissed the lesions as "incidental," and
as of December 10, 1993, had neither further addressed nor explained
them. The FDA does not mention this in its "Evaluation
of the FlavrSavr Tomato" report on its website,[135]
and did not find it necessary to require special labeling of
FlavrSavr.[133]
Calgene's tests have not been peer-reviewed or published.
Ironically for a tomato named "FlavrSavr," Belinda
Martineau, a member of Calgene's original research team, admitted
that "the flavor wasn't really there."[136]
So what was the point?
GM crops kill wildlife
A type of potato genetically modified to produce a pesticide
also harms beneficial predator insects such as ladybirds. The
pesticide/potato was designed to kill aphids which feed on the
crop, but research by the Scottish Crop Research Institute found
that when ladybirds were fed aphids which had eaten the GM potato,
the ladybirds' lifespan was cut in half and reproduction was
adversely affected.[137]
 Kent
Loeffler, Cornell News |
Bt corn contains transgenes from the
bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) which produce a
toxin that kills the European corn borer, a major corn pest.
However, it also kills monarch butterfly larvae, which are not
a threat to crops.[138]
The toxin produced by the transgene is also present in the pollen.
When this pollen is dispersed by the wind, it lands on other
plants, including milkweed, the sole food of monarch caterpillars
and commonly found around cornfields. When caterpillars feed
on milkweed leaves dusted with the GM pollen, they eat less,
grow more slowly and nearly half of them die.
The pollen can be blown more than 60 yards from the edge of
cornfields.
GM food supplements kill people
Tryptophan is an essential amino acid present in food and available
as a food supplement. Supplements are produced by harvesting
the amino acid from bacterial cultures.
The manufacturers of one brand of tryptophan sold in the US
utilized GM bacteria to increase yields, and found themselves
on the receiving end of US$ 2 billion worth of claims. The GM
bacteria had generated a new toxin which caused 5,000-10,000
people to fall ill with EMS (eosinophilia-myalgia syndrome),
killed at least 37 people (possibly hundreds more) and permanently
disabled 1,500.[139]
Tryptophan harvested
from non-GM bacteria did not cause these problems.
The toxin had not been detected by the company because it was
completely new, generated by the process of genetic engineering.
The problem was discovered because EMS is a highly unusual illness,
but had the tryptophan produced a more common ailment, such
as an allergy or asthma, it could have been easily overlooked.
The company was not required to test the GM version of L-tryptophan
because of the assumption that it was "substantially equivalent"
to the non-GM version.
Chicken feed
GM corn (T-25) currently growing in Britain was found to increase
the number of deaths of chickens which fed on it. A study comparing
T-25 GM and non-GM corn found that twice as many broilers fed
the GM maize died compared with those fed the non-GM maize.[140]
Despite this, Acre (Advisory Committee
on Releases to the Environment) granted approval for the commercial
use of T-25 in 1996.
Even animals don't want GM food
Canadian farmers store GM and non-GM grains in separate bins,
but whereas the non-GM bins are full of mice, the mice avoid
the GM bins.[141]
Farmers in Holland have found the same, and a Dutch undergraduate
student did an experiment to prove that mice definitely prefer
non-GM.[142]
Geese will not eat GM canola, and will avoid GM fields in favor
of non-GM fields.
In contrast, when given a choice between conventional and organic
foods, it seems that at least some animals prefer the latter.
Zookeepers at Copenhagen Zoo report that tapirs and chimpanzees
systematically choose organic bananas and fruits, rejecting
the non-organic foods left in their cages. They also eat the
organic bananas with their skins on, but always peel non-organic
bananas first.[143]
A Ph.D. thesis carried out at the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute
for Biological Agriculture by Irene Edelmuller, showed that
rabbits prefer organic to conventional feed.
Mice prefer organically grown wheat 90 percent of the time.[144]
Earthworms repeatedly migrate away from a box with soil with
mineral fertilizers to one with organic compost.[144]
Significantly more hens prefer beets that were organically grown.[145]
Allergies
One of the greatest concerns about GM foods is their potential
to increase allergies and anaphylaxis.
There are no reliable ways to test
GM foods for allergies. If the transgene is from a food known
to cause allergies in humans, such as shrimp, wheat or peanuts,
then the final GM product can be specifically tested for that
allergy. However, even a gene from a non-allergenic food may
become allergenic in a different species because of the different
processing machinery. And a gene from a non-food source, such
as a bacterium or a human, could produce allergies never seen
before. And if it is unknown, it cannot be tested for. Like
the novel toxin created by GM L-tryptophan production, a novel
allergen may be created through GM foods.
Nuts
A US company introduced transgenes from Brazil nuts into soybeans
to increase the level of sulphur-rich protein.[146]
But tests found that the protein did not form properly in the
soybeans and could cause allergies in humans.[147]
The soy had been intended
for use as chicken feed, but the company abandoned the project,
saying it was difficult to prevent the protein from entering
the human food chain.[148]
Other known allergens have also
been inserted into food crops: the allergen ?-casein from
cow's milk has been inserted into soybean and glycinins from
soy into rice.[149]
Bt corn
One of the first steps in checking if a protein can cause an
allergy is to determine if it has a similar structure to a known
allergen. The toxin produced by Bt corn, which kills the monarch
larvae, has been found to have a similar structure to vitellogenin
(which can cause allergies from egg yolks) and b-lactoglobulin
(which causes allergies from milk).[120]
Another way to determine if a protein can cause an allergy is
to test humans or animals for antibodies to it. If antibodies
are present in human blood, it is likely that the protein is
allergenic. A study of farm workers who worked in onion fields
where Bt sprays were used found that two of them contained antibodies
to Bt toxin.
StarLink
Dr. Chin Osoth, former Secretary-General of the Thai Health
Ministry, reported that he and another member of his family
developed allergies after eating a processed snack suspected
of containing GM ingredients. When he stopped eating the snack,
his rash went away. When he started eating it again, his eyes
became inflamed.
His story is similar to at least 44 Americans who reported allergies
after eating one of over 300 processed foods which became contaminated
with the now infamous GM StarLink corn. Starlink was supposed
to be used as an animal feed and was unapproved for human consumption,
but managed to work its way into the human food supply.
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|
