GM animals on the menu

January 2022

As we enter 2022, what happened to the GM edible animals that we've been promised over the years?

Super-fast growing GM salmon have been trying to emerge from the lab since 1989 [1,2,3].

Having gained regulatory approval in America in 2015, GM salmon are now legal to produce and sell there despite being declared unlawful in 2020 due to the absence of any environmental risk assessment.

GM toy tomatoes

January 2022

Genetic engineers have always liked playing with tomatoes.

The first GM food to hit US supermarket shelves was a tomato with a gene for ripening switched off [1]. This was Calgene's Flavr Savr tomato designed by science to last longer on the vine (it did), to be easier to handle during distribution (it wasn't), to taste better (it was pronounced 'mediocre') and to sell at a premium (it didn't). The Flavr Savr tomato's main claim to fame was its inappropriate (some would say absurd) use as a model GMO to set US regulations for all subsequent GM foods. Launched in 1994, the disappointing Flavr Savr finally sank into oblivion three years later.

The first GM food to hit UK supermarket shelves was Zeneca's cheap tinned Californian tomato puree made from GM tomatoes designed for lower processing costs due to their engineered reduced water content. These sank into oblivion in 1999 after two successful years and one disastrous year when consumer awareness caught up with the meaning of its "genetically modified" label.

Fast forward to 2008 when the media went wild reporting preliminary results of a GM 'anti-cancer' tomato produced by GM crop research scientists at the UK's John Innes Centre (JIC). These novel purple-fleshed, high-antioxidant ('anthocyanine') tomatoes were going to "save your life" (Martin).

Hopefully, no one held their breath waiting for their life to be saved by a tomato, because they'd still be waiting.

Bad laboratory practice

December 2021

In the 1970s, there was a massive scandal when America's largest contract research laboratory, responsible for a third of all its pre-approval toxicology testing, was found to have been manipulating studies and systematically falsifying experimental data for over a decade. 

Industrial Bio-Test Laboratories (IBT) carried out around a third of US pharmaceutical and chemical product safety testing during the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s.

When the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) audited the company, 71% of its studies were invalidated, and thousands were found to be fraudulent or grossly inadequate.

What started as serious concerns about poor quality research expanded into a criminal investigation, and in 1983 three men from IBT were convicted for fabricating key safety tests to gain government approvals. The fraud brought into question 15% of the pesticides approved for use, besides many pharmaceuticals and industrial chemicals.

IBT clients included Monsanto, Dow, and DuPont.

America's response to this fraud was to devise 'Good Laboratory Practice' (GLP). This quality assurance system provides a legal framework which specifies, for example, standard requirements for equipment and facility maintenance, experimental conditions, documentation of all procedures and data, archiving of all findings and materials, monitoring of personnel, and external auditing of test facilities.

Good Laboratory Practice was introduced into America in 1978 and adopted by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in 1992 making it a world-wide standard. It was formally adopted by the EU in a 2004 Directive.

Problem sorted. 

Or, is it?

Glyphosate is damaging our children

September 2021

 

Glyphosate-based herbicides have become ubiquitous in our food chain and in our environment. Their presence has been boosted, especially, by GM glyphosate-tolerant commodity crops such as soya, maize, sugar-beet, cotton, and oil-seed rape.

How much damage are these herbicides doing to our children? Even before they've been born? And even threatening their very existence?

Nasty GM surprises

March 2020

Farmers' knowledge about the cycles of nature, their land, their crops and livestock, their soil, and all the life that shares their estates seem to have been swept aside by reductionist 'solutions' sold to them by corporations with $-lined technological tunnel vision.

Simple, GM 'solutions' have a habit of leading to complex outcomes and nasty surprises.

Glyphosate on the plate

March 2020

Food-related uses of glyphosate-based herbicides in a nutshell:

The vast majority of commercial GM food crops - including maize, soya, canola, sugar-beet and cotton (consumed as cotton-seed oil) - are glyphosate tolerant and therefore sprayed with glyphosate-based herbicides. Applications of the herbicide on these crops have been stepped up year-on-year due to evolving weed resistance.

Besides GM crops, glyphosate-based herbicides are used as a pre-harvest desiccant on wheat, barley, oats (and other grains), sugar cane, lentils, beans, peas, chickpeas, sunflower, mints, potatoes and cantaloupe.

What happened to taking back control?

February 2020

• Democracy - government by the people, direct or indirect
• Tyranny - government by an absolute ruler

The huge and complex task of 'taking back control' of our regulations preparatory to Brexit seems to be ensuring that current and future rules will not be subject to proper political or public scrutiny [1].

US to eliminate animal testing

January 2020

The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is moving to eliminate all animal testing of new chemicals by 2035. In its place will be cheap, quick and easy computer modelling, cultured cells and tiny invertebrates.

To achieve the shift only requires that the Agency cuts its funding for animal-based trials.

Edible GM cottonseed

January 2020

In October 2019, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) gave the green light for GM cottonseed to be sold as food.

Cottonseed isn't a familiar food item. This is because cotton plants contain 'gossypol', a rather nasty toxin.

The plight of the honeybee

January 2020

"New evidence is revealing we are teetering on the edge of an era of massive extinction, propelled in large part by the very pesticides and practices used with genetically engineered crops ... In a groundbreaking new study, researchers estimate that 40 percent of insect species face extinction - and we could be looking down the barrel of total insect population collapse by century's end, primarily as the result of the agricultural pesticides and mega-monocultures of industrial agriculture. Designed specifically for intensive chemical use, genetically engineered crops are key drivers of this impact" (Lappé) .

A huge proportion of our food supply is dependent on insects for pollination. In agricultural settings, one of the most abundant pollinators is the honey bee: in fact, one estimate reckons that one in every three bites of food we eat is from a crop pollinated by honeybees; and according to the United Nations Environment Programme, of the 100 crops that provide 90% of the world's food supply, 71 are pollinated by bees. Across America, commercial beekeepers are suffering astronomical hive losses averaging 40-50% annually, with some as high as 100%. This severely cripples their ability to meet pollination needs. At least one source of the disaster isn't difficult to find: honeybees are one of the non-target organisms impacted by the use of agrichemicals, and the impact is growing.

The Brexit race to the bottom

January 2020

By the time this article pops up on the net, who knows what Brexit chaos might be unfolding. It is, however, worth being forewarned about what's been sneaked into place at the time of writing. As GM Watch points out, there's so much political upheaval in the UK and Europe, we risk "being so overwhelmed by the noise and sense of urgency that we miss what's really going on".

For example ...

GM in sewage

December 2019

One concern about GM crops which European regulators have always taken seriously, is the possibility of the horizontal gene transfer of artificial antibiotic-resistance genes from GM food plants into strains of bacteria which cause human and livestock disease.

Antibiotic-resistance has been described as medicine's climate change: a modern day plague [1].

Historically, most commercial GM crops incorporated antibiotic-resistance genes as part of their development procedure, and many 'newer' GM crops on the market are little more than stacked versions of the old. Although there's been a shift to the use of other marker genes in GM crops for the US market, antibiotic-resistance genes continue to be present especially in GM consumed in 'lower resourced countries'.

Dealing with a climate-changed, salty world

October 2019

Countries across the globe are facing a future of dwindling fresh water and cultivable land, plus the prospect of social unrest if food supplies collapse. 

   

America's monocultures of herbicide- and insect-resistant GM crops are all heavily dependent on agrichemical inputs and water.  This intensive agriculture is outstripping the water supply, and what water's left is increasingly saline.   

U.S. GM 'answers' are of course what get the press coverage. 

Pesticides in the population

October 2019

In 2017, a study was published indicating yet another possible chronic health effect from eating glyphosate, the herbicide sprayed on, and accumulated by, most GM crops.

The biotech industry has tried to claim that the presence of glyphosate excreted in urine proves the weedkiller is safe because the body is able to clear it out. However, tests on cows (not possible on humans) have shown glyphosate is distributed evenly in their organs and urine, suggesting the herbicide is retained in the body.

Weeds designed to rove

September 2019

Scientific weed wisdom assured farmers that there would never be a weed able to resist 'Roundup' glyphosate-based herbicide because it required too big a change in a plant's biology.  The humanly-devised Roundup Ready GM crops were thought smarter than weeds could ever be.  Glyphosate-based herbicides became crucial to the productivity of American agriculture.

From this came an entrenched attitude that any Roundup-tolerant weed which chanced to appear in a location would be a one-off: it would have evolved independently and would remain a local problem.

The dramatic increase in both the quantity of Roundup used and the area sprayed after the advent of GM crops was accompanied by a dramatic emergence of glyphosate-tolerant weeds which took everyone by surprise.

Weed scientist wisdom didn't, it seems, factor in the qualities which make a weed a weed.

The cost of not testing

September 2019

President Trump and his administration view environmental regulations as a hindrance to economic productivity.

One US Professor of paediatrics and expert in children's environmental health has pointed out however, that history suggests the opposite.  For example, the phasing out of toxic lead in petrol to protect children's brains, now adds "a $200 billion annual economic stimulus package" to the US.

The true cost of environmental toxins, measured in terms of loss of economic productivity due to cognitive damage, comes to a staggering $20,000 per IQ point over a lifetime.  Add to this the costs of health care and the societal burden (not to mention personal suffering to which a figure can't be attached).

Most insidious among all the environmental toxins are the endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs) which cause hormone dysfunction at very low levels of exposure.  Their damaging effects are often permanent and can harm future generations. 

Climate change and GM go hand in hand

September 2019

Paul D. Thacker, a journalist with a nose for industry-led corruption of science and regulations, has commented that climate change denial and promotion of GMOs go together like peanut butter and jelly.

At first glance, it's not obvious why: it seems to involve a unique ability to entertain two opposing beliefs at the same time.  Climate change deniers say climate change isn't happening so we don't need to do anything.  GMO promoters say we need GM 'solutions' to feed the world and to save the environment because of climate change. 

However, when there's money involved, some people can believe anything.  Admitting that climate change is a damaging reality and rejecting GM foods are both harmful to big business

Bogus bleeding beef

August 2019

Remember the bleeding GM veggie-burgers rolled out across America in 2017? That's the fake meat produced by a similar method to the way Belgian beer's been made for nearly a thousand years? [1]

The Impossible Burger arrived courtesy of $80 million worth of research plus $300 million worth of promotion from foodie celebrities, and a heap of hype. Breathless write-ups name the Impossible Burger this year's 'It' food craze taking America by storm, and a wake-up call to the meat industry.

Indeed, the long-term goal of the bogus burger's manufacturer, Impossible Foods Inc., is to disrupt the meat industry and convert meat eaters to their products. Impossible Burgers are set to be followed by Impossible Sausages for pizzas and Impossible Steak.

America's GM plans

August 2019

Since the Big Bang of synthetic pesticides during World War II, US regulators from both major political parties have adopted lax, pro-industry standards that have kept potentially dangerous pesticides legal. This attitude has extended to GMOs.

Old Dicamba, same old problems

July 2019

As Roundup herbicide and Roundup-tolerant GM crops become increasingly obsolete, the biotech industry has been trying to move 'forward' with a 'new' package: the antiquated broadleaf herbicide dicamba and dicamba-tolerant GM crops. 

Back in 1994, some 5.7 million pounds of dicamba were used annually in US agriculture, almost all of it on corn.  It was already well-established that dicamba is prone to drift during spraying, especially in hot weather, and that it's a persistent environmental contaminant.  "Since dicamba can damage or kill most broad leaved plants, any unintended exposure can have important consequences.  These effects have been studied mostly in agriculture and little is known about impacts on native plants" (Cox).  A quarter of a century on, the situation isn't much different.