Gene escape is seriously bad news

March 2022

In 2005 the scientific view was that "... the movement of transgenes beyond their intended destinations is a virtual certainty" (quoted in Ellstrand)

Gene escape from GM crops is something environmental activists have done a lot of shouting about. However, although regulatory lip-service is paid to it in risk assessments, the consequences of walk-about genes seem to be swept under the carpet. The biotech mindset is that artificial genes (including edited ones) will only do what they've been constructed to do wherever they end up: for example, herbicide-tolerance genes will be neutral in the absence of the herbicide, pesticide-generating genes specific to a target pest will be neutral in the absence of that pest, and anyway artificial genes won't find their way into a comfortable, alternative plant host often enough for it ever to matter.

In real-life, not all GM plants are growing neatly in fields [1] and, where wild relatives grow within pollinating distance of GM plants, gene-pollution of their weedy cousins has been widely reported. Although studies on the ecological consequences of this are thin on the ground, what little information we have is ominous.

Caddisfly non-science nonsense

March 2022

The industry-friendly notion that the by-products of GM crops would somehow remain harmlessly in the fields was proved wrong in 2007 when a team of American biologists went out and did some science.

Escaped genes - a risk assessment minefield

March 2022

While conventional breeding speeds up the evolution of plants and skews it gradually to fit human needs, genetic engineering forces abrupt and disruptive changes in genome structure and function. The artificial gene (or edit) functions as it's designed to within the highly uniform genetic and environmental context of a modern commercial crop. How does it function in any other genome and ecosystem?

Risk assessment of GM plants has always focused on the intended artificial trait coupled to an assumption that if the altered bit of DNA 'escaped' into other plant populations it would fizzle out over time unless it conferred a clear, identifiable, risk-assessable fitness advantage. Now that we've grown GM crops in various environments for over two decades and there's been time for gene contamination incidents to inform the science, this trait-centred risk assessment is proving shaky.

The Glyphosate Cancer Lag Phase is over

September 2021

Cancer is, without doubt, one of the most devastating of modern diseases. Treatment is limited and unpleasant, and prevention is difficult because of the biology of cancers.

Cells become cancerous when physical and/or chemical stressors disturb gene function to the point where the normal protective cell repair and rebalancing mechanisms are overwhelmed. The prevention problem arises because there isn't one single cause, but rather a whole raft of contributing factors which combine in complex ways to trigger the disease of the cell. For example, exposure to stressors at a low intensity for a long time may cause cancer just as surely as a high dose of the same stressor for a brief period. A variable lag phase, ranging from months to decades makes identifying the cause of any cancer particularly tough.

All these complications are bad news for people whose food, water, air and environment are laced with potentially carcinogenic agrichemicals. They're even worse news for the people whose job it is to spray the world with these chemicals. However, they're excellent news for agrichemical and biotech companies who don't want any evidence that their top moneyspinners may be guilty of causing cancer.

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'.

Non-GM GMOs

November 2019

Gene-editing is a rising star because it is 'easy' and 'precise. Yet, gene-edited animals haven't so far managed to make it over the horizon due to the technical difficulty in preventing DNA pollution of the edited animals' genome [1,2].

However, much of the immediate commercial interest in gene-editing lies in crop plants, and plants present a whole stack of extra obstacles to gene-editing not present in animals.

The rosy face of gene drive organisms (GDOs)

February 2019

Much attention has been focused on gene drives to eliminate mosquitoes plus all the horrible diseases they carry [1], and to eliminate invasive small mammals plus all the havoc they wreak in foreign ecosystems [2]. The take-home message is that gene drives can be harnessed for the common good as invaluable tools in medicine and conservation.

Odd really, because the patents filed for gene drives are largely for agricultural applications.

Outside the media radar lie plans to eliminate insect pests and weeds, plans to speed-breed GM seeds and higher-yielding GM livestock, and even plans to convert whole bee colonies to a GM form which can be directed by light beams to the required crop needing pollinated, and plans to create GM locusts which don't swarm.

The greening of unsold GM papaya?

July 2018

Shoe-horning your agriculture into the modern high-input, energy-hungry globalised system is particularly problematic for remote areas. Even Hawaii - American soil but a long way from the mainland - has realised it has an economic imperative for self-sufficient and sustainable resource management.

Glyphosate in European soils

December 2017

A snapshot survey of European agricultural soils in 2015 has revealed a worryingly extensive presence of glyphosate herbicide and its break-down product, 'AMPA'*.
*aminomethylphosphoric acid

Glyphosate is widely used on GM herbicide-tolerant crops in the Americas, but in Europe, it's typically applied only once a year to cereal and oilseed crops, or three times a year in orchards and vineyards. This doesn't sound like very much.

GMOs, human rights and the environment

June 2017

The advisory opinion of the International Monsanto Tribunal, referred to in GM-Free Scotland articles earlier this year [1,2], has been published.

Six questions were addressed by the Tribunal, and its opinions were based exclusively on legal considerations, grounded in international human rights and humanitarian laws (see below).

Pesticides' catastrophic impacts

May 2017

In March this year, the United Nation (UN) special rapporteurs on the right to food and on toxics presented a scathing report on pesticides.

It pointed to the "catastrophic impacts (of pesticides) on the environment, human health and society as a whole", including an estimated 200,000 deaths a year from acute poisoning alone, plus untold suffering from chronic pesticide exposure now linked to "cancer, Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease, hormone disruption, developmental disorders and sterility".

Ever expanding miracle grass

April 2017

... the sorcerer's apprentice recited the magic words, and the golf course grew bigger and bigger, engulfing the world with its ever-expanding miracle grass that never dies ... 

Unfortunately, this isn't a fairy-tale. The 'ever-expanding grass' for golf courses is Scotts Miracle-Gro creeping bentgrass genetically transformed never to die when sprayed with glyphosate herbicide; the 'magic words' were what Scotts and its partner, Monsanto, said to the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) to allow the GM grass to be field-tested without any environmental impact assessment; and it is, indeed, growing 'bigger and bigger', because although the novel grass never made it to any golf course turf-managers, it is nevertheless rampaging across the Oregon landscape and beyond.

Enogen contamination concerns

April 2017

In 2011, the first GM maize created solely for industrial purposes was approved for cultivation by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA).

'Enogen' maize has incorporated a bacterial enzyme, 'alpha-amylase', which digests starch to produce sugar. Conveniently, this enzyme can be used at the high temperatures. This makes it useful for the production of ethanolic fuel to make American cars greener.

Up until the introduction of Enogen, the first stage of converting maize to ethanol was to mix in liquid amylase under carefully controlled conditions. Now, as little 15% of Enogen maize in the feed-stock is enough to efficiently decompose all the starch present* without further ado.

Food safety after Brexit

April 2017

No doubt some GM-Free Scotland readers voted against Brexit due to concerns about the food quality free-for-all it might lead to.

Echoing such doubts, Angus Roberson, Scottish National Party MP for Moray, reminded Parliament that

"The European Union, which we are still part of, has among the highest food safety standards anywhere in the world. The United States on the other hand, is keen to have health systems that are fully open to private competition and it wants to export genetically modified organisms ... ". 

Brexit will remove our current protection from substandard food imports, especially from America.

Fluttering into oblivion

March 2017

In 1995, the population of America's iconic and wonderfully colourful Monarch butterflies reached an all-time high. The following year, GM crops hit US fields with monocultures of GM 'Roundup Ready' plants doused with glyphosate herbicide and monocultures of GM insecticidal plants. These commodities mushroomed within a few years to cover a great deal of the 400 million or so acres of America's cropland.

Apart from the brief rally in the 2010-2011 season, Monarch numbers have declined steadily ever since that peak. Even optimistic estimates put the total loss at more than 80%, and the most recent tally recorded a further drop of 27% from last year's count.

Ban Glyphosate EU Citizens' Initiative

March 2017

Besides the obvious negative environmental impacts of the world's most widely-used herbicide, readers of GM-free Scotland will probably agree that,"expanding scientific evidence demonstrates that glyphosate is also a serious threat to human health" [1,2,3]. Also, because "EU Regulation 1107/2009 prohibits the use of pesticides when there is sufficient evidence in laboratory animals that these substances can cause cancer, based on IARC (International Agency for Research on Cancer) criteria ... EU approval for glyphosate must be withdrawn."

US court notes GMO concerns

January 2017

Photo: Creative Commons

A US court has ruled that Federal law doesn't prevent States and Counties from passing their own local laws to regulate or ban commercial growing of GM crops.

Most importantly, the court acknowledged that growing GM raises "several well-documented concerns", including economic impacts due to gene pollution, and environmental impacts from increased use of pesticides, superweeeds, pest-resistance, and reduced biodiversity.

This is significant because GM crops and life-destroying chemicals are inseparable. 

GM 'solutions' for the phosphate problem

 November 2016

 

Photo Creative Commons

As governments and environmentalists worry about the pollution of our waters by phosphates pouring out of intensive pig and chicken farms, and worry about the dwindling supplies of phosphate needed for fertilizers and feed supplements, and worry about increasing human micronutrient deficiencies, genetic engineers have come with their own 'solutions'.

GM wheat pollution mark III

October 2016

Wheat field in Oregon, USA: Photo Creative Commons

In 2013, when GM wheat was found growing in Oregon eight years after the last GM wheat field trial there, the Organic Consumers Association asked "How many other unknown instances of contamination have occurred but have yet to be discovered?" [1].

As of August 2016, we can tentatively answer that question: one per year.

Gene drives or gene bombs

September 2016

Photo: Creative Commons

Earlier this year, the latest and most sinister variant of genetic engineering yet, the gene drive, hit the headlines [1].

When artificial DNA is linked to a gene drive in a plant or animal, it will engineer any DNA it pairs up with and create a genetic change which is passed on to 99 percent of the offspring. The GMO version will rapidly become ubiquitous in the population.