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.

Caution! GM ahead

September 2021

Sedated by the GM food labelling and risk assessment requirements of the EU, many British people have been lulled into thinking GM has become a bit of a non-issue. However, just before Covid 19 obliterated all other news, many media outlets were picking up on the real possibility that, post-Brexit, "Supermarkets could be stocked with genetically modified food under future UK-US trade deal" (The Sun). Indeed, some were warning of the risk of a race to the bottom [1] and asking what happened to Westminster's pledge to take back control of our markets [2].

What started it was that, while "Boris Johnson has repeatedly claimed that negative impacts of Brexit will pale in comparison to the benefits" (Lib Dems quoted in PoliticsHome), the government's own figures suggest the 'benefits' could be as low as 0.02% of GDP. The UK Trade Policy Observatory at Sussex University commented "The numbers are very small. It just goes to show how tiny the gains are from a free trade agreement with the US compared to losing our present arrangements with the EU".

To avoid upsetting the public, the Government categorically ruled out involving the NHS in any trade negotiations, while allowing the health and safety issues surrounding US produce (which our Prime Minister has dismissed as "mumbo jumbo"), to be side-lined into the easily explained issues of chlorine-treated chicken and hormone-treated beef. On the subject of GM and food safety, however, the UK's negotiating stance has been over-generalised and elastic: "Any agreement will ensure high standards and protections for consumers and workers, and will not compromise on our high environmental protection, animal welfare and food standards." (quoted in The Sun)

This is not good news for British farmers who face the double-whammy of their home market being flooded with cheap (GM, and heavily subsidised) American produce just at the same time as their export markets to Europe have vanished.

The National Farmers' Union (NFU) for England and Wales, whose mission is to give farmers a voice, to protect their way of life, to campaign for a stable and sustainable future for British farmers, and to secure them the best deal, has been narrowly focusing on a ban on chlorine-treated chicken. At the same time, despite knowing its members' customers clearly rejected GM foods in the past and have no reason whatsoever to have changed their minds, the NFU is lobbying hard for gene editing. The organisation claims that this unproven GM technology will put the UK "in a world-leading position to showcase sustainable climate-friendly farming " (Blythman). Given the unpredictable disturbances in gene edited genomes increasingly being revealed by science [3,4,5,6], the NFU's wild optimism really doesn't sound like the best deal for farmers. This US-style, high-tech idealism puts the NFU at odds with its sister organisations in Scotland and Northern Ireland which have banned GM crops of all kinds.

As journalist Joanna Blythman warned pre-Brexit:

We're back!

August 2021

Dear readers,

Welcome back to GM-Free Scotland!

While GM-Free Scotland has been in lockdown, the biotech industry has been busy convincing our food regulators that gene-editing is somehow so safe and dependable that it doesn't need regulation, testing or labelling.

Biotech industry rhetoric, obediently repeated by government (both Westminster and Holyrood), is that gene editing is "like nature", simply "speeding up something which would happen with breeding eventually", "precise" and involving "no foreign genes". We are told we must not "shut our eyes to scientific advancement" and that we must "be led by the science on gene editing technologies". But this science-led advancement doesn't seem to extend to actually using science to make sure these new GMOs are safe and healthy for the current generation, for future generations, for our food crops and for our environment.

If you're not sure what the problem is with gene-edited food, make sure you catch the next few GMFreeScotland articles on what science is telling us about them.

Stay safe!

Quotes are from:

Farmers to be at the helm of future policy direction in a new Holyrood by Claire Taylor, the Scottish Farmer, 29.4.21

Why new genetic techniques need to be stringently regulated, Third World Network Biosafety Information Service, 4.04.21

Action on new GMOs

August 2019

Pro-GM lobbyists continue to put pressure on EU regulators to abandon their precautionary laws requiring approval, safety checks, traceability and labelling of all GM crops, foods and livestock.

In particular, the biotech lobby is striving to evade any regulation of 'new' GMOs produced with 'gene editing' techniques. With recent EU elections and Brexit, this is the perfect time for them to push for light-touch, corporate-friendly GM laws.

Take horizontal gene transfer seriously - now

February 2019

The risk to health from artificial antibiotic resistance genes being used as markers during the creation of most GMOs was recognised in Europe back in the 1990s. However, lulled by mathematical modelling suggesting horizontal gene transfer (HGT) would never be significant in a complex, natural environment, the problem wasn't taken too seriously [1].

Our irrational unclean food supply

January 2019

The next 'must-have' for our food promises to be 'clean food labels'.

Amidst growing consumer concern about chemical residues in their food, organic and all-natural foods are growing in popularity and more than half of US adults are avoiding artificial ingredients and preservatives. Public awareness of the agrichemicals in their food has been sharpened by the cancer scare surrounding Roundup weedkiller and its active ingredient, glyphosate [1].

Agriculture is one of the worst polluting industries on the planet, and GM crops, all designed for use within, and to expand, the chemical-based agricultural business model, are a continuing pillar of the problem. A huge proportion of GM crops has been transformed specifically to enable spraying with glyphosate, and many now withstand other, more obviously harmful, herbicides, or generate their own artificial insecticides.

GMOs are also a source of 'natural' supplements, food additives and processing aids [2,3,4].

Are consumers right to be wary?

USA missing the main markets

October 2018

America has been gung-ho about declaring gene-edited plants somehow not really GM, paving the way for the new-GM crops now lining up for entry to the US food market [1,2].

The back-drop to this is interesting.

Court rules: gene editing is genetic modification

September 2018

Concerns that the European Commission was getting itself in such a twist just trying to define new mutagenesis techniques that it would never get its head round how to regulate them [1] seem to have been straightened out by the European Court of Justice.

Too much trade is bad for you

July 2018

Once upon a time, trade was a mutual give-and-take which promised lasting prosperity for both partners; and with prosperity would come well-being.

The modern way redefines 'prosperity' in terms of ever-expanding trade whose boundaries are global. Now, 'trade' has winners and losers, and the 'well-being' part is nowhere.

Let there BE labels on genetically modified food

July 2018

'Genetically engineered food' has never sounded like something anyone would rush to eat, and frankly "If you put a label on (it) you might as well put a skull-and-crossbones on it" (Asgrow Seed Company President 1994).

So, how do you sell genetically engineered food to the public?

Pesticide divorce proceedings

April 2018

Protest against pesticides in Paris 2016
Photo Creative Commons

The EU's biggest grain grower, grain exporter and food producer, France, has been leading the way in healthy food and farming for the last decade.

France was one of the first Member States to 'opt out' of growing GM crops in 2015 (see Note below).

The following year, a ban on pesticide use in public green spaces was announced by the French government, plus a prohibition on over-the-counter sales of pesticides to non-professional gardeners. From 2019, pesticide use will be prohibited in private gardens also.

Clamour for GM safety testing

March 2018

No clinical trials on human health outcomes from eating GM foods have ever been conducted.

Although the need for post-market monitoring seems to appear in GM regulatory approvals, no health surveillance has ever been carried out. You don't have to look far to find the reason.

GMM contamination

September 2017

Many food and feed additives, produced once upon a time by chemical synthesis or extraction from natural sources, are now derived from fermentation of GM micro-organisms (GMMs).

EU rules require that such additives in the final product must be pure. This means that the GMM itself (alive or dead) or any artificial DNA inserted into it must have been removed.

Accordingly, no special labelling is required for GMM-derived additives. Also, there is no regulatory control system in place for the products of GMMs. It is assumed the company marketing the additive will verify the absence of the GMM and its novel DNA in the final substance.

Besides use as food processing aids and as a means of conferring artificial qualities on food products, GMM-derived additives include 'health' promoting substances, such as vitamins.

In 2014, EU regulators were notified that a German official enforcement laboratory had detected live GM bacteria in a consignment of 'riboflavin' feed additive from China.

Convenient GM 'Arctic' apples

July 2017

Consumers in the US Midwest may now be finding a new convenience product in their grocery stores: convenient 10oz packs of conveniently sliced apples which conveniently don't turn brown and are a convenient snack.

The apples carry an inconvenient label consisting of a humanly indecipherable barcode which consumers will inconveniently have to scan with their smartphone to find out what in God's name they're buying.

Stirring the pot

July 2017

People use catering establishments a lot in the UK. A recent survey by Beyond GM found that 87% of respondents frequented table service restaurants, around half used pubs, coffee-shops and take-aways, while a third or so ate food in hotels, from street stalls and home deliveries, and a smaller proportion regularly used workplace or school cafeterias.

Local catering is clearly a booming business and, as one respondent said, this puts them "at the forefront" in setting and maintaining food quality standards.

Let's campaign

July 2017

Now that you have a newly-elected representative in Government, just burning with enthusiasm to serve you, it's a good time to speak out.

The Great Brexit Bungle could have many outcomes damaging to the quality of your food and your long-term health. All the existing EU food laws on GMOs might remain intact. However, it seems more likely we'll find ourselves with the GM products of US light-touch regulation on our plate and not a label in sight. Or, we could end up in a limbo into which any country will be able to dump surplus GM stuff no one else wants.

The US GMO non-labelling act

June 2017

For years, the biotech industry has been able to rely on the fact that America remains one of the few industrialised countries whose regulators haven't demanded clear labelling of GM foods.

Big Food has been happy to hide behind this and ignore consumer concerns.

But, as consumer frustration mounts over the denial of their right to know what they're eating, things are starting to change.

All maize is wormy now

March 2017

If you've been following the GM issue for a while, cast your mind back to 2006. A long-standing, respected British science journal gave its "Outstanding Paper Award for Excellence" to a study which could be better described as a pro-GM PR initiative dressed up as science.

To assess what influenced consumer purchasing decisions, the study offered 'Bt' insecticide-generating GM sweet corn for sale in a Canadian farm shop beside conventional sweet corn. One of the more blatant exercises in propaganda used during this 'study' was the descriptors attached to the two types of sweet corn: the conventional one was labelled 'wormy' followed by a list of the pesticides sprayed on it; the GM one was labelled 'quality' with the 'Bt' (insecticide!) part kept separate.

Fast forward ten years and check out how these two sweet corns would truthfully be labelled today. The wormy one is still wormy and still sprayed with multiple pesticides. And the quality one?

The GM fish oil business

February 2017

Global materials-supply company, Cargill, is entering the GM race. With its existing well-honed expertise in farmer services [1], agricultural commodity and processing, animal feed and nutrition, transportation and logistics (not to mention sustainability consulting, and financial and risk management), the Company is aiming to supply us with farmed fish raised on GM plant-based 'fish' oil in less than five years.

The team assembled to achieve this includes German chemical company BASF which has been working on transforming canola (oilseed rape) with look-alike algal genes for 20 years, plus GM compliant farmers in Montana with whom Cargill has a close relationship, and a newly-purchased Norwegian fish feed company.

GM creep

December 2016

Photo Creative Commons

Products with GM labels are creeping quietly onto our supermarket shelves.

None of them is likely to appeal to your average real-food locavore. However, it's good to be GM-aware. GM offerings are turning up, not only in budget stores, but in the top-end supermarkets Waitrose, Selfridges and Marks & Spencer.

And, keep on your toes, because a 'suspect' which carries no GM label one day, may appear in novel form when the next batch arrives.

What to look out for?