CRISPR catastrophe in the making?

August 2021

 

"CRISPR editing wreaks chromosomal mayhem in human embryos"

(Nature 2.07.20)

"If human embryo editing ... were space flight, the new data are the equivalent of having the rocket explode at the launch pad before take-off"

(University of California genetic engineer, Nature 2.07.20)

"There's no sugar-coating this. This is a restraining order for all genome editors to stay the living daylights away from embryo editing"

(University of California genetic engineer, The Scientist 26.06.20)

More than 10,000 single-gene inherited human disorders have been identified, and genetic engineers have long held a dream of sorting out our defects. Gene editing techniques, such as CRISPR [1], seem like a heaven-sent opportunity to tweak these dysfunctional genes back to normality.

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

Glyphosate attack by stealth

February 2020

As pointed out before, there's a huge scope for current GM foods to impact on the microbes inside our gut and, along with that, our health [1].

Besides the novel nature of the foods themselves, there's the glyphosate-based herbicides sprayed on and accumulated by most commercial GM crops. Glyphosate blocks a vital biochemical pathway in green plants, but the pathway is also present in many bacteria. This suggests a very real possibility that the herbicide in GM foods could be devastating our health by stealth.

What is the science telling us about this?

Scientific mindsets clash over GM mozzies

February 2020

At the end of last year, GM-free Scotland reported a study which found a significant presence of offspring of Oxitec's GM 'sterile' male mosquitoes flying around in areas of Brazil where a trial release had been carried out [1]. The object of the trial was to prevent dengue virus by eradicating its mosquito vector. The predicted "barrage of attempts to discredit the scientists and their science which seem to have become routine in response to any biotech-unfriendly research results" duly unfolded.

No surprise there, except that the attack on the study, including a demand for retraction, was led by one of the paper's own co-authors and supported by five of the others.

Science born of perverse incentives

December 2019

Perverse: 'persistent in error'; 'different from what is reasonable or required'; 'perverted'; 'wicked' ... (Oxford English Dictionary)

A paper on 'Academic research in the 21st Century' describes how scientific progress and integrity are being adversely affected by the current climate of "perverse incentives" driving research.

For example, the yardstick for the most 'successful' scientist is the one who has published the greatest number of papers, and who has been awarded the most funding.

The outcome of this is an avalanche of substandard papers and short-term experiments. More care and attention is paid to writing grant proposals, in which positive results are oversold and negative results are downplayed, than on data quality. Research 'hot topics' generate a windfall in both potential papers and funding opportunities.

The pinnacle of the scientific profession is, of course, the Nobel prize.

Arm yourself with the facts

November 2019

Science used to mean 'knowledge', a knowledge based on systematic observation and careful experimentation to come to a conclusion as close to the truth as our limited ability allowed.

Now we have GMOs, living products of technology, and science has come to mean bullshit based on systematic assumption and careful avoidance of experiments which might throw up` inescapable, inconvienient conclusions.

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

Heavily politically-orientated food

May 2019

Earlier this year, a story appeared in Le Monde newspaper entitled "GMO poisons? The real end of the Séralini affair". Le Monde implied that a newly published study, pithily named 'GMO90+', disproved Séralini's controversial experimental results, and showed that the alarm generated by media reports on Séralini's work was fake news.

GM with a TwYST

April 2019

In 2012, a long-term rat feeding study was published investigating the toxicity of Roundup herbicide and a Roundup-tolerant GM maize, 'NK603' [1,2]. Its results indicated adverse effects on the kidney and liver (the organs of detoxification), and early death. Routine examination of the condition of the animals during the course of the experiment unexpectedly revealed an excess of palpable tumours. When presented chronologically, the emergence of tumours and premature death were clearly accelerated in both the NK603- and Roundup-fed rats. It was also noted that all the results were hormone- and sex-dependent.

Let's think omnigenics

April 2019

You don't have to look too far to realise that the one, consistent, feature of all the products of GM technology is that they have failed to deliver on their promises.

In 1994, we were informed of an imminent series of world-changing GM crops destined to emerge in five-year leaps. Monsanto Vice President, Robert Fraley, listed 60 plant species which had already been genetically transformed. The first wave of GM crops would be pest-free, weed-free, and virus-proof by 2000. After this we would have GM improved foods on our tables by 2005, followed by pharmaceuticals from the fields by 2010, and finally GM-grown speciality chemicals.

The only limit to what was possible was the imagination of the genetic engineers, but the basis for this five-year leaping GM programme was never questioned, nor explained.

Now, over two decades later, how many of these leaps have actually been leapt?

Rigging the science (and the regulations)

March 2019

Scientists recognise three pillars of data considered key to the judgement of whether a substance might cause, or contribute to, cancer, namely laboratory animal experiments, gene disruption assays, and epidemiological studies. These pillars respectively show that the test substance can be linked to cancer in mammalian models, that there's a demonstrable mechanism for cancerous cell formation, and that there are signs of real-life cancers in an exposed population.

In 2015, the International Assessment for Research on Cancer (IARC) examined glyphosate-based herbicides which are used on most GM crops [1]. It found "sufficient" evidence in animal studies, "strong" evidence of cellular and genetic damage of a kind known to induce cancer, and a suggestion of an association with cancer in a large US farm study (the Agricultural Health Study). The latter is on-going, and the authors indicated that the suggested link "should be followed up as more cases occur" over time [2].

Predictably, Big Biotech rushed its damage-limitation machine into action, persuading willing regulators to accept its own, industry-style, science in lieu of the peer-reviewed science assessed by the IARC. The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) accordingly pronounced glyphosate "not likely" to cause cancer.

Rigging the regulations (and the science)

March 2019

New GMO blockbusters are predicted to include animals, algae and gene drives. These will be controversial, and the biotech industry knows it.

Before these new GM products can be moved forward, the priority is "a pacified regulatory environment" (Latham). And, what better way to achieve this than to take over GM regulation from the inside.

Populating GM assessment bodies with biotech industry employees and close collaborators is successfully hijacking the process from the start.

Uncomfortable questions about GMOs

December 2018

Twenty years and two continents apart, two scientists sounded the same warning about the same GM crop. Both were mad-keen on the promises of genetic engineering, until they looked at the results of their own experiments and changed their minds. The crop which brought about this dawning was the potato [1].

In Scotland, 1998, Dr. Arpad Pusztai spoke out about the multiple adverse effects he saw in his laboratory rats fed GM spuds. In America, 2018, Dr. Caius Rommens reviewed his years of work in industry creating thousands of GMOs: he realised his "almost daily experience" was that "most GMO varieties were stunted, chlorotic (yellowed), mutated, or sterile, and many of them died quickly, like prematurely-born babies".

Rommens is now very clear that real scientists are people who love to study the natural world, not to modify it. Those who call themselves 'scientists' today spend their days staring at computer screens, generating and analysing numbers. Their focus is on imposing a controlled predictability on the capricious natural world so as to liberate society from the erratic forces of nature. Genetic engineering is not science, nor even a profession but "the expression of distorted mind-set".

A brief history of GM potatoes

December 2018

After the damp-squib of the earliest attempt to market a GM vegetable, the 'Flav Savr' tomato, all the signs were that the humble potato was going to be the real cheerleader for fresh, recognisable biotech food.

Realistic mixtures of common chemicals are not safe

September 2018

The chemicals we're exposed to are checked by careful scientific experimentation to see what level we can safely consume. Science doesn't allow side issues to muddle the results: the substance being tested isn't contaminated, the animals fed the substance aren't compromised by background ill-health, poor nutrition or old age. This is good, controlled, repeatable science.

To add to the certainty that nothing irrelevant is skewing the result, a key part of the definition of a 'toxin' is that the substance becomes more harmful as exposure to it increases.

In real-life, however, things are different. We're not all young, healthy and well-fed, and in truth we're routinely exposed to a witch's brew of substances plus impurities, albeit on a micro-scale.

Triple stacked GM maize causes leaky stomachs

September 2018
Because partially digested food can be held in the stomach for some hours, the stomach is the part of our body most exposed to the materials in our diet. Yet, tests able to reveal pathological changes and gastric dysfunction, such as measurements of stomach tissue structure or diagnostic staining of stomach cells, are never included in GM safety assessments.

An Australian team of scientists has made a start on filling this gap.

CRISPR cancer warning

August 2018

An inescapable and potentially catastrophic weakness in all forms of the genomic molecular manipulations currently fashionable in science, is that healthy cells don't tolerate interference.

Biotech scientists have devised a plethora of clever tricks to force unwanted changes on the cell. The tricks range from ballistic missiles, to pathogenic microbes, to viruses, to chemical- or electrical-disruption, to weird nucleic acid* constructs, and are all designed to by-pass the mechanisms which keep a cell whole, functional and viable.

Holistic gene reality

August 2018

In 2012, entrepreneur Craig Venter was going to save the world with synthetic microbes. In his view life is simply "DNA software" with a "cell there to read it" [1].

He set about creating a cell with the smallest number of genes, "a cell so simple that we can determine the molecular and biological function of every gene". His plan was to identify a core set of genes and synthesise a minimal genome able to produce an independent, replicating cell. The ultimate goal was the construction of a designer cell with whatever properties human beings desired.

By the time he published a paper on his project four years later, Venter had realised the whole life thing is more complex than he'd envisaged: the genes not critical for simply staying alive in a perfect, stress-free environment are nevertheless needed for "robust growth".

Meta analysis shows how different GM really is

August 2018

Domestic breeding has been a 'powerful evolutionary force' on our food plants, to which the introduction of GM plants has added a whole new dimension. Noting this, a Mexican team of scientists took a look at the extent of the changes now present in conventional and GM crops compared to their wild ancestors.

Non-GM maize gems

August 2018

US maize farmers have an arsenal of chemical weapons to fight their enemy No.1. But it isn't winning them the war.

'Western corn rootworm' grubs are munching away underground in maize crops in five US States. The worms are oblivious to the toxins applied to the soil, to the toxins applied to the seeds, and to the Bt toxins generated by GM plants themselves. Adult rootworm moths, which snip at the corn silks and prevent pollination, are equally oblivious to chemical attack.

Root feeding damage leads to reduced uptake of nutrients and water by the plant and instability, especially in adverse weather conditions. Yield losses can be catastrophic: western corn rootworm isn't called the "billion-dollar bug" for nothing [1].