Turning the GM screw

In case you think the biotech industry is to blame for turning the screw which is pushing GM into our fields and down our throats, this is only half the story.

Before the biotech industry, came the US government who prepared the ground (at the US taxpayers' expense). In the years before gene technology became a practical reality, the US government started subsidising farmers to grow key crops such as soya, maize, sugar-beet and cotton. At the same time, it paid scientists to develop GM.

The technology was then sold to the biotech industry for commercialisation, and two areas of US law which might have inconvenienced GM progress were refined to ensure biotech-friendliness. Thus inexplicably, life became an invention which could be patented, and safety became a voluntary option whose goal-posts could be arranged by the industry.

Patents on genes confer legal ownership of any seed containing that gene, and enable total control over what can be done with the seed. The biotech industry can thus impose far-reaching, legally-binding contracts on the farmers who buy GM seed. Amongst many pages of other restrictions, the contracts prohibit seed-saving, seed-sharing and seed comparison. GM seed patent rights can be enforced even if the GM seed arise from gene pollution, and GM patents can be used by the biotech industry to control what scientific investigations are carried out on the material it owns.

Without access to the normal independent scientific evaluation, farmers were easily be lured into the biotech industry contracts with promises of easier farming and bigger yields backed up by government subsidies and, more recently, reduced insurance payments for GM growers. And, any farmer who changes his mind about continuing to grow biotech crops won't find this such an easy option. Volunteer (but still patented) plants from GM seed in the soil may pollute his land for decades, and the biotech industry has steadily bought up all the competition in the seed industry: non-GM seeds are in limited supply.

While the biotech industry was handed GM technology on a plate with the ground prepared and the legal machinery in place to make sure there were no obstacles to success, what about the US consumers who paid for it all in the first place?

The feelings of the US consumer towards GM foods were well-known even before it hit their plates. In 1994, Norman Braksick, the president of Asgrow Seed Company (now owned by Monsanto), predicted in the Kansas City Star that:

“If you put a label on genetically engineered food, you might as well put a skull and crossbones on it.”

To this day, polls in the US overwhelmingly demand labelling of GM foods. So far, the US government has managed to bypass that hitch by denying its citizens the right to labelling which would tell people what they are actually eating.

In Europe, the biotech industry has been allowed the same extraordinary patents on life, but hasn't had the benefits of avoiding labelling, bypassing all safety testing, nor government incentive schemes. Public distrust of GM has created a layer of armour which has so far protected Europe. The chink in this armour is that the problem is now presented as one of consumer choice, lack of acceptance and (often) ignorance rather than one of a dodgy, over-sold and unnecessary technology which is diverting resources which could be much more profitably be used to develop modern techniques based on sounder science.

The current generation of adults may be incurably hostile to GM, but the UK government seems determined to make sure the next generation sees the world through GM-tinted spectacles.

As early as the 1990s, UK Schools were receiving glossy magazines prepared by the biotech industry and promoted by the government. At the end of the edition devoted to GM, the kids were told: “People have a responsibility to keep informed about these rapid advances so they can guide the outcome of scientific research. You probably now understand more about these complex issues than most adults. Go and educate your elders!”

The incursion of biotech propaganda into our schools continues to this day. Children are encouraged to 'invent' their own GM plant using interactive computer games. School programmes which encourage children to “imagine how vegetables might be genetically modified to bring both nutritional and medical benefits” are coupled to the study of science fiction. In 2009, the British Biochemical Society was pleased to announce its acceptance of £113,000 from the Monsanto Foundation – the philanthropic arm of the giant American GM company – to 'provide new resources in support of secondary school science'. The cash will go a website from which teachers can download genetics master classes for their budding boffins. The Society is quite confident that the information will be balanced and that it will tackle “some of the key ethical issues in the UK science curriculum”. Not to be outdone, Bayer holds seminars for 12-18-year-olds in “Baylabs” to open young minds to the complexities of the GM debate. In 2010 we will see the opening of “Innovation Farm” in Cambridgeshire, as part of a National Institute of Agricultural Botany drive to boost public understanding about the latest developments in plant breeding which “could” include GM so that people could see the benefits.

All this school initiatives hardly seem to provide a good scientific background for the next generation, but they may make sure our future adults believe they are knowledgeable about GM, can't distinguish between science fact and fiction, learn what the biotech company want them to learn, and fail to notice the screw which will not doubt continue to turn.

Emotional manipulation

The following article was contributed to GM-free Scotland by a member of pro-Natural Food Scotland in 2001. Since then, the only changes in the story are that GM is now promising to save the world from global warming and oil scarcity. Note that the UK government has in the meantime been creating successive waves of 'debate' on the GM issue. Has it realised it needs to make us feel we have an 'informed' opinion on GM?

Here is how it all started ...

Way back in 1997, when the biotech industry realised that there was serious opposition mounting in Europe to the introduction of its unpredictably flawed new GM products, it hired the notorious PR firm, Burson-Marstellar, to come up with a strategy to overcome this opposition.

If you were going to court and had secured legal representation for yourself, it would be foolish of you not to tell your lawyer absolutely everything: the last thing he would want is to be "surprised" in the court room with evidence against you which you had held back from him. In the same way, the biotech industry had to tell their PR gurus the whole truth about their products, otherwise, of course, the mounting opposition would very easily have been able to gain the advantage.

Frighteningly and revealingly, Burson-Marstellar (BM) clearly understood their client's brief only too well. BM produced a forty page consultative report which defined two vital issues which it advised the biotech industry never to debate: ''public issues of ENVIRONMENTAL and HUMAN HEALTH RISK''. In the words of BM, these two issues are ''The Killing Fields'' for the biotech industry and for its products.

The inevitable conclusion is that, like the tobacco industry years ago, the biotech industry (and its PR gurus) are FULLY aware of how dangerous GM products could be.

BM designed and developed the campaign to persuade European and, especially, British consumers, retailers and Ministers to comply with multi-national company demands. A campaign which initially force-fed us with a diatribe of rhetoric about the unproven 'potential' benefits of their products, and then force-fed us with GM food whilst systematically contaminating our country-side with their GM crop trials.

This is how they did it. This is how they cleverly and simply manipulated your emotions and opinion - your mind. After conducting their market research (after studying us) BM advised the biotech industry:

"Fight fire with fire":

"Stories - not issues": ... the selling of complex issues coverage is a difficult task ... because it contains little or no news value. Good stories, on the other hand, go around the world in minutes. That's the way adversaries play. That's the way industry must play.

"Products - not technologies: ... stories must ... focus ... on the products of the new -- technologies, because they are the only way most people connect to the benefits ... Beneficiaries - not benefits: ... benefits must be personified. People stories are always the most compelling."

"Symbols - not logic: symbols ... connect to emotions not logic ... Bioindustries need to respond ... with symbols eliciting hope, satisfaction, caring and self-esteem."

The biotech industry has done just that. It keeps telling us that GM will save the environment from pesticides, save the soil from erosion, save the world from starvation and save Third World children from certain blindness and death. They promise the final solution to global afflictions.

If you bought this argument, don't feel bad - most people did. You were simply the victim of a cleverly concocted, manipulative marketing campaign for the most dangerous products ever to come to market.

A key psychological motivator has been used: they have opened up a debate where none exists. The have 'invented' unproven potential benefits that might not materialise for generations or, indeed, ever. And have therefore 'invented' an argument for acceptance of a product when we should be discussing the science, or rather the absence of scientific investigation into health and environmental effects. As John Hillman, Director of the Scottish Crop Research Institute, said:

'Deliberately pejorative language is obscuring the debate and encouraging people to pre-judge the issues before they have heard all the facts'.

We couldn't agree with you more, John. We don't have all the facts, indeed we have very few. It seems your manipulative marketing has worked a treat. We know that you know these products are unpredictable, untested and unsustainable in any environment, so what debate?

Of course it could be that John really does not understand the fluid and coherent nature of the living genome, or, that he is an unthinking, and therefore blinded, supporter of the reductionist, deterministic thinking in modern "science".

Another powerful psychological ploy of the BM campaign is to allow people to 'feel? we have an 'informed' opinion about the so-called debate. Having stirred our emotions by showing powerfully moving images of skeletal children in the Third World, they seek to empower us to "argue" their case for them over such a worthy ideal. Who amongst us would not want to relieve the suffering of 800 million people?

Please re-read that last paragraph and notice how I am moving your emotions to support my argument. We hope you will forgive us and agree that we are doing so in an open honest and worthwhile way. And notice, that if you feel angry at our suggestion that you are being manipulated, Burson-Marstellar's strategy has worked.

Why fear DNA?

“The World Health Organisation of the United Nations has concluded that there is no inherent risk in consuming DNA, including that derived from GM crops. This view is based on the long history of safe consumption of significant quantities of DNA from a wide variety of sources, including plants, animals and microbes.” (Report on Project FO1004 prepared for the Food Standards Agency)

Is this conclusion based on sound logic?

Does a long history of consuming natural DNA in plants, animals and microbes really make it safe to eat DNA which was constructed in a test-tube, multiplied in a bacterium, then forcibly inserted into plant cells from which whole food crops are grown? None of these procedures has any 'history' of use, safe or otherwise.

The reality of genetic engineering is that genes and active non-gene sequences of DNA are copied from the genome of all sectors of the living world. They are heavily altered by man to make them plant-like, maximise their function, and make sure they by-pass the recipient plants' defences. All the engineered bits are attached to each other and to some entirely synthetic DNA sequences. The resulting novel constructs have no history of consumption.

Add to this that, when transgenic DNA is inserted into the plant, the construct and the DNA around it are changed: they gain bits, lose bits and swap bits around. In other words, the DNA in GM food does not have the sequences from any plants, animals or microbes which have a history of safe use.

This all begs the question: is it reasonable to assume that such extraordinary DNA, engineered by man outside its living origins, and then scrambled, will be free from extraordinary properties?

Transgenic DNA has been specially constructed to form an independent operational unit which will survive intact throughout laboratory manipulations, invade the genome and function outside normal cellular control. Can it be assumed that the novel DNA construct will become inactive and immobile once it has become food and we have eaten it?

Consider ... We know that operational units of DNA have a long history of transferring between unrelated organisms (horizontal gene transfer). This is not a safe history: E. coli O157 is the recipient of many such transfers.

Consider ... The regulatory authorities concluded many years ago that operational transgenes might indeed transfer into microbes inside animals (and you) during digestion. This has since been proven to happen. Concern has so far focused only on the antibiotic-resistance genes often used during the transformation procedure. It has long been recognised that if these genes transferred into pathogens, the clinical efficacy of related antibiotics would clearly be compromised. But what about other transgenes?

Consider ... What would happen if a bacterium in your gut was exuding a ‘ribonuclease’ enzyme (often added to GM crops to aid cross-breeding)? This enzyme is designed to dissolve cells in the pollen-producing parts of the flower but could have destructive effects on animal cells.

Consider ... What would happen if a bacterium in your gut was exuding a Bt insecticidal toxin? These toxins are added to GM crops to attack insect gut cells, but are known to have adverse effects in humans. Huge numbers of different Bt-based toxins are being invented and inserted into GM crop plants. The genes for these will repeatedly pass through animal and human digestive systems where bacteria can acquire them. Theoretically, bacteria could eventually arise which can exude every Bt toxin ever invented.

Consider ... What would happen if a bacterium in your gut was exuding a drug acquired from GM ‘pharm’ crops?

Consider ... We know there is plenty of DNA which is naturally mobile in the genome, and that its movements are associated with disease processes. We don’t know if transgenic DNA has the potential to become one such mobile element, or to induce mobility.

Consider ... Bacterial and viral DNA are known to be able to trigger reactions in our immune systems. We also know that DNA from food is not completely digested, but can be absorbed and travel around the body: this means that our cells will be exposed to unusual, foreign, intact DNA. The possibility that the transgenes themselves could insert themselves in the human genome and generate harmful novel proteins inside us has been dismissed as far-fetched, because the DNA has been carefully re-designed for insertion and expression in plants. But, the small, non-gene parts of the novel DNA construct which promote gene activity are often very powerful, viral in nature and promiscuous in their action. These would wreak havoc within a human genome just by their presence.

The above points raise an important question. Are the possibilities of cancer, auto-immune reactions or tissue disease arising from such genome interference really so far-fetched? Our immune system has evolved to ward off viruses as disease-causing agents, to recognise food as being food, to recognise our own DNA as being ‘self’, and to react or not react accordingly . But, pieces of viral DNA could be disguised by their attachment to synthetic 'plant' DNA, or worse, disguised by their attachment to animal- or human-derived DNA. These could enter our cells unnoticed, or, could stimulate a catastrophic immune system reaction by their invasion of the genome.

To summarise the situation: the danger from the transfer of one type of transgene, antibiotic marker genes, has been acknowledged, while much greater potential dangers from other pieces of transgenic DNA moving into bacteria or into ourselves has been, illogically, ignored.

THE REAL ISSUE is …
Is there any justification for making so many assumptions, ignoring the implications of what little knowledge we do have, and neglecting the research which would prove or disprove them?

The road to disease is paved with GM food

In every major developed country, health services are buckling under the strain of spiralling chronic disease in the population and the huge cost of our modern high-tech approach to dealing with it.

 

Hippocrates taught “Let thy food by thy medicine”. Food is, and always has been, the guardian of our health.

 

Yet, our “orthodox” physicians have scant training in nutrition beyond the symptoms of deficiencies for which the treatment is a pill of synthetic supplements. Doctors of the developed world have become errand-boys for the pharmaceutical industry and mechanics whose job is to apply high-tech patches to failing bodies.

 

Our ‘health’ practitioners are now little more than managers of disease. And the diseases modern doctors are trying to manage are degeneration caused by long-standing debasement of our food.

 

In the early part of the 20th century, degenerative diseases were rarely seen. Since then, the incidence of cardiovascular disease, hypertension, inflammatory bowel disease, Type II diabetes, asthma and most cancers have been rising decade by decade to epidemic proportions. Several careful studies have documented the excellent levels of health in peoples who have retained their native diets of fresh, seasonal, local produce prepared in their own traditional way (see NOTE below). A decline of health on exposure to modern foodstuffs has been universally observed. In the developed world, degenerative diseases are emerging in younger and younger sectors of the population.

 

The GM connection ...

 

Against this backdrop of chronic ill-health, increases in disease caused by deficiencies in GM food quality will never be revealed by the surveillance of the population which is currently the sole safety precaution specified by our regulators.

 

Any ill-effects of GM food quality will be magnified when super-imposed on top of our existing, weakened state of health.

 

How have we got into this mess?

First of all, whole-grains became unfashionable. We started eating grains from which most of nutritional value could, and had, been removed (white flour, white rice, fancy instant breakfast cereals etc.). Added to this was the use of chemicals and high-tech processing to enable us to eat very old food which had been transported very long distances.

 

Then, our food didn’t look or taste or feel very nice anymore and the micro-nutrients had somehow disappeared, so we started pouring in chemicals: synthetic micro-nutrient “replacements”, synthetic taste and colour and texture, a few others to disguise the taste of the processing, and a few to make us want to eat more.

 

Food and its preparation have changed beyond all recognition. Fresh, locally produced ingredients carefully chosen and combined in the kitchen have given way to instant meals constructed in a factory. The main ingredient is commonly water to which some thickeners and bulking agents have been added in case dining on a plate of water doesn’t appeal.

 

The GM connection ...

 

The major GM food crops, maize and soya, provide most of the raw materials for the burgeoning industry in processing-aids, additives and man-made sweeteners (such as high-fructose syrup) which have become ubiquitous and indispensable in pre-prepared packaged foods.

 

Felicity Lawrence summed up our whole situation nicely:

“Our industrialized diet is now known to be a major contributor to disease. We are being fed junk and it is making us sick.”

GM foods are designed to add to the junk.

 

Modern agriculture has had a devastating effect on the quality of our food. Crop varieties are now commonly subject to mutation by chemicals or radiation and then intensively selected for ‘useful’ characteristics: heavy cropping, fast growth, early ripening, disease resistance, pesticide resistance, ease of handling, uniformity, long shelf-life, response to chemical fertilizers, and a host of other non-traditional commercial benefits. But not for their nutritional value. Quality food has been sidelined in the race for productivity. Unfortunately, the higher the yield the greater the water content and the lower the protein content. Over the last 50 years, the levels of trace minerals such as copper, magnesium, calcium and iron have fallen significantly.

 

Phytonutrients, and their importance to health, are a more recent discovery and so their changes with time have not been studied. However, recent evidence provides the worrying indication that phytonutrient levels are 10-50% higher in organic compared to conventional produce.

 

Livestock production has suffered a similar fate. Animals which naturally graze or forage are now pumped full of growth promoters and artificial grain-based feed. The result is that the fat content in beef has increased from 9% to 28% and in chicken has increased by 1000%. The nature of the fat in all produce from grain-fed animals has changed from a healthy balance of polyunsaturated fat to an unhealthy predominance of saturated fat, and from a healthy ratio of omega-3:omega-6 fats to an unhealthy predominance of omega-6 fats.

 

Agriculture is, of course, subservient to the customer. The supermarket (and EU) definition of food “quality” stops short at appearance: size, shape, colour, and lack of outer blemishes. To achieve these standards, farmers find themselves limited to the very few varieties of crop which are suitable, and are forced to use chemical fertilizers and pesticides. Strains of fruit and vegetables known for their high nutrient value have been sacrificed to uniformity.

 

The GM connection ...

 

GM crops are designed to increase ALL the commercial benefits which are already damaging our health. They are not designed for any nutritional value. The next generation of GM crops planned may have individual trace nutrients added in. These biologically active substances, being out of their natural context, will be little better for us than our current futile attempts to‘add’ quality back into old, processed food, and could be much worse if metabolic side-effects in the genetically transformed plant produce harmful substances.

 

The purpose of all major GM food crops so far (soya, maize and oilseed rape) is to feed intensively reared livestock, and enable us to get that daily dose of fats to speed on that first heart-attack.

 

In view of the progressive debasement of our food from field to plate, why is nothing being done?
Our current concept of food is very simple: it is a “mixture” of broad chemical categories (protein, carbohydrates and fats, plus a few trace essentials) which our bodies subject to a mechanically efficient digestive process followed by a sieve-like absorption. The concept is badly out of date. As we learn more about digestibility, bio-availability and the interactions between individual foods, plus the extent to which individual nutritional needs differ, and the role of some 10,000 highly active phytonutrients, the dangers of our simplistic view of what constitutes ‘healthy’ food are inescapable.

 

It is becoming increasingly obvious that we haven’t even devised an adequate and practical definition of what our foods’ ‘nutritional value’ really is, far less devised any meaningful ways to measure it. Nothing can be done until we make this first step.

 

The GM connection ...

 

Genetic transformation may represent the ultimate threat to food safety. Distortions of genome stability and function caused by the insertion of artificial DNA will impact on the synthesis of ALL nutrients in the plant, not only to change their quantity but also to change their quality. These changes may be harmful to health, especially after long-term consumption. The introduction of GM foods makes it even more urgent that long-overdue tests for human and animal physiological reactions to food quality are developed.

 

The current regulatory ideology in the U's Food Standards Agency sees food nutritional safety in terms of an excess (not presence) of salt, sugar and fat added to make up for its poor quality, while GM is not a safety issue but one of consumer choice. The excuse for demanding less-bad quality food, instead of good quality food, is that people need cheap food.

 

Since the poorest in the population must spend a much greater proportion of their income on food, regulators are fixated on a mis-placed obligation to ensure that food prices be kept down, despite any other costs attached. Felicity Laurence has a two fold answer to their dilemma:

“First, it is precisely those on low incomes that the current ‘cheap food’ policy hits hardest: it is the low-paid who lose their jobs when global ‘just-in-time’ sourcing finds cheaper labour elsewhere; it the poorest who suffer the most from diet-related diseases; it is the least affluent who have least access to good shops; it is the recipients of gangmasters’ semi-slave wages who are most marginalized and go hungry; and it is the smaller farmers who are struggling most to earn a living. Secondly, if what we are really saying is that people on low incomes cannot afford good food, the answer is not that food needs to be cheaper, but that political action is necessary to make sure they can afford it.”

The GM connection ...

 

The “cheapness” of GM food is the usual trump-card played to ward off opposition. The real issue is that GM foods are designed to bolster everything which is wrong with our food and which is causing ill-health. The real issue is that the cost of ill-health will cripple us.

 

NOTE: Reports on health in primitive communities
Weston A. Price, Nutrition and Physical Degeneration, 1939
Sir Robert McCarrison, Studies in Deficiency Diseases, 1921
Nutrition and national health, Journal of the Royal Society of Arts, 1936
Viljhalmur Stefansson, The Fat of the Land, 1956
Food and food habits in Alaska and Northern Canada, Human Nutrition, Historic
and Scientific, 1958

 

SOURCES: 

• Professor Henry Becker writing in Science in Society 23 Autumn 2004
• Not on the Label, 2004, Felicity Lawrence, ISBN 0-141-0577-7
• Fast Food Nation, Eric Schlosser, ISBN 0-06-093845-5
• Soil Association Report, Organic farming, food quality and human health, a review of the evidence to 2001
• Food Magazine, 40 February 1998, 42 July/September 1998, 66 July/September 2004
• http://www.mercola.com/ on grass-fed animal products and Dr. Weston Price
• Metro 25.08.04

Three key risks

A cell biologist's warning
Thanks to Professor David Schubert for this contribution.
(If you find the article difficult to follow, there is a less technical version at the end.)

As a cell biologist, I am very much discouraged by the content of the ongoing debate about introducing genetically modified (GM) plants into the marketplace. While the voiced concerns usually center around irrational emotional arguments on the one hand, and the erroneous concept that genetic engineering is just like plant breeding on the other, I believe that the three issues which should be of
most concern on the basis of established science receive little or no discussion.

These are:

• That introducing the same gene into two different types of cells can produce two very distinct protein molecules
• The recent observations that the introduction of any gene, be it from different or the same species, always significantly changes overall gene expression and therefore the phenotype of the recipient cell
• and the possibility that enzymatic pathways introduced to synthesize small molecules such as vitamins can interact with endogenous pathways to produce novel molecules.

The potential consequence of all of these perturbations could be the production of biomolecules that are either toxic or carcinogenic, and there is no ‘a priori’ way of predicting the outcome. I will give a few examples and then argue why GM food is not a safe alternative.

FIRST

In addition to their primary sequence of amino acids, the structure and biological activity of proteins can be modified by the addition of molecules such as phosphate, sulfate, sugars or lipids. The nature of these secondary modifications is totally dependent upon the cell type in which they are expressed. For example, if a protein involved in the cause of Alzheimer’s disease, the beta amyloid precursor protein, is expressed in liver cells it contains covalently-attached chondroitin sulfate carbohydrate, while the identical gene expressed in brain nerve cells contains a much simpler sugar. This is because each cell type expresses a unique repertoire of enzymes capable of modifying proteins after they are synthesized. Once modified, the biological activity of the molecule may be changed. In the case of the beta-amyloid precursor protein, the adhesive properties of the cells are changed, but there is, at our current state of knowledge, no way of knowing the biological effects of these modifications.

SECOND

The second concern is the potential for inducing the synthesis of poisonous or toxic compounds following the introduction of a foreign gene. These observations are clearly at odds with the individuals who imply that everything is fine because they are simply introducing one gene. In fact, the introduction of a single gene invariably alters the gene expression pattern of the whole cell and each cell of the individual or plant responds differently. One recently published example is the transfection of a receptor gene into human cells. In this case, the gene was a closely related isoform of an endogenously expressed gene. The pattern of gene expression was monitored using gene chip technology, and the mRNA levels of 5% of the genes was significantly upregulated or downregulated. Similarly, the simple introduction of a bacterial enzyme used for growth selection of transfected cells changes the expression of 3% of the genes. While these types of unpredicted changes in gene expression are very real, they have not received much attention outside the community of the DNA chip users. Furthermore, they are not unexpected. The maintenance of a specific cell phenotype is a very precise balancing act of gene regulation, and any perturbation is going to change the overall pattern of gene expression. The problem, like that of secondary modifications, is that there is currently no way to predict the resultant changes in protein synthesis.

THIRD

The introduction of genes for a new enzymatic pathway into plants could lead to the synthesis of totally novel or unexpected products via the interaction with endogenous pathways. Some of the products could be toxic. For example, retinoic acid (vitamin A) and derivatives of retinoic acid are used in many signaling events that control mammalian development. Since these compounds are soluble and
work at ultralow concentrations, a GM plant making vitamin A may also produce retinoic acid derivatives which act as agonists or antagonists in these pathways, resulting in abnormal embryonic development.

THE OUTCOME?
Given the fact that genetically modified plants are going to make proteins in different amounts and perhaps totally new proteins than their parental species, what are the potential outcomes? A worst case scenario could be that an introduced bacterial toxin is modified to make it toxic to humans. Direct
toxicity may be rapidly detected once the product enters the marketplace, but carcinogenic activity or toxicity caused by interaction with other foods would take decades to detect, if ever. The same outcomes would be predicted for the production of toxins or carcinogens via indirect changes in gene expression.

ADDRESSING THE CONCERNS
Finally, if the above problems are real, what can be done to address these concerns? The issue of secondary modification could be addressed by continual monitoring of the introduced gene product by mass spectroscopy. The problem is that some secondary modifications, like phosphorylation or
sulfation can be lost during purification. However, the best, and to me the only reasonable solution, is to require all genetically engineered plant products for human consumption to be tested for toxicity and carcinogenicity before they are marketed. These safety criteria are required for many chemicals and all drugs, and the magnitude of harm caused by a widely consumed toxic food would be much greater than that of any single drug.

Professor David Schubert
Cellular Neurobiology Laboratory
The Salk Institute for Biological Studies
P.O. Box 85800
San Diego, CA 92186-5800
USA
JULY 2002

HERE’S A LESS TECHNICAL VERSION
Professor Schubert suggests three key risks inherent in any genetic transformation of a plant or animal.

FIRST
A single gene can, in fact, produce many different substances under different circumstances.
Plants and animals are composed of many different types of cell which can have very different structures and entirely different functions: compare, for example, the obvious differences between a plant’s leaves and its roots, or, animal skin and muscle. In any individual, the genes inside all these different cells are identical, but the cells turn out differently because their genes produce different active proteins.

As an example of this, Professor Schubert describes how, after the basic chemical chain structure of a protein has been made in a cell, it can be altered by the addition of a variety of other substances, which will alter its function. He cites a protein produced by the same gene in human liver and nerve cells which is altered by the addition of two different sugars and makes the cells stick together differently.

This means that a single foreign gene added to an individual’s cells with the intention that it produces a single desired protein (such as the Bt toxin inserted in maize to kill pests) could in fact produce a variety of other proteins potentially harmful to the consumer.

SECOND
The activity of all the natural genes in a cell is altered by inserting one novel gene.

If any additional gene (even one from the same species) is introduced into a cell, all the original genes in that cell will act differently as a result. This will cause the structure and function of the cell to be altered. As an example of this Professor Schubert describes an experiment in which a slightly modified gene similar to a gene already present was introduced into human cells and resulted in a change in activity level of five per cent of the total genes there.

In another example, even the introduction of a ‘marker’ gene, used only to identify the GM cells, caused a change in activity level of three per cent of the natural genes.

This makes nonsense of statements which imply that GM is safe because only one gene is being inserted. Cells maintain their very special individual structure and function because all the genes in them are tailoring their activity appropriately and acting precisely together. Upsetting the activity of one part will potentially alter the whole.

The danger is that disturbing the ability of the natural genes to work in harmony with each other, will cause novel substances to arise which could be harmful to the consumer.

THIRD
Novel substances can interfere with other chemical reactions in the cell. Genes work together to create sequences of chemicals reactions within the cell. Introducing novel genes which produce their own novel sequences could interfere with the natural reactions.

As an example, Professor Schubert describes how tiny concentrations of chemicals related to vitamin A can damage development in growing mammals, such as humans. A plant with genes added to produce vitamin A might also produce small but very harmful amounts of a related chemical.

THE OUTCOME
The above GM side effects are unpredictable and could lead to immediate poisoning which would be readily recognised. However, cancer-causing effects, indirect chemical interference, or harmful interactions with other foods would take decades to detect or might never be recognised.

ADDRESSING THE CONCERNS
The only reasonable solution is to test all GM plants destined for human consumption for poisonous and cancer-causing agents before they are marketed.

OUR COMMENT
Bear in mind one further implication of the three risks identified by Professor Schubert. 
If a GM plant variety has been thoroughly tested and found to be free from harmful by-products, this DOESN’T MEAN that another plant of the same species which has gained the novel gene through genetic pollution will be safe because the interactions described above will be different.

Horizontal gene transfer

A. What is HGT?
B. The extent of HGT in nature
C. Viral vectors of HGT
D. Bacterial vectors of HGT
E. References


A. What is HGT?

Horizontal gene transfer (HGT) is the stable transfer of DNA between sexually incompatible organisms. Genetic engineers do their own version of HGT: they build artificial DNA constructs and insert them into living cells.


B. The extent of HGT in nature

A computer search of scientific journals between 1993-6 came up with 67 papers giving direct or indirect evidence of horizontal gene transfers. Transfers have been identified between very different bacteria, between fungi, between bacteria and protozoa (single-cell organisms), between bacteria and higher plants and animals, between fungi and between insects.(1)

DNA transfer can involve both free DNA and DNA carried by a variety of vectors, such as viruses and bacteria.(3)

Many natural habitats have a high potential for DNA transfer; for example, plant roots, soil, and within animal intestines (3). It has been clearly demonstrated that DNA can survive intact in the soi1 (4), during animal feed processing (5), and in the digestive system from where it can enter micro-organisms(9) animal tissues(6). Bacterial uptake and expression of environmental DNA has been found to proceed within 1 minute (8)

Studies commissioned by the UK Food Standards Agency found that transgenic DNA transferred from GM food plants into microbes in the human intesting after a single meal.(9)


C. Viral vectors of HGT

Viruses have a proven ability to acquire genes from their hosts and to swap parts with other viruses. This can lead to very changeable and virulent strains. For example, the virus responsible for the 2009 H1N1 swine-flu epidemic is “a messy combination of sequences from bird, human and swine flu virus lineages from North America and Eurasia”(10)

Aware of the characteristics of viruses, and the known similarities between viral strains, one professor of plant genetics has outlined a cascade of DNA transfers triggered by the viral DNA which is now being used almost ubiquitously to genetically transform organisms for food production. He envisaged that the engineered viral DNA, being in an unusual and unstable form, would recombine with related viruses, such as Hepatitis B or Human Immuno-difficiency Virus, to ultimately create a supervirus propagated in plants, insects and humans. In such circumstances, human survival would be marginal.(7)


D. Bacterial vectors of HGT

Bacteria are well-known for their ability to swap genes. Rapid transfer of antibiotic resistance genes between bacteria in response to the frequent presence of antibiotic drugs in their environment has been the cause of the superbug epidemic in hospitals.

Besides rendering drugs ineffective, acquired genes can create pathogenic bacteria. The sequencing of the entire genome of E. coli 0157 revealed that 1,387 genes (out of a total of about 5,000) had been acquired by horizontal gene transfer. While this magnitude of foreign DNA 'absorption' may be rare, it warns us that there exist strains of microbes which possess elevated potential to incorporate foreign DNA. In the case of E. coli 0157, this potential has led to its extreme toxicity.(2)

Most engineered DNA constructs inserted into GM crop plants include sections homologous to bacterial DNA. It's known that DNA homology is an important factor in promoting HGT into bacteria.(11)

Newer techniques are being developed to avoid the genomic disruption caused by nuclear insertion of foreign DNA, and to enable a greater number of artificial genes to be used. The future of GM may be in gene-packed 'mini-chromosomes' which will lie outside the nucleus of the plant cells. Such artificial chromosomes have even more extensive similarities to bacteria and even more likelihood of promoting HGT.

A major way of inserting foreign genes into crop plants has been to use a common soil bacterium, Agrobacterium, as a delivery agent. In its native form, Agrobacterium, carries DNA which is pathogenic to plants. This DNA is separate from the main genome and is mobile. It is linked to invasive segments of DNA which insert it into the genome of a plant cell which, in nature, then grows into a gall (the plant equivalent of a tumour). Genetic engineers substitute their artificial DNA constructs for the genes for gall-formation in Agrobacterium. The GM bacteria then no longer cause galls, but ferry the artificial genes into plant cells.(12)

Besides the invasion of plant cells, Agrobacterium is also able to genetically transform other micro-organisms such as yeasts, fungi and pathogenic bacteria, and mammalian cells (including human). When newly transformed GM plants are grown, it has been found that 50% of them still harbour high levels of Agrobacterium after six months.(12)

In this soup of unnatural bacterial super-vectors and unnatural bacterial DNA we're creating in our environment, the potential for an escalating incidence of HGT and novel diseases (plant, animal and human) is inescapable.


E. References

1.Ho M.W., Department of Biology, UK Open University, Excerpt from a talk given at The National Council of Women of Great Britain Symposium on Food: Facts, Fallacies and Fears, 22 March 1996, Darlington
2.Perna N.T. et al. (2001) Genome sequence of enterohaemorrhagic Escherichia coll 0157:H7 Nature 409
3.Traavik T, Professor and Scientific Director at the Norwegian Institute of Gene Ecology, Department of Virology, University of Trompe, Norway, Evidence given at the trial of 28 Greenpeace activists against AgrEvo (92 references cited), April 2000
4.Gebhard F. and Smalla K. (1999) Monitoring field releases of genetically modified sugar beets for persistence of transgenic plant DNA and horizontal gene transfer, FEMS Microbiology Ecology, 28(3)
5.Forbes J.M. et al (1998) Effect of feed processing conditions on DNA fragmentation Final report on CS0116 to the ACNFP
6.Doerfler W. and Schubbert R. (1998) Uptake of foreign DNA from the environment: the gastrointestinal tract and the placenta as portals of entry. Wien Klin. Wochenschr. 110 (2)
7.Professor Joe Cummins, Department of Plant Sciences, University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario
8.Flint H. and Scott K. (2001), Dissemination of GM DNA and antibiotic resistance genes via rumen micro-organisms, Food Standards Agency Project G01011
9.Netherwood T. et al. (2001), Transgenes in genetically modified Soya survive passage through the human small bowel but are completely degraded in the colon, Food Standards Agency Project GO1008
10.Mae-Wan Ho and Joe Cummins, (2009) Fast-tracked Swine Flu Vaccine under Fire, Science in Society 43
11.Flint H. et al. (2001), Survival of ingested DNA in the gut and the potential for genetic transformation of resident bacteria, Food Standards Agency Project FSG01007
12.Mae-Wan Ho and Joe Cummins (2008), Agrobacterium & Morgellons Disease, a GM Connection?

Viral DNA dangers

Interesting new diseases to catch?

Almost every GM crop ever created has included of a useful little piece of DNA copied from the 'Cauliflower Mosaic Virus' (CaMV). This chunk of DNA is referred to as 'CaMV 35S', and as its name suggests, it is part of the DNA found in a virus which commonly infects cauliflower and related vegetables. In infected plants, its normal function is to switch on the genes needed for the virus to replicate itself. In GM plants its function is to switch on the engineered DNA attached to it which otherwise would likely remain dormant: effectively it overpowers the host cell's own self-regulatory mechanisms to permanently turn on the inserted genes which then generate huge amounts of the transgenic proteins. The value of the CaMV 35S 'promoter' to genetic engineers lies in its promiscuity: it acts on all types of DNA in the genome of all types of plants.

Any suggestion that problems could arise from putting millions of copies of an aggressive viral promoter into every mouthful of our food have been reasoned out of existence by the biotech industry and regulators. Their argument goes something like: humanity has been eating such DNA in its natural form forever, besides which it won't survive processing, cooking and digestion, and, even if it did survive, it is plant-specific and so can't turn on the genes in mammals including humans, or gut bacteria, and, even if it did survive and get into such cells, it will only activate the gene to which it is attached ...

The Institute for Science in Society and other scientists have been warning of the inherent risk in using CaMV 35S in GM food for a decade (see references below). The scientific questions which GM proponents have reasoned they don't need to ask include can intact, functional CaMV 35S end up inside our cells and our intestinal flora, and if it gets there can it cause harm?

As industry and regulators look determinedly in the opposite direction, answers to these questions are gradually seeping out of the laboratory, and they are not reassuring.

Large chunks of DNA can and do survive digestion and enter animal cells (including human) and can end up in many vital organs; they can also enter microbial cells in the digestive tract. The CaMV 35S promoter can drive genes in any cell it ends up in, not only in plants but also microbes and animals. Engineered genes attached to a universal promoter can be taken up by all manner of living cells and can be functional.

The possibility of CaMV 35S promoters incorporated into the human genome raises all sorts of concerns:

• CaMV 35S is known to create a 'hotspot' of instability, meaning it can promote breakage and rearrangement of the DNA around it
• CaMV 35S has been found to activate not only the engineered gene to which it has been attached, but host genes elsewhere in the genome, even on other chromosomes; it has also been found to be able to switch on the host's own organ- and tissue-specific promoters, meaning it could drive gene expression in the wrong cells or at the wrong time.
• CaMV 35S promotes the biochemical mechanism in cells which viruses hijack to replicate themselves; parts of this mechanism are the same or similar in plants and humans.
• The cauliflower mosaic virus is related to certain serious human pathogenic viruses such as the 'human immune deficiency virus' (HIV) implicated in AIDS, and hepatitis B virus implicated in liver failure.

Such genomic disruptions could set the scene for a host of diseases, including cancers caused by the DNA damage, floods of toxic or allergenic proteins caused by inappropriate gene expression, and dormant viruses (especially related ones) being reactivated by the switching on of replication mechanisms. At least three experiments have now found signs of cell proliferation in animals fed GM chow; these have lead to speculation that the CaMV 35S promoter might well be stimulating the production of the animal's own growth factors which could lead to diseases such as cancer.

Other suggestions which have not yet been explored involve the unnatural genetic connections being forged by genetic engineers: a powerful piece of pathogenic viral DNA is being linked to engineered DNA copied from plants, bacteria, other viruses and animals. The copied DNA could act as a Trojan horse to take the CaMV 35S promoter into all manner of living cells. There are real concerns that the CaMV 35S promoter taken up by microbes in the gut could alter them permanently so as to disrupt the digestion with very serious consequences. Similarly, the CaMV 35S promoter taken up by microbes in the soil could alter them permanently so as to disrupt soil fertility with catastrophic consequences. The ultimate effect on an environment flooded with DNA constructs designed to 'mix-and-match' with all forms of organism living there and which include an 'on-switch' ensuring the genes can't lie inactive and the recipient can't control its own genes, may be devastating.

COMMENT If you want to catch some really interesting new disease in future, you may not need to look any further than your dinner plate.

SOURCES AND FURTHER READING

Terje Traavik, New research on survival of CaMV promoter in rat tissues, February 2004

Michael Antoniou, Updated comments on The Newcastle Feeding Trial, 23.09.03

Available from The Institute of Science in Society (http://www.i-sis.uk/):

• Cauliflower Mosaic Viral Promoter – A Recipe for Disaster (1999)
• Hazards of Transgenic Plants Containing the Cauliflower Mosaic Viral Promoter (2000)
• CaMV 35S promoter fragmentation hotspot confirmed, and it is active in animals (2000)
• New Evidence Links CaMV 35S Promoter to HIV Transcription (2009).