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GE Foods Tutorial
When biotech corporations boast that genetic
engineering can do wonders for the environment, we would do
well to consider the source. After all, some of these companies
are the same ones that have invented such deadly pesticides
such as DDT and Agent Orange. These pesticides, it was promised,
would help the environment; instead, they turned into environmental
disasters.
Environmentalists have many concerns about
GE foods. Here are a few:
1. The
plight of the Monarch butterfly
Cornell University researchers have found that GE corn
may be deadly to the Monarch butterfly. In laboratory tests
in the spring of 1999, the scientists found that nearly half
of  Monarch
caterpillars that ate milkweed leaves dusted with GE corn
pollen died within four days. The surviving Monarchs that
ate the genetically mutated corn pollen were much smaller
and had smaller appetites than the control Monarchs, which
ate normal corn pollen or no pollen at all.
In 2000, Iowa State University scientists
found that plants growing in and near cornfields are being
dusted with enough GE pollen to kill monarch caterpillars
that feed on them.
Already, GE corn is being grown on 20 million
acres of American farmland, right in the heart of Monarch's
migratory route between Mexico and Canada.
And scientists worry that there may be
additional surprising scientific discoveries down the road.
2. Increased
pesticide pollution
Many of the new GE crops, such as Roundup Ready soybeans,
are designed to allow farmers to spray heavier doses of pesticides
on their land. These pesticides inevitably will find their
way into our water and food supply, endangering humans and
wildlife.
New Scientist magazine reports that
many farmers that have converted to GE production use as many
pesticides as their conventional counterparts, while some
GE farmers now use more pesticides.
And one of Britain's leading safety experts,
Malcolm Kane (former head of food safety at the supermarket
chain Sainsbury's), has revealed that the limits on pesticide
residues in soy had been increased 200-fold to help the GE
industry. He warned that higher pesticide residues could appear
in a wide variety of foods, ranging from breakfast cereals
to biscuits.
3. Genetic
contamination of the environment
When Scottish Parliament member Robin Harper learned
that Scottish scientists were experimenting with genetically
modified salmon that grow at four times the normal rate, he
was horrified, and called for a ban on all genetic engineering
experiments.
"We should be extremely concerned
about genetically modified fish because of the danger that
they could escape into the wild," he said. "It's
a similar, if not even more dangerous threat, to that we are
facing with GM plants. If a GM fish escaped or was released
accidentally in to the wild it could never be recaptured.
This fish could breed with wild populations and devastate
 the
existing natural balance with its modified behavior.
"There can be no doubt as to the huge
threat GM fish would be to fish stocks wherever they were
released in the World's oceans. This fish, if it escaped into
the North Atlantic, could do untold damage to the ecology
both of the north Atlantic and Scottish salmon rivers."
Like Harper, many scientists are concerned
about the widespread release of genetically modified organisms
(GMOs) into the environment. In the United States, millions
of acres of land have been planted with GE crops. Scientists
fear that GMOs will be spread, by bird, insect or wind, to
non-GE crops--and to the wilderness. And unlike other kinds
of waste, genetic contamination cannot be cleaned up, or contained.
4. GE genes
can jump species barrier
In May, 2000, Professor Hans-Hinrich Katz, a leading German
zoologist, released research that shows that genes used to
modify crops can jump to other species and cause bacteria
to mutate. Katz found that the gene used to modify oilseed
rape had transferred to bacteria living in the guts of honey
bees.
"These findings are very worrying
and provide the first real evidence of what many have feared,"
says prominent genetic engineering critic and scientist Dr.
Mae-Wan Ho.
"Everybody is keen to exploit GM technology,
but nobody is looking at the risk of horizontal gene transfer.
We are playing about with genetic structures that existed
for millions of years and the experiment is running out of
control."
5. Herbicide
resistance and fears of the rise of superweeds
Some scientists fear that the extensive planting of
genetically engineered crops will lead to a new class of "superweeds"
that are resistant to pesticides. The largest class of genetic
engineered foods is pesticide-resistant crops, such as Roundup
Ready soybeans. The problem is that newly created transgenes
may be spread unintentionally--by bird, insect or wind--from
target crops to related weed species. The weeds then also
pick up resistance to the pesticide.
Nature magazine reported in 1996,
for example, that herbicide-resistant GE oilseed rape, released
in Europe, has spread to several wild relatives.
6. Risks
to biodiversity
In one especially macabre application of GE technology,
scientists seek to develop "terminator" tree farms.
The trees would be  engineered
not to reproduce, and they would be designed to secrete toxic
chemicals through their leaves that would kill leaf-eating
insects. The trees also would be engineered to include pesticide
resistance, meaning that ground flora could be wiped out easily.
Critics say the trees might grow faster than before, but they'd
be devoid of bees, butterflies, birds and squirrels that depend
on pollen, seed and nectar.
The terminator tree farms highlight a growing
concern among scientists: the threat genetically engineered
crops pose to biodiversity. Scientists estimate that by the
year 2000, the world will have lost 95 percent of the genetic
diversity present in agriculture 100 years earlier. GE crops
are developed from the same monoculture varieties that giant
agribusinesses have planted in the latter half of this century,
and will only exacerbate the problem.
Moreover, pesticide-resistant crops will
allow the application of increasing amounts of powerful pesticides.
These pesticides often kill more than the targeted weeds;
they frequently kill beneficial plants outside their intended
range.
7. Damage to the soil
Scientists are concerned that genetically mutated crops may
damage the soil. Researchers for Nature magazine reported
in December that some types of GE crops may be leaking powerful
toxins into the soil.
Many GE crops, such as corn and potatoes,
have been engineered to produce poisons or toxins to fight
pests that eat their leaves and stems. Researchers fear that
beneficial soil organisms also may be killed, and that some
insects may become resistant to the toxins.
Other researchers have revealed that
lacewings that ate corn borers reared on GE corn had also
died, increasing speculation that these crops are harming
beneficial organisms.
8. Genetically
engineered crops put birds at risk
British researchers in 2000 reported that the use of
genetically engineered crops modified to tolerate herbicides
may severely cut bird populations on farms. Professor Andrew
Watkinson and colleagues from the University of East Anglia
in Norwich found that bird populations could decline as much
as 90 percent in some areas where herbicide-tolerant crops
have been sown.
9. The
problem of unintended consequences
Biotech firms assure us there's nothing to worry about.
Genetically engineered foods, they say, will save the environment.
But it's a story we've heard before. In
the mid-1900s, giant agribusinesses took the biological and
chemical weapons from two world wars and turned them into
pesticides and herbicides. They promised a wondrous new agricultural
era of bigger yields and bug-free produce. It was only decades
afterwards that scientists began to realize the scope of the
environmental devastation wrought by the explosive growth
of the pesticide industry.
In the 1960s, scientist Rachel Carson's
epic, Silent Spring, awakened a generation to the dangers
of dioxin and other manmade chemicals in the environment.
But it wasn't until 30 years later that scientists began to
understand the extent of the problem. Now we know that pesticides
and other manmade chemicals are tampering with sexual development
and reproduction, in many animal populations and humans as
well.
The discovery that genetically engineered
corn might be deadly to Monarch butterflies came as a shock
to biotech advocates. If biotech companies continue with their
massive experiment, what will our scientists tell us 50 years
from now?
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