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GM crops ushering in new form of pollution, critics say

June 15
Minneapolis Star Tribune

In the rush to adopt genetically modified crops, U.S. regulators and biotech companies are creating a new category of pollution in the form of genetic migration, a coalition of environmental and consumer groups said Thursday.

Organic growers are especially vulnerable when pollen or seeds from genetically modified plants infiltrate nearby fields, because those growers depend on customers who increasingly demand unmodified produce, said leaders of the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy in Minneapolis.

The institute joined two national groups Thursday in releasing a report criticizing the oversight of field trials of genetically modified crops. The other groups are Genetically Engineered Food Alert and the U.S. Public Interest Research Group, both of Washington, D.C. The report states concerns for the environment and consumers as well as for growers who don't plant modified crops.

At a news conference, local leaders of the groups expressed concern over "genetic pollution" of crops presumed to be unmodified.

Because regulations do not require growers of genetically modified plants to notify their neighbors, a farmer would have no way of knowing that a corn field, for example, may have picked up pollen from the biotech crop next door, said Ben Lilliston, an institute spokesman.

The issue came to light last harvest season when many farmers claimed that their corn showed traces of the genetically modified variety StarLink, which hadn't been approved for human consumption. Although StarLink was withdrawn from the market after it was discovered in taco shells last fall, the gene used to create it appeared in seed corn this year, forcing companies and the government to test hundreds of thousands of bags of seed.

Unexpected cross-pollination could be costly at harvest time, said Peter Shortridge, president of Northland Organic Foods Corp. in St. Paul. The company exports about $10 million of grain and soybeans a year from the Upper Midwest to specialty markets in Europe and Japan.

Growers who serve Northland's specialty markets can receive as much as twice the regular price for grain, Shortridge said. However, they could be forced to sell at market prices if their crops were contaminated by unwanted genes.

Northland hasn't found any contamination in shipments it receives, he said. But some of the company's suppliers were forced to scramble for additional seed this spring after finding that their stock had picked up genes from biotech crops.

"It's a huge issue," he said.

Several lawsuits have been filed in connection with alleged pollen drift from StarLink corn. But biotech critics say the crops are so new that there isn't a clear system for allocating liability. Bills that would have established liability died in the Legislature.

The coalition's report focused on field trials of genetically modified plants. Since 1987 there have been 29,000 trials nationwide and 1,055 in Minnesota, it said. Companies conducting the trials that include Minnesota are required to report to the U.S. Department of Agriculture and state authorities. Among other requirements, they must outline procedures for preventing the spread of inserted genes, such as isolating test plots far from conventional fields.

However, precise test locations and information about inserted genes aren't always made public, so it could be difficult for neighboring farmers to monitor their own crops, leaving them inadequately protected from "genetic pollution."

Fewer signs of support for genetically altered crops

Efforts to bring such foods to the market appear to wane a bit, a national consumer group says

June 15
Christian Science Monitor

St. Louis -- After years of dramatic growth, field tests of genetically modified crops have hit a plateau - and may even be declining. Meanwhile, companies and research organizations are increasingly shielding those tests from public view.

These findings - in a new report from the US Public Interest Research Group - suggest that biotechnology companies are slowing their efforts to commercialize the controversial technology. The national coalition of state public-advocacy groups, based in Washington, along with many other consumer and environmental groups, is calling for a stop to field tests and commercialization of bioengineered crops until they can be thoroughly and independently tested for their impact on human health and the environment.

"It is clear that USDA [the US Department of Agriculture] has generally served as a rubber stamp for applications to conduct field tests," concludes the report released yesterday. The department has rejected only 4 percent of all applications.

For the first time since field testing started in the 1980s, the number of such tests has declined for two years in a row. After peaking at 1,086 in 1998, the number of approved permits and notifications for field tests fell slightly to 931 last year, according to the report. The top states where testing has occurred are Hawaii, Illinois, and Iowa.

Any slowdown in commercialization has not had much effect on public research, biotech critics and supporters agree. For example, Bob Zeigler, director of the plant biotechnology center at Kansas State University in Manhattan, Kan., has seen no slowdown at his institution. It takes years of research before a crop gets to the field-test stage, he points out. So while commercialization may have reached a plateau, the pipeline is full of new engineered crops that will be ready to hit the fields in the next few years.

The controversy boils down to this question: How menacing do foods become when a couple of their genes - in a long string of genetic code - are altered? Until now, the federal government has generally sided with industry, which has argued the techniques should come under the same scrutiny as traditional plant breeding, which also alters the genetic makeup of plants. But critics contend that the technology's ability to introduce exotic genes into plants - which traditional breeding could never do - requires a much higher level of testing.

"We see this system of oversight at this point as fundamentally flawed," says Richard Caplan, author of the report.

Increasingly, biotech companies are keeping details of their tests under wraps. As late as 1989, all genes involved in field tests were publicly disclosed, the report found. By last year, two-thirds of the field-tested crops contained genes labeled "confidential business information." So regulators, but not the public, knew which genes were being used in the environment.

The practice extends beyond corporations anxious to protect trade secrets. Universities are also putting field tests under wraps, according to the report, though many biotech researchers oppose such secrecy. "Most of the scientific community would always prefer maximum disclosure and openness," says Dr. Zeigler at Kansas State University. "Free exchange and access to information is critical to progress."

Scientists point to lessons learned from StarLink scare

June 15
American Council on Science and Health editorial

"Eat, drink and be wary of those who try to scare you about the safety of your food." That was the message issued today by food safety scientists at the American Council on Science and Health who noted that the scare about bioenginEered foods was distorted and exaggerated--and completely without scientific merit.

The Center for Disease Control's (CDC) found this week that there was no evidence that biotech Starlink corn caused allergic reactions in those who consumed it.

When tests first showed traces of the corn in Taco Bell tacos, anti-biotechnology activists jumped on the fact that the corn was approved for animal, but not human use. But, as the new CDC finding supports, they went too far in insisting that people who ate the corn would become sick from it. While there was a theory behind why the corn might provoke allergic reactions in some people, the question was whether that hypothesis alone should have been enough to instigate the drastic reaction it prompted. The science shows that it did not.

Yet after the news broke, many people who felt the least bit ill after eating a taco or other corn product assumed it was an allergic reaction to Cry9C, the protein found in Starlink corn. "Indeed, the activists did such a good job telling us that we'd get sick from the corn, that people actually felt ill," said ACSH president Dr. Elizabeth Whelan.

"People are indeed susceptible to the suggestions from activists that foods will make them sick- even if there is actually nothing in the food to make them sick. If the people did get sick, it was from the activists, not the food," said Dr. Whelan. She noted ACSH's Priorities for Health article, "Rumble in the Bronx: Mass Hysteria and the 'Chemicalization" of Demonology' (see http://www.acsh.org/publications/
priorities/1103/bronx.html) which discusses the not so rare phenomenon of mass hysteria, which also took place in Belgium with the Coca-Cola dioxin scare.

According to ACSH Director of Nutrition, Dr. Ruth Kava, the activists claim that biotech foods are not tested is simply without basis in fact. "The FDA does indeed thoroughly investigate new bioengineered foods—that's how they knew there might be a possibility of an allergic reaction to the Cry9C protein," she said. Dr. Kava points out that food allergies are fairly common, but are attributable to food constituents themselves, such as peanut protein, and not to processes, like those used to genetically modify food.

Dr. Kava advises us to learn from history. "The groups that told us we would get sick from Starlink also said, based on one laboratory experiment, that the Monarch butterfly should be nearing extinction because of Bt proteins in corn. But its just not happening."

"This should be a lesson to us," said Dr. Whelan. "Before we create international hysteria about the safety of our food supply we should be presented with at least a modicum of science to justify the concern."

If you wish to respond to this editorial please email your comments to forum@acsh.org. Also, visit the ACSH FORUMS at www.acsh.org/forum/.

The American Council on Science and Health is a consortium of more than 350 scientists and physicians dedicated to consumer education on public health issues, such as the environment, nutrition, and pharmaceuticals. ACSH attempts to illuminate the difference between real health risks and hypothetical or trivial health scares.

GM food industry searches for health and happiness

June 15
Reuters

London -- One bite of a genetically modified (GM) apple and you're svelte and happy. Two bites of a GM peach and your thighs are toned--and then maybe, just maybe, British consumers will buy biotech food.

The need for something to turn the public's fears of the new technology into love is felt strongly by industry proponents--increasingly depressed that the British still shun GM foods.

They hope that if they can promise to bring health to the nation, consumers will overcome their worries about genetic modification, which many fear could usher in a new food or environmental debacle.

``We must lay the dragon of food safety to bed,'' Lord Haskins, chairman of Northern Foods Plc, told a recent UK conference organized by the US embassy, the Royal Agricultural College and the School of Oriental and African Studies.

``After the events of the last 3 years, no supermarket is going to get back into genetically modified food until they can prove there's a benefit. It could be taste, flavor or price, but I think it will probably be the health one.''

And so the rush is on to start producing and marketing gene-modified, cholesterol-busting foods to a European public that increasingly fears scientists are meddling with its daily bread and companies are messing up the countryside.

But most agree that the British look set to resist.

MAD COW--A BITTER LEGACY

``Mad cow'' disease left a bitter legacy in Britain, mainly after the government of the time was seen to have misled the public over the dangers of eating meat.

Newspaper pictures of the then Conservative Minister for Agriculture John Gummer feeding his young daughter a burger made of British beef in a bid to show that meat was safe is recalled by many as a government betrayal.

First detected in a British herd in 1986, mad cow disease, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), was linked to its deadly human form 10 years later--a connection denied by government ministers at the height of the livestock epidemic.

``I can understand why consumers are fearful of GM foods,'' said Deidre Hutton, chairman of the National Consumer Council. ''People see that scientists get it wrong. They're not going to be pushed into anything.''

She said it would take a long time for any real debate on gene foods to take place, telling biotech companies that knee-jerk panic over so-called Frankenstein foods was set to continue.

``We are on an extremely long march to a much more open society when we can have a rational debate,'' she said to the frustration of many at a conference called ``Seeds of Opportunity--The Future of Biotechnology in Agriculture.''

In response, some criticized the British for being schizophrenic, paranoid or even stupid, but most agreed that the biotech industry had to find the ``golden apple'' and answers to questions about environmental contamination and food safety.

``Society is becoming especially schizophrenic.... The more affluent we are, the safer we are, the more insecure we are,'' Lord Haskins said.

THE GOLDEN APPLE

Robert May, former chief government scientist, agreed that consumers would have to be persuaded that gene food had something more to offer than ``normal'' food, but he warned companies and researchers that they needed to be honest.

``We're looking for the golden apple that will make you thin and happy,'' he said.

``But we have to remember when people have been offered the products they want, then they will accept the technology...but it is always necessary to expose any uncertainty. That was the problem of BSE.''

``I personally think that the chance of creating some novel food problems with the GM product is there,'' said May. ``I think it is unlikely but I wouldn't put my hand on my heart and swear it was not so.''

While doubts persisted, most at the conference agreed, research had to be pursued.

``Until there is clear evidence that there are clear benefits of genetically modified food, it will not be accepted,'' Lord Taverne, a Liberal Democrat peer, said. ''Consumers are now denied choice.''

Safeguards urged for genetic crops

Agriculture: A consumer group calls for research on potential harm to environment and public health. California has 1,435 experimental sites

June 15
Los Angeles Times

Better safeguards are needed to protect the public from ecological and health risks of genetic experiments with crops, a consumer advocacy group said Thursday.
     California has 1,435 experimental crop sites, the California Public Interest Research Group said in a report that called for government agencies to exert more control over field test applications and conduct more research on potential damage to the environment and public health.
     "Our environment is being used as a laboratory for widespread experimentation on genetically engineered organisms with profound risks that once released, can never be recalled," said Julie Miles, Safe Foods Campaign director for the group.
     The report, produced by the group's national parent organization, recommends that all field testing cease unless independent testing proves there is no effect on the health of humans or the environment, the public is informed of field test sites, already commercialized products are labeled and biotechnology corporations are held responsible for any harm.
     Proponents of genetic engineering denounced the report.
     "It is unbelievable that this report is being put out there as some type of news by this organization," said Lisa Dry, spokeswoman for Biotechnology Industry Organization. Dry said the standards set by the Food and Drug Administration, the Environmental Protection Agency and the USDA are very strict.
     Genetic engineering is the process of splicing genes of unrelated species to create new organisms. Biotechnology companies began using the technology for agricultural applications in the 1980s. They touted benefits ranging from better-tasting fruit and vegetables to protein-laden produce, but today, the technology focuses more on protecting plants from insects or viruses.
     Experimental crops nationwide use genetic engineering to test different genetic combinations for products ranging from pharmaceuticals to industrial chemicals, Miles said. "They are doing a lot they shouldn't be doing until we determine the implications," she said.
     California follows Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa and Puerto Rico in the number of test sites. Critics of the testing say the government does not adequately measure environmental risks of genetic engineering, including the creation of pesticide-resistant species, the harm caused to plants or animals and the potential for the movement of pollen from a test site into crops intended for human consumption.
     Supporters of genetic engineering, such as Henry Miller, a senior research fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution and former director of the FDA's Office of Biotechnology, said the benefits of field testing outweigh any risks.
     In three years, the test crops in the United States have not caused any environmental or health problems, he said. And genetically engineered produce could aid in combating health problems such as cardiovascular disease, he said.
     "Asking for a moratorium on field testing of gene-spliced plants is tantamount to asking for a moratorium on antibiotics or blood transfusions," Miller said.

Testing Crops
     Top areas of the country for testing of genetically engineered crops and the number of test sites:
     1 Hawaii: 3,275
     2 Illinois: 2,832
     3 Iowa: 2,820
     4 Puerto Rico: 2,296
     5 California: 1,435
     6 Idaho: 1,060
     7 Minnesota: 1,055
     8 Nebraska: 971
     9 Wisconsin: 918
     10 Indiana: 886
     Genetically engineered crops in California that were tested most often:
     Tobacco
     Potatoes
     Corn
     Rapeseed
     Melons
     Cotton
     Rice
     Strawberries
     Lettuce
     Beets
     Source: California Public Interest Research Group

Testing finds no link between gene-modified corn, illnesses

June 14
Los Angeles Times

Government health officials said Wednesday they were unable to find any evidence that StarLink corn caused an allergic reaction in people who reported illness after eating food containing the genetically modified corn.
     StarLink was approved only for use in animal feed, but accidentally got into the human food supply last year, causing the recall of hundreds of products from corn chips to taco shells.
     Fifty-one people who ate the corn reported illness to the Food and Drug Administration. But only about 28 of those had the symptoms of an allergic reaction. And of those, only 17 agreed to submit blood samples to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention so they could be tested for antibodies to the controversial Cry9C protein in the plant, which repels pests and was suspected of being an allergen.
     Although CDC researchers found that those 17 people were indeed made sick, it wasn't the corn that caused the reaction. "We found no evidence in any of the samples of hypersensitivity to the Cry9C protein," said Dr. Carol Rubin, a CDC epidemiologist.
     That's good news for Aventis CropScience, the maker of the controversial corn, which has faced lawsuits and had to pay millions to buy its product back since its recall last year. Aventis executives declined comment.
     Biotechnology industry leaders say the report confirms what they've said all along: StarLink and other genetically modified crops are safe for human consumption. "All of our experience to date, without exception, confirms the safety and the value of genetically modified foods," said Val Giddings, vice president of food and agriculture with the Biotechnology Industry Organization.
     However, environmentalists and other activists say the sample was too small to prove the safety of StarLink conclusively. And they worried that the small sampling included too few children, who are more likely to develop food allergies.
     "Test results from such a small sample could easily have missed allergic reactions," said Bill Freese of Friends of the Earth. "A thorough investigation is exactly what the public deserves." That, they say, includes a much larger round of testing.
     "While it is certainly good news that no reaction was seen, it is in no way definitive evidence that StarLink is not an allergen," said Rebecca Goldburg, senior scientist at Environmental Defense.
     Goldburg and others are worried that the test results could influence the Environmental Protection Agency when it decides this summer whether StarLink is fit for human consumption.

Changing colors in mice

June 14
Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory press release

As published in Genes & Development, researchers from the University of Virginia have developed a new and powerful transgenic mouse model system. This system allows scientists to introduce a foreign gene into the mouse and turn this gene on and off at will through a simple dietary change. The paper details the careful genetic manipulation behind this work and the eye-catching results – mice that change color when a special supplement is added to their drinking water, and revert back to their original color once the supplement is removed!

Dr. Scrable and colleagues genetically engineered the bacterial lac operon for use as an inducible gene regulatory system in the mouse. The lac regulatory system in the mouse provides tight, reversible control of specific gene expression – a tool that will be of wide interest to those who model human disease and development.

The lac operon in E. coli consists of a set of regulatory elements and structural genes whose products enable the bacterial cell to metabolize lactose. In the absence of lactose, lac structural genes are not transcribed because the lac repressor protein is bound to the lac operator, thereby preventing RNA polymerase from initiating transcription. When the lactose analog IPTG is present, the lac repressor protein binds IPTG and undergoes a conformational change that decreases its affinity for the lac operator and allows for transcription to occur. Dr. Scrable and colleagues have spent the past four years adapting this bacterial operon for use as a gene regulatory system in the mouse.

Dr. Scrable and colleagues manipulated the DNA sequence and gene structure of the lac repressor protein so that it is expressed ubiquitously in the mouse. By strategically integrating lac operator sequences within the promoter of a reporter gene, tyrosinase, Dr. Scrable and colleagues generated a mouse strain that expresses tyrosinase only in the presence of IPTG. As tyrosinase encodes an enzyme necessary for coat color, their experiments had startling results.

Dr. Scrable and colleagues demonstrated that tyrosinase is repressed in the absence of IPTG, causing mice to develop as purely white albinos. When IPTG is added to the drinking water, tyrosinase is activated and the coat color changes to brown. However, once IPTG is depleted, tyrosinase is again turned off and the albino phenotype returns. Interestingly, these effects occur in both adult mice and in embryos that are exposed to IPTG via the mother’s drinking water.

The IPTG inducible system developed by Dr. Scrable and colleagues represents a marked advance in mammalian model systems. Although further analysis is needed before all features of the system are fully realized, Dr. Alea Mills, an expert in this field, remarked that this system "appears to fulfill the criteria for an optimal inducible system." As the mouse is the most widely used experimental system to model human disease and development, this revolutionary new system will greatly broaden the range of biological questions that scientists can address experimentally.

More brands found with GM soy

Five baby food, milk products singled out

June 14
Bangkok Post

Five baby food and milk products sold in Thailand have been found with genetically engineered ingredients, Greenpeace Southeast Asia said yesterday.

Loblaws pressures for GMO labels

June 13
CBC

TORONTO - Canada's largest grocery chain has ordered producers to take labels off foods identifying them as free of genetically modified organisms.

Loblaws, which includes Provigo and Superstores, is urging the federal government to set standards on food labeling so consumers aren't misled.

Many organic products claim to be "GMO-free"— something for which there are no federal regulations. That's why Loblaws is asking its food producers to stop making the claims on their labels.

Food manufacturers say that's unfair.

"I feel that we have been slightly bullied in this position. It's either you take it off the packaging, our non-GMO claim, or you are out of the stores," complains Arran Stephens, owner of Nature's Path Foods.

Loblaw's says it has no choice. With no government regulation, companies may be making false claims.

"The government isn't listening to Canadians who are saying we want these products labeled, voluntary labeling is not going to do the job," says Valerie Dugale of the Canadian Health Food Association.

Health Canada treats altered foods the same as conventional foods. Labels are only required if a food has been irradiated, pasteurized or contains allergens such as nuts.

Companies can voluntarily label their foods "fat-free" or even "derived from genetically modified product." There are no rules on GM products in Canada.

In April, Liberal MP Charles Caccia introduced a private member's bill, C-287, which would require mandatory labeling of genetically altered foods. The earliest the bill could be considered is this fall, and even then, there's no guarantee it will pass into law.