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Biofood for thought

Opponents face off in debate over genetically modified organisms

June 23
Montreal Gazette

When Dorval graphic designer Alison Hall goes shopping, she reads the product labels carefully to avoid anything containing corn or soya, because she doesn't want to eat genetically modified organisms.

Across the province, in the Lac-Saint-Jean region, farmer William Van Tassel sees genetically modified canola seeds as a way to cut pesticide use and boost profits as he tries to make ends meet on the farm.

The two are on opposite sides of a growing debate over the future of what we eat, a debate that will make headlines in the coming days as North America's biotechnology industry and thousands of anti-GMO activists meet in San Diego, Calif., in competing conferences.

It's an issue that's increasingly hitting close to home for Canadians, especially when it comes to labeling food products that contain genetically modified ingredients. Last week, Loblaws, the country's largest grocery chain, told its suppliers to remove labels promoting their foods as GMO-free or risk losing shelf space in its stores.

A week earlier, Chambly-based Unibroue got into hot water with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency for an advertising campaign that said the government body had certified its beer as being GMO-free.

A genetically modified organism is created when a gene is taken from a plant or animal and inserted into another one. Some plants, like canola and soybeans, have been genetically modified to be resistant to certain herbicides. That means the plant doesn't die when the chemical is sprayed on it, but weeds do.

The technology isn't restricted to plants. A Prince Edward Island company, for example, has transferred trout and other fish genes into salmon and tilapia, creating fish that grow more quickly than regular salmon on the same amount of food.

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Since attending a lecture on genetically modified foods in Montreal last year, Hall has been learning all she can about them - and the more she learns, the less she likes. Though consumers might not know it, GMOs can already be found in almost 70 per cent of processed food on Canadian grocery-store shelves, through the cornstarch, corn syrup, canola oil and soy products found on the lists of ingredients.

"You're crossing the species barrier and you're creating new organisms, and we have absolutely no idea what the long-term effects will be," Hall said.

"This is profit-making at the expense of the food-safety system and the rights of farmers, and (the right of) consumers to choose what they want to eat."

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Van Tassel sees the genetically modified canola he has been growing on his 850-acre farm since 1996 much differently. It is designed to resist Roundup Ready herbicide, a product made by multinational seed- and agricultural-chemical-seller Monsanto. Van Tassel can apply the herbicide to his fields, and the canola will survive.

"It's easier to grow," he said. "You use less herbicide and it gets rid of more weeds."

For him, GM crops mean one thing: improving profits in the difficult farming industry. With conventional canola, he sprays about $30 worth of herbicides on each acre. With the GM canola, it's about $5 per acre, plus the $15-per-acre licensing fee he pays Monsanto to grow the company's seeds.

"You can talk about the environment, (but) Roundup is easier on the environment than any other herbicide," he said. "I can almost pat myself on the back and say that - but really, it's a question of money."

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It has been 13 years since genetically modified crops were first planted in Canadian field trials, and the controversy surrounding them has been growing ever since.

Last month, Sri Lanka became one of the first countries to completely ban GM products. Governments in other places - including Europe, Australia and Asia - have introduced restrictions on importing GM crops and require labeling on foods containing GM ingredients. In some cases, planting GM organisms has been banned.

Since the mid-1990s, when the first genetically modified crops were raised commercially in Canada, scientists in university, government and private research labs around the world have developed genetically modified rice, fish, papayas, tomatoes, corn, soybeans, canola, wheat, bananas and trees.

"It's attractive to farmers because it makes their lives easier," said Daniel Chez, who heads the Quebec Ministry of Agriculture's Office of Biotechnology.

"It's easier to control weeds that compete with the corn, for example, and there's an economic gain because they don't need to use as much herbicide."

The pace of the scientific developments in genetic modification is very fast, adds Chez, whose office is charged with informing Quebecers about food biotechnology.

"Things are going so quickly, and the consumer sometimes has a hard time understanding all of this new information," he said.

"It seems people are prepared to accept genetically modified plants that will produce medication, but we're not as ready to develop genetically modified food to eat. With food, you're entering into an almost sacred territory."

This new world has consumers asking tough questions and wondering if they are being told enough about what they're consuming, said Nathalie Saint-Pierre of the Montreal-based consumer group Action Reseau Consommateur:

"People are very worried about genetically modified foods. Survey after survey has shown that between 85 and 90 per cent of people want GM foods labeled, and they want more information."

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Anti-GMO activists in Canada are campaigning for the mandatory labeling of genetically modified foods and a moratorium on the commercialization of GM products.

The Canadian General Standards Board, a federal-government agency, is studying the issue of labeling GM foods, and is expected to make a recommendation on the issue by the fall. But activists fear the board's recommendation will be for voluntary rather than mandatory labeling.

The environmental group Greenpeace has led the charge in the anti-GMO movement. In Canada, other groups have joined the crusade, including the Council of Canadians, the Canadian Federation of Students and the Animal Alliance of Canada.

Some of the fears of GMO opponents have been realized. The Royal Society of Canada's expert panel on food biotechnology, for example, reported this year that genetically modified plants have escaped and crossbred with other plants, creating "super weeds" that are more resistant to pesticides.

Meanwhile, Canadian and U.S. farmers are reporting that GM crops have spread beyond the fields they were planted in, and are growing among regular and organic crops that are supposed to be GMO-free.

There are concerns about the long-term environmental impact of growing genetically modified plants. Some worry that moving genes from species to species could create foods that cause allergic or other dangerous reactions.

And many critics charge that the Canadian government, in the form of its food-regulatory agency, is in a conflict of interest because it both regulates and promotes food biotechnology, a big industry that generated $524 million in revenues in Canada in 1999.

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Forty-eight different genetically modified crops are approved for cultivation in Canada. This summer, newly developed plants - including tomatoes, alfalfa, lentils, beets, potatoes, canola and corn - will be grown in more than 400 field trials across the country.

Promoters say genetically modified foods could eradicate world hunger by increasing crop yields, and could help the environment by reducing the amount of chemical herbicides and pesticides used on crops, and preventing the conversion of forests and other lands for agricultural use.

BioteCanada, a Canadian industry group, is one of several organizations that recently launched an information campaign, including television commercials, aimed at getting that message out to what many polls suggest is a skeptical public.

"There is a lot of emotion running high, and BioteCanada strongly believes in consumer dialogue and science-based education and information for the consumer," said the group's president, Janet Lambert.

Some opposition to genetically modified foods is based on a lack of knowledge about science, Lambert said.

Public-opinion surveys back that up. A study conducted in the European Union two years ago found that just over a third of those surveyed knew that the statement "ordinary tomatoes do not contain genes but genetically modified tomatoes do" was false. The rest either didn't know or thought it was true.

Biotech boosters say it's the next wave of food products that will win consumers over. Unlike existing GM foods, the main beneficiaries of which seem to be the companies that produce them and the farmers who raise them, future products will benefit consumers, they say.

Today, the technology delivers such products as herbicide-resistant wheat and potatoes with built-in pesticides. Tomorrow, it could lead to virus-resistant plants that will help reduce the risk of famine, or new types of tomatoes with extra doses of cancer-fighting lycopenes.

"We've only been involved in this technology in the laboratory for 20 to 25 years. That's nothing. That's a spit in time," said Joe Schwarcz, a chemistry professor who heads McGill University's Office for Chemistry and Society.

"This is tantamount to the Wright brothers' first flight. If someone saw that, it wouldn't have been very impressive to see this airplane bouncing up and down 10 metres in the air. But anyone who was there, who had enough intelligence, knew that the next week they would probably fly twice as far, and the next year 10 times as far."

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William Van Tassel's sole complaint about the genetically modified canola he grows has to do with the business side of agriculture. He doesn't like having to sign a contract and pay Monsanto a per-acre fee for planting its herbicide-resistant canola seeds.

"I'm tied to the company; I don't like that," he said. "You want your liberty more."

This summer, only about 30 acres of Van Tassel's fields contain GM crops, but it's not because of the controversy about the plants. The price of canola has been dropping, and it doesn't make sense financially for him to plant the crops.

If other GM crops were available to him, Van Tassel said, he would plant those too.

"I don't think we'll turn into Frankensteins if we eat it," he said. "Personally, I don't have any problem with it."

- Monique Beaudin writes on food issues. Her E-mail address is mbeaudin@thegazatte.southam.ca

Government report on biotech corn disputed by some who got sick

June 19
Bloomberg

Seven-year-old Paul Bell of Edisto Beach, South Carolina, got so sick that he lost about 14 percent of his body weight in five days. Wallace Wasson, a 39- year-old Chicago paralegal, broke out in hives that caused scars.

Both Bell's family and Wasson claim in a federal lawsuit that they had allergic reactions in September after eating taco shells contaminated with a genetically engineered corn called StarLink, developed by France's Aventis SA. 

While the U.S. Centers for Disease Control said Wednesday that the evidence it reviewed doesn't support such claims, Bell and Wasson say Aventis is liable for their illnesses. And biotechnology companies have been forced to rethink the way they sell, monitor and seek regulatory approval for such crops.

``No one is really certain about the long-term effects,'' said Chicago lawyer Clint Krislov, who is representing the Bell family and Wasson.

``Aventis says it knows this is not an allergen. The only people that have spoken this way in the past are the tobacco companies. They just don't know.''

StarLink, genetically altered to produce its own natural insecticide, wasn't approved for human consumption and was intended only for livestock feed and industrial uses such as ethanol production. Traces  of the corn got into the taco shells and other foods, leading to a recall of more than 300 products in the U.S. and lawsuits by Krislov's clients and others.

``Somebody screwed up or didn't do something they were supposed to do to keep this out of the food supply,'' said Krislov, who is seeking class-action status for his lawsuits. 

EPA Decision

The Environmental Protection Agency, which oversees the corn because of its pesticide properties, will reconvene a panel of experts next month to consider whether StarLink should be ruled safe for human consumption. The CDC report lends credence to Aventis's claim that StarLink should be deemed safe in food if only in trace amounts.

In December, the EPA panel said there was a ``medium likelihood'' that StarLink could cause allergic reactions, though it found a ``low probability'' of reactions at trace amounts.

Genetically modified seeds and technology licenses are projected to generate $3 billion in sales by 2003, mostly for corn and soybeans, the largest U.S. crops. About 63 percent of the U.S. land devoted to soybeans, which are used to make cooking oil and animal feed, and about a quarter of the feed-grade corn acres were planted with bioengineered seeds this year.

Monsanto Co., the largest developer of genetically engineered crops, in November made a series of pledges aimed at avoiding problems Aventis faced with StarLink. St. Louis-based Monsanto said it would never sell crops that could cause allergic reactions.

StarLink was developed by Aventis and sold in seed made by Garst Seed Co. of Slater, Iowa. The strain mingled with regular corn at mills and became part of products made by Mexico's Gruma SA and Northfield, Illinois-based Kraft Foods Inc.

Breach of Warranty

Krislov said the CDC findings don't weaken the basic legal argument in his two consumer lawsuits and eight others filed in Illinois, Texas and Alabama, which claim the companies are liable for ``breach of warranty'' for selling food not approved for human consumption.

In addition to the consumer lawsuits, farmers in Iowa, Illinois, Indiana and Minnesota have sued Aventis, alleging the company is responsible for the lost value of their corn crops. In all, the companies could face millions of dollars in liability if the consumer and farmer lawsuits are successful.

Aventis declined to comment for this story.

After receiving 51 complaints last year from consumers who said they got sick after eating products containing StarLink, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the CDC tested blood samples of 17 people to determine if they suffered allergic reactions and if StarLink could have been the cause.

The CDC concluded those people didn't have allergic reactions and turned its findings over to the EPA.

One of the people tested, Keith Finger of Palm Bay, Florida, said the CDC's conclusion is wrong. Finger is suing Aventis, Garst Seed and closely held Azteca Foods Inc. of Chicago, which made tortillas that Finger said made him ill. Krislov is Finger's lawyer in the case. 

Hives in Throat

"This was an exercise by the government to whitewash and approve something that is not good for us,'' said Finger, a 57- year-old optometrist who said he had hives in his throat so serious that he couldn't breathe after eating the tortillas. 

Finger said he supports the idea of biotechnology to make food abundant and reduce the need for pesticides. Regulators and manufacturers haven't paid enough attention to consumers, though, he said.

``What are we to a multibillion-dollar industry?'' Finger said.

Finger said he remains convinced that StarLink corn caused his allergic reactions, and he plans to eat the corn at next month's EPA hearing to show it makes him sick. He wants regulators to eat StarLink themselves to prove they have no reservations about its safety. 

The CDC insisted its tests are reliable. Carol Rubin, an epidemiologist, said it's ``highly unlikely'' people were sickened by StarLink based on those blood tests, which looked for antibodies to the StarLink protein that doctors thought might cause an allergic reaction. No antibodies were found, she said.

The agency doesn't dispute that the people had allergic reactions; they just weren't allergic to StarLink, Rubin said.

Consumers Ignore Debate

While the StarLink episode received wide attention, U.S. consumers have largely ignored the debate over engineered foods, said Thomas Hoban, a professor of sociology at North Carolina State University who conducts and monitors opinion polls.

European and Japanese consumers have been much more skeptical of the technology, and some varieties of genetically engineered crops, including StarLink, are banned overseas.

Genetically engineered crops have been planted in the U.S. for only six years. StarLink, which includes a gene that creates a substance toxic to corn borers, was harvested in the past three years.

Aventis stopped selling the corn last year and bought the 2000 StarLink crop from farmers. Trace amounts of the corn have showed up in other seed. That's led Aventis to seek a ruling allowing small amounts of the suspect protein into human food, which would prevent further recalls. Even if Aventis is vindicated, the past year's events have shown the difficulty in regulating genetically altered foods.

``If you produce bulk chemicals, you're occasionally going to have a spill; there's no question in my mind that there will be an accident with  biotechnology,'' said Lawrence Busch, a professor of sociology and director of the Institute for Food and Agricultural Standards at Michigan State University. ``The thing StarLink has done is sensitize regulatory agencies that this is a massively complex issue.'' 

Group: Biotech tests threaten crops

June 15
AP

Los Angeles -- Farmers, consumers and the environment are in danger of accidentally getting genetically engineered crops that spread from experimental field plots, environmental groups assert in a new report.

The report, released Thursday, by the California Public Interest Research Group and Genetically Engineered Food Alert criticized the Agriculture Department for the lax oversight of testing of genetically engineered crops.

``Our environment is being used as a widespread laboratory for experiments on genetically engineered foods,'' said Julie Miles, the research group's Safe Foods Campaign director, at a press conference where the report was released.

The report contends that the USDA's requirements fail to adequately guard against experimental plants spreading beyond test plots and contaminating the food supply and the environment. The fact that the USDA accepts all but 4 percent of the testing applications it receives indicates the agency is rubber-stamping requests, environmentalists said.

The report also decries the increased secrecy surrounding the genes introduced into test plants; nearly two-thirds of the tests last year were considered to be ``confidential business information.''

``The oversight of the technology is inadequate and in dire need of re-evaluation,'' report author Richard Caplan said in a telephone interview.

James Birch, an organic farmer who spoke at the conference, said he's concerned that genetically altered organisms could end up on some of his 50 acres of crops in the Central Valley.

``Corn pollen can travel for miles. There's a chance it could end up in my field,'' said Birch, who doesn't use manure on his crops because livestock are commonly given genetically engineered feed.

``There have to be better safeguards or these organisms will find their way back into the food system,'' he said.

Genetically modified plants - which make up more than half of the nation's corn and soybean production - have received more acceptance in the United States than in Europe, but still have not escaped controversy here. Biotech corn not approved for consumer use contaminated some of the corn supply last year, prompting recalls of taco shells and other products.

But industry spokespeople said their overall record is a sign that federal regulators are protecting the public.

``The precautions themselves over 14 years show that the regulatory system is protecting the environment and farmers,'' said Mark Buckingham of Monsanto Co., the corporation issued the most permits for test plots.

Buckingham said tests must be conducted with preventive measures such as using other crops as buffers, destroying test plants and growing them at different times than nearby conventional crops.

Lisa Dry, communications director for the Biotechnology Industry Organization, said most test applications are approved because ``we've got a bunch of very good scientists submitting data packages they want to be sure are correct.''

Secrecy is needed for crops that aren't yet ready for the market because of competition, said Doyle Karr, a spokesman for Pioneer Hi-Bred International, a DuPont subsidiary. ``It's part of the business we're in,'' he said.

The report gave an overview of the nearly 29,000 field tests of genetically engineered crops authorized by the USDA between 1987 and 2000. Most of them took place in the last three years.

Hawaii hosted the most experimental sites with 3,275, and was followed by Illinois, Iowa and Puerto Rico and California.

Corn was by far the popular test crop, followed by potatoes, soybeans, cotton and tobacco. Tobacco, with 265 test sites, was the most common experimental crop in California, which had 1,435 test sites.

Maker of suspect corn seed accused of breaking UN pact

June 15
Boston Globe

Consumer and agricultural watchdog groups yesterday accused a multinational corporation that produces genetically modified foods of failing to uphold a UN code of business conduct to which it had agreed. 

The advocates called on the United Nations to consider ejecting the company, Strasbourg-based Aventis S.A., from its Global Compact - a group of corporations that pledged to abide by human rights and environmental norms less than a year ago. 

The company makes genetically modified StarLink corn, which has been approved only for animal use but turned up last year in human foods, including taco shells. The discovery prompted a massive recall of corn-related products and touched off fears about human health hazards. 

"This company is in clear violation." said Gabrielle Flora of the Minnesota-based Institute for Agriculture and Food Policy, arguing the company failed to abide by the UN's environmental standards. "This erodes the credibility of the United Nations." 

But UN officials said the Global Compact is a "learning forum" aimed at helping companies better their business practices - not a rigid set of guidelines. 

"We've always made it clear that the Global Compact is not about assessing companies or their performances," said Georg Kell, who oversees the issue for UN Secretary General Kofi Annan. The compact consists of nine principles that companies pledge to uphold. 

Speaking on condition of anonymity, a corporate official for Aventis CropScience, the subsidiary that made StarLink, noted that the majority of tainted corn came from its 1999 crop - before the company had signed the UN standards. StarLink corn has since been voluntarily withdrawn. 

Yesterday's report by the Institute for Agriculture and Food Policy - posted by CorpWatch, a non-governmental association, on its Web site - revived questions raised by advocacy groups about the Global Compact. Some groups lobbied against the program, arguing it would give business undue influence over the United Nations. But Annan and his staff have said it is a way to make corporations more responsible. 

Under the compact, corporations are expected to report their compliance with its principles - or non-compliance - by this summer. Labor and advocacy groups will help review each submission, UN officials said. 

Indeed, give-and-take on whether each company is complying with the norms is the whole idea of the program, advocates say. 

"If companies sign up, they know they are going to be subject to public criticism," said William H. Luers, head of the United Nations Association of the United States. But he noted measures would have to be established to deal with companies that consistently violate the compact's principles. 

The watchdog groups accused Aventis of failing to uphold Principle 7, which calls for a "precautionary approach to environmental challenges." They charged that the company, in its rush to sell the product, failed to fully analyze its environmental impact. 

The genetically modified corn, which contains protein-producing bacteria that kill the corn borer, has been suspected of touching off serious allergic reactions. However, the Centers for Disease Control and the Food and Drug Administration said yesterday that tests of people believed to be affected had revealed no evidence of allergic reactions. 

The tests will be used by the Environmental Protection Agency to decide if small amounts of StarLink will be allowed in human food. 

The advocacy groups also charged that Aventis had not fully informed farmers of the risks of the corn seed and had not recalled all the tainted corn, in violation of UN principles. 

But a company official said that it was able to call back nearly all of the 2000 crop. Of 6 million bushels, all but 40,000 were located, the official said.

Hawaii farmers defend genetic testing

June 15
Honolulu Star-Bulletion

Two national groups are calling for a moratorium on testing genetically engineered crops in outdoor fields -- an area in which they say Hawaii leads the nation.

U.S. Public Interest Research Group and Genetically Engineered Food Alert also said that selling genetically engineered foods should be halted until independent studies can prove that they do not harm humans and the environment.

But Richard McCormack, plant manager for Pioneer Hi-Bred International in Waialua, said the United States has some of the strongest regulatory standards in the world regarding product safety.

And, he said, the USDA is not alone in regulating genetic engineering. The Food and Drug Administration and Environmental Protection Agency also are involved.

"It's significant scrutiny," he said, adding that genetically modified crops are put through three to 10 years of tests before they are cleared to enter the marketplace.

The groups' action follows release of their report, based on data provided by the U.S. Agriculture Department. Between 1987 and 2000, the department authorized almost 29,000 field tests of genetically engineered organisms despite uncertainties over their effects on the environment and inadequate regulations to monitor their impacts, the report said.

"Any new technology must be tested, but there are important scientific issues that must be addressed before genetically engineered foods can be released into the environment," Ahnya Chang, local campaign director for PIRG, said yesterday. "To conduct field tests before this has been done is both premature and hazardous."

The report found that Hawaii leads the nation in field test sites for genetically engineered crops such as corn, coffee, pineapple and papaya. The state has 3,275 outdoor testing sites comprising an estimated 8,563 acres, the report said.

Chang said the picture is incomplete because the groups could not readily access information such as how crops are being tested, types of pesticides being used and locations of the sites. She said such data are protected as "confidential business information."

McCormack, who is also the president of Hawaii Crop Improvement Association, the trade organization for eight seed-corn companies, said, "The federal regulatory agencies are not rubber stamps, because their business is to protect the American public."

Tish Uyehara, deputy director of the state Agriculture Department, said biotechnology has a "tremendous economic impact" for Hawaii.

She said the seed-corn industry, which deals partly in genetic engineering, is worth $33 million to $35 million annually for Hawaii. She said researchers who developed a disease-resistant papaya saved Hawaii's papaya industry in the early 1990s when the ringspot virus nearly wiped out local crops.