0. MAJOR CHANGES
0.1. Arguments that are specific to particular GE traits like
herbicide-tolerant crops, Bt crops, recombinant
hormones,
promoters, antibiotic-resistance markers,
etc. have been marked
appropriately (e.g., HT, BT, RBGH, CAMV, ARM,
and so on).
0.2. Headers have been modified to reflect industry claims, which have
been put under the following general headings:
safety claims,
scientific claims, economic claims, legal
claims, moral claims,
and quality claims.
1. ABOUT THIS DOCUMENT
1.1. This document aims to support the campaign against the risks of
genetic engineering (GE). It will try to summarize
all claims
made by the proponents of GE, and the responses
by the critics of
GE. Supporting data and summaries of scientific
studies will be
included as much as possible.
1.2. I welcome suggestions, corrections, improvements and new
information to this document. Most important
are corrections to
factual or argumentation errors/weaknesses.
Style, syntax and
grammar corrections are also welcome. My real
role is to
coordinate what will hopefully be a worldwide
group effort.
1.3. Contributions we are most interested in are of two types: a)
facts, together with the source or URL, preferably
both; source
can be an email posting or news item, but
scientific publications
are preferred; peer-reviewed articles are
even better; b)
arguments, whether for or against GE; we also
want the strongest
arguments of the other side, so we can research
how they may be
answered properly.
1.4. IMPORTANT: When sending me a suggested change or addition, please
do not (repeat: DO NOT) send me back the full
edited document.
Send only the paragraph(s) you want to add/change,
the version
number of the document you have (e.g., v0.2),
and the section
heading of the paragraph (e.g., 1.4).
1.5. Updated versions of this document will be released regularly at
the GENTECH (gentech@ping.de) and BAN (ban@tao.ca)
mailing lists.
You are welcome to post this document on any
other mailing list
or website, but please post it in its entirety.
1.6. Some conventions: + is an argument in favor; - is against; ++ or
-- means this item is a new entry or is an
edited version of its
earlier counterpart; * is for useful data
which is neither for or
against GE.
2. SAFETY CLAIMS: GE-FOODS ARE SAFE
+ We have been doing biotech for thousands of years.
- We have been
doing traditional biotechnology
(fermentation, conventional breeding, etc.)
for a long time; but
modern biotechnology or genetic engineering
is a very recent
development, and the first commercial products
were released only
in the early 1990s. If we look at our experience
at DDT and other
toxic chemicals (produced by the more or less
same firms now
engaged in GE), it took some 20-30 years to
determine they were
bioaccumulating through the food chain and
causing cancers and
around 50 years to determine that they were
mimicking some human
hormones and disrupting our endocrine systems.
+ GE is just an extension of conventional breeding.
- GE and conventional
breeding are radically different.
Conventional breeding works only within the
same or closely
related species (e.g., bacteria to bacteria,
corn with corn, pigs
with pigs, etc.) In contrast, GE involves
mixing genes from very
distantly related species that in nature will
never breed with
each other (e.g., bacteria to corn, or pig
to human beings).
- Actually GE
is a new, experimental, very dangerous, AND
radical technology. The process causes unnatural
mutation and
combination of the DNA in our food in a manner
which excludes
nature out of the process. This means we and
our children are now
eating lab-created, mutated and experimental
"fake" food. They
are experimenting, not only with us and with
our children, but
with the entire food chain. (From: pmligotti@earthlink.net)
- Whoever argues
that GE is no different from conventional
breeding is probably laying the groundwork
for the concept of
"substantial equivalence", that the products
of genetic
engineering are as safe as the products of
conventional breeding.
This dubious concept is often used as excuse
to avoid thorough
and rigorous testing.
+ Horizontal
gene tranfer across distant species occurs in
nature. Natural broad-species vectors exist;
some do replicate in
Gram- bacteria, others only in Gram+. There
are also vectors
which replicate in Gram- and Gram+ bacteria,
and some organisms
transfer DNA to plants (eg Agrobacterium tumefaciens,
A.
rhizogenes)
- Where horizontal
gene transfer occurs in nature, it is
often in connection with the emergence of
more virulent or new
pathogens. GE is inherently risky because
it uses the same
mechanism to facilitate the insertion of foreign
genes through
bacterial or viral vectors.
+ GE is much
more precise than conventional breeding.
- GE is only
precise in so far as the foreign genes which
will be inserted into a target organism are
known. But GE has no
control where into the target organism's genome
the foreign genes
will be inserted. The insertion site is totally
random and
unpredictable. Since genes do not operate
in isolation, but
interact in a complicated way and change their
behaviour in
response to influences from nearby and even
distant genes, the
behaviour of the transformed target organism
is also
unpredictable.
+ There are techniques
that ensure a precise integration
into the genome (eg double recombination using
a suicide gene or
by using chimeraplasty which precisely changes
an already
existing gene)
- The commercially-available
GE-crops did not use these new
experimental techniques, but random techniques
like the "gene
gun" or bioballistics.
+ Even with random
methods, it is possible to determine the
insertion site(s) afterward and choose clones
accordingly.
- Even after
the insertion site has been determined, the
interaction between the inserted promoter
and miscellaneous
foreign genes on the one hand and the neighboring
genes on the
other hand must still be determined. We know
too little today
about most target genomes to determine these
interactions
precisely.
- There is no
data documenting the stability of any
transgenic line in gene expression, or in
structure and location
of the insert in the genome. Such data must
include the level of
gene expression, as well as a genetic map
and DNA base sequence
of the insert and its site of insertion in
the host genome in
each successive generation. No such
information has been
provided by industry, nor requested by regulatory
authorities.
(32) (See: "Will genetically engineered crops
mean adulterated
and toxic food, bodies, and ecosystems?",
Michael W. Fox, Senior
Scholar/ Bioethics, The Humane Society of
the United States 2100
L Street, NW Washington, DC 20037)
+ Crop varieties
developed through conventional breeding do
not undergo feeding tests. Why should GE varieties?
- GE destabilizes
the target genome, so it involves
inherently higher risks than conventional
breeding. Thus we
should assume that GE varieties are unsafe
unless proven
otherwise through thorough long-term testing.
Traditional
varieties of food crops have evolved with
us for thousands of
years, and can be assumed to be safe unless
proven otherwise.
Modern hybrids may or may not need to be rigorously
tested
depending on the situation.
+ Problems attributed
to GE-crops may also occur with
conventionally-bred hybrids especially when
breeding with wild
relatives.
- GE-crops are
inherently riskier, because the results of
the random insertions are unpredictable. When
we breed a natural
corn variety that is safe to eat with another
natural corn
variety that is also safe to eat, we can reasonably
assume that
the result would also be safe to eat, unless
proven otherwise. No
foreign genes have been introduced. If we
cause mutations through
GE (or even through high-intensity radiation),
we cannot
reasonably assume that the mutant is safe
to eat, without
thorough testing. If we breed this presumably
unsafe mutant with
a natural corn variety, we cannot assume that
the result is safe
to eat either.
- By 1992, there
were already 7 known instances of
unexpected results from GE. One can only imagine
how many more
there have been in the interim. (Bereano,
Philip and Nachama
Wilker, "Regulations for Genetically Engineered
Foods," Science,
Vol. 258, 4 Dec 1992, p. 1561-2)
- An example
of GE unpredictability: Bill Vencill of the
Univ of Georgia examined the effects of heat
on GE soya beans
after Georgia farmers alerted him to unexpected
crop losses,
esp. during Georgia's two hottest springs
since the beans were
launched in 1996. "In the years we saw the
problems, the soils
were reaching 40 to 50 C," says Vencill. His
team replicated
these conditions in lab growth chambers, comparing
the hardiness
of the Monsanto plants with conventional strains.
In soils that
reached only 25 C during the day, the GM Monsanto
beans grew as
well as other beans. But in warmer soils,
the GM plants appeared
stunted. In soils reaching 45 C, the differences
were marked.
Vencill described the findings at a British
Crop Protection
Council meeting in Brighton this week. "We
saw lower heights,
yields and weights in the Monsanto beans,"
says Vencill. Worse,
stems of nearly all the GE beans split open
as the first leaves
began to emerge compared with 50-70% of the
other test plants.
This had occurred on farms, but had been blamed
on fungal
disease. "Instead, we think the stem splits,
and it exposes the
plant to secondary infection," says Vencill.
Vencill suspects the
changes in plant physiology caused by the
addition of GE
resistance to glyphosate, the herbicide marketed
as Roundup by
Monsanto. These herbicide-resistant plants
have been shown to
produce up to 20 per cent more lignin, the
tough, woody form of
cellulose. "We think it might make the plants
more brittle," says
Vencill. (See: Andy Coghlan, New Scientist,
20 Nov 1999)
2.1. CLAIM: GE-FOODS ARE SAFE FOR HUMAN AND ANIMAL CONSUMPTION
- Summary: we
do not know enough yet; some studies justify
certain concerns about human and environmental
safety; more
studies need to be done; meanwhile, based
on the precautionary
principle, we must assume that GE foods are
not safe and take the
necessary precautions.
2.1.1. CLAIM: GE- AND CONVENTIONAL FOODS ARE SUBSTANTIALLY EQUIVALENT
+ We have established
the substantial equivalence between
commercial GE foods and their conventional
counterparts.
Therefore, we can assume that GE foods are
as safe as their
conventional counterpart.
+ In September
1996, WHO and the FAO convened an expert
consultation on GE-food safety in Rome, which
adopted the same
industry line that: 1) safety issues in GE-foods
were "basically
of the same nature" as in foods from conventional
breeding; 2)
the substantial equivalence concept can be
used to show GE-food
safety; and 3) once substantial equivalence
is shown, "no further
safety consideration is needed." (See: "Biotechnology
and food
safety: Report of a joint WHO/FAO consultation",
Rome, Italy, 20
Sep - 4 Oct 1996)
- The 1996 WHO/FAO
report made clear that the participants
were invited "in their individual capacities
and not as
representative of any organization, affiliation
or government."
So the report describes individual opinions
and not official WHO
or FAO position. (See: "Biotechnology and
food safety: Report of
a joint WHO/FAO consultation", Rome, Italy,
20 Sep - 4 Oct 1996,
p.1)
- Biotech firms
often refer to this 1996 report to falsely
claim that the "WHO/FAO have declared that
Bt corn [or some other
GE-product] is as safe as its conventional
equivalent for animal
and human consumption." Yet, the WHO and the
FAO themselves have
no such official position.
+ The U.S. FDA
has declared that GE crops are as safe as
their conventional counterpart.
+ On May 18,
1994, the US FDA announced that a GE tomato
was as safe as conventional tomato. In a nutshell,
the FDA
position is that labeling isn't required unless
a GE product
"differs significantly from its conventional
counterpart" - if
it contains a new sweetener, for example -
or if it introduces
an allergen. (Aberdeen American News, S.D.;
Knight Ridder/Tribune
Business News)
- Because the
FDA accepted the concept of substantial
equivalence, it did not require feeding and
other rigorous tests
that pharmaceuticals or food additives normally
require. (See
also "Revolving door" under "Government/Industry
collusion")
- Confidential
documents made public in an on-going class
action lawsuit have revealed that the FDAs
own scientists do not
agree with concept of "substantial equivalence
between GE and
normal seeds.
- The U.S. Food,
Drug and Cosmetic Act prescribes that
additives like the foreign genes in GE foods
can only be
recognized as safe based on tests that have
shown the foods are
harmless. But no such tests exist for GM foods.
So, although the
GRAS exemption was meant for substances whose
safety has already
been shown through testing, the FDA is using
it to avoid testing
and to approve substances based largely on
conjecture - one that
is dubious in the eyes of its own and many
other experts. (Steven
M. Druker, J.D., executive director of the
Alliance for
Bio-Integrity, coordinator of the lawsuit
against the FDA to
obtain mandatory safety testing and labeling
of GE foods)
+ GE foods vary
from non-GE foods only in the characteristic
that has been modified.
- The random
insertion of foreign genes into the genetic
material may cause unexpected changes in the
functioning of other
genes. Existing molecules may be manufactured
in incorrect
quantities, at the wrong times, or new molecules
may be produced.
GE foods and food products may therefore contain
unexpected
toxins or allergenic molecules that could
harm our health or that
of our offspring. (See: "13 Myths about Genetic
Engineering",
Consumers for Education about Genetic Engineering,
Dunedin
Polytech, as posted by Deborah E Leech
<dleech@mail.coin.missouri.edu> on the
SANET list)
- A study published
July 1, 1999 in the Journal of
Medicinal Food presents new information about
biologically active
components in GM soybeans resistant to Monsanto's
Roundup
herbicide. Dr. Marc Lappe, Director of the
Center for Ethics and
Toxics (CETOS) and principal investigator
says, "Based on
corporate representations, the phytoestrogen
concentrations of
Monsanto's Roundup Ready and conventional
soybeans were supposed
to be equivalent. But the initial industry
studies were performed
on unsprayed soybeans. We found significant
differences when we
examined herbicide-sprayed soybeans analogous
to those used in
foods. The study shows an overall reduction
in phytoestrogen
levels of 12-14 percent in the genetically
altered soybean
strains. Most of this reduction was
attributable to reductions
in genistin and to a lesser extent daidzin
levels, which were
significantly lower in modified compared to
conventional soybeans
in both strains. The apparent differences
found may be an
important discovery because consumers tend
to buy soy products
for their naturally occurring phytoestrogens
which are thought to
protect against breast cancer, heart disease,
and osteoporosis.
As GE strains replace conventional ones, any
differences in
phytoestrogen levels becomes increasingly
important." (See:
"Alterations in Clinically Important Phytoestrogens
in
Genetically Modified, Herbicide-Tolerant Soybeans",
Maryanne
Liebert Publishers, J. of Medicinal Food,
Vol. 1 No. 4, 1999) (6
Jul 1999) <http://www.cetos.org>
+ FDA can demand
extensive safety testing if the new gene
"differs substantially" from those generally
found in other food.
- That's a hollow
promise. All 44 crops that so far have
gained FDA marketing approval have avoided
scrutiny because FDA
has accepted the industry's claims that they
are "substantially
equivalent" to conventional food. (See: Rick
Weiss, Washington
Post, 15 Aug 1999)
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/health/daily/aug99/gmfood15.htm>
- Some scientists
have questioned substantial equivalence as
"a commercial and political judgment masquerading
as if it were
scientific... primarily to provide an excuse
for not requiring
biochemical or toxicological tests." (See:
Letter to Nature by
Erik Millstone, Eric Brunner and Sue Mayer,
7 Oct 1999) (http:)
- The Codex Alimentarius
itself, the UN agency which WHO and
the FAO defer to on food safety issues, has
not adopted the
concept for its food safety assessments. (See:
) (http:)
- The British
Medical Association rejected the notion that
GM foods should be assumed to be safe when
they are said to be
substantially equivalent to their conventional
counterparts,
which is the basis of U.S. regulation of biotech
foods. "This
concept does not account for gene interaction
of unexpected
kinds, which may take place in GM foods,"
the BMA asserts. "The
possibility that certain novel genes inserted
into food may cause
problems to humans is a real possibility,
and 'substantial
equivalence' is a rule which can be used to
evade this biological
fact." (See: "The Impact of Genetic Modification
on Agriculture,
Food and Health", British Medical Association,
May 1999)
- In March 1998
a letter in the UK's Farmers Weekly
reported that livestock on farms from Nebraska
to Iowa were not
grazing, as in the past, in fields of Bt corn.
Unpalatability of
the Bt stalks was suspected. One farm specialist
from Dawson
County, Nebraska, reportedly said: "At first
we thought it was a
joke, but I have heard it enough now that
we are looking into
what could be going on." (See: Farmers Weekly,
UK, Mar 1998)
<http://www.btinternet.com/~nlpwessex/Documents/gmanimalgrazing.htm>
- Animals reject
"substantial equivalence"? After four
months of hearing anecdotes from Kansas to
Wisconsin, it is time
to collect stories more thoroughly from farmers:
About the hogs
that wouldn't eat ration when GMO crops were
included. About one
farmer who said "if you want your cattle to
go off their feed,
just switch them out to a GMO silage." About
another whose cattle
broke through an old fence and ate down the
non-GMO hybrids but
wouldn't touch the Roundup Ready corn, though
"they had to walk
through the GMOs to get to the Pioneer 3477
on the other side."
About the cattle whose weight-gain fell off
when switched over to
GMO sources. About the organic farmer with
a terrible deer
problem on his soybeans, who drives out at
night, and sees 40 of
them mowing down his tofu beans while across
the road not one doe
is eating on the Roundup Readies. About the
raccoons romping by
the dozen in the organic corn, while down
the road not one ear
has been touched in the Bt fields. Even the
mice will move on
down the line if given an alternative to these
"crops". (See:
ACRES USA Special Report, 18 Sep 1999 by Steven
Sprinkel,
Yankton, South Dakota)
- Rodents reject
"substantial equivalence"? Consider the
Flavr Savr tomato, which was given a gene
to delay its ripening.
When scientists tried to feed rodents the
tomatoes, however, the
animals wouldn't eat them, recalled Roger
Salquist, a scientist
involved in creating the Flavr Savr. "I gotta
tell you, you can
be Chef Boyardee and mice are still not going
to like them." They
went so far as to force-feed the rodents through
gastric tubes
and stomach washes. This made the rodents
sick, and revealed
nothing about the tomato's safety. The tomato
ultimately won
approval from the FDA but failed in the market
in part because it
was so expensive. (See: Rick Weiss, Washington
Post, 15 Aug 1999)
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/health/daily/aug99/gmfood15.htm>
- Although these
novel products are different enough to be
patented, the biotech industry and U.S. regulatory
agencies say
they are no different from their natural counterparts.
For this
reason, the U.S. FDA requires no pre-market
testing on animal or
human subjects (as would be required of new
drugs or food
additives) nor any labeling. "There isn't
any difference between
a GM product and a natural food in terms of
its impact on
consumer health," says Jim Maryanski, biotech
coordinator for
FDA, which oversees the safety of fruits,
vegetables and other GE
food products. FDA only requires a label if
a product contains a
known allergen or is nutritionally different
- for example if a
GM orange had more or less vitamin C, he says.
2.1.2. CLAIM: GE-FOODS DO NOT CAUSE ALLERGIC REACTIONS
- One GE product
you won't find on the market is a soybean
to which genes from a Brazil nut had been
introduced. A New
England Journal of Medicine article in early
1996 suggested the
GM soybean could cause reactions in people
allergic to Brazil
nuts. Pioneer Hi-Bred Intl of Johnson, Iowa
- which had developed
the soybean and later funded that allergy
study - said it won't
market the soybean because of the allergy
potential. (Aberdeen
American News, S.D.; Knight Ridder/Tribune
Business News)
* Pioneer Hi-Bred,
the giant seed company, asked University
of Nebraska scientist Steve Taylor in 1995
to study a new soybean
they had invented. Pioneer had spliced a Brazil
nut gene into
soybean, to make it more protein-rich. Taylor
was to check if the
GM soybean would affect people allergic to
Brazil nuts, a serious
concern because such people wouldn't think
to avoid soy. Just one
of the nut's thousands of proteins was put
into Pioneers' new
soybean, and the odds of that one causing
the nut's allergies
were incredibly low, Taylor said. But one
test, then another, and
finally a third showed that the GE protein
was indeed a major
cause of Brazil nut allergies. In trying improve
the soybean,
Pioneer had made it potentially more deadly;
it quickly halted
the soybean project. Taylor's study is symbolic
of all that is
both scary and reassuring about GM food. It
proved that GM food
could cause an unexpected and potentially
fatal reaction. But the
problem was detected before the product was
marketed. Symbolic
because it was, and still is, one of the very
few studies ever to
look directly for any harm from a GE food
or crop. That dearth of
studies is the legacy of a U.S. policy that
treats GM plants and
food to be substantially the same as conventional
ones. (See:
Rick Weiss, Washington Post, 15 Aug 1999)
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/health/daily/aug99/gmfood15.htm>
+ This was a
very predictable situation. The soya allergy
was caused by the same protein that was responsible
for allergic
reactions to Brazil nuts.
- If the allergy
was predictable, why did Pioneer even
attempt to create that GE-soya?
+ The fact that
the soya with the Brazil nut gene was
recalled and not commercialized shows that
the regulatory system
worked.
- The system
may have worked in that particular case. How
about all the other cases of commercialized
GE-soya?
- A study by
the York Nutritional Laboratory, Europe's
leading specialists on food sensitivity, found
that health
complaints caused by soya - the ingredient
most associated with
GM foods - have increased by 50% in 1998.
Researchers said their
findings provide real evidence that GE food
could have a
tangible, harmful impact on the human body.
It is the first time
in 17 years of testing that soya has crept
into the laboratory's
top 10 foods to cause an allergic reaction
in consumers. John
Graham, spokesman for the York laboratory,
said: "We believe this
raises serious new questions about the safety
of GM foods because
it is impossible to guarantee that the soya
used in the tests was
GM-free." (See: UK Daily Express, 12 March
1999)
- FDA scientists
warn that GE foods could "produce a new
protein allergen" or "enhance the synthesis
of existing plant
food allergens." Without labeling, people
with certain food
allergies will not be able to know if they
might be harmed by the
food they're eating. (NYTimes full page ad,
18 Oct 1999)
- BT: A new study
of Ohio crop pickers and handlers finds
that Bt can provoke immunological changes
indicative of a
developing allergy. With long-term exposure,
affected individuals
might develop asthma or other serious allergic
reactions, notes
study leader I. Leonard Bernstein of the University
of Cincinnati
College of Medicine. (See: Science News Online,
Vol 156 No 1, 3
Jul 1999). This means that people must avoid
ingesting even
"relatively safe" biopesticides like Bt.
- BT: A health
survey evaluated farm workers before the
spraying of Bt pesticides and 1 and 4 months
after the spraying.
Two groups of low and medium exposure workers
were also assessed.
While there was no evidence of occupationally-related
respiratory
disease, positive skin prick tests were seen
in exposed workers,
with a significant increase in the number
of positive tests to
spores 1 to 4 months after exposure to Bt.
The increase was more
significant in high rather than low exposure
workers. The study
concluded that exposure to Bt may lead to
allergic skin
sensitisation and induction of IgE antibodies
or IgG antibodies -
or both. (Bernstein J L et al. 1999. Immune
responses in farm
workers after exposure to Bacillus thuringiensis
pesticides.
Environmental Health Perspectives. 107 (7):
575-582)
* BT: The EPA
has been asked to approve a new kind of Bt
corn toxin called cry9C, seen as a test case
of the degree of
risk the EPA is willing to accept. While other
versions of Bt
break down harmlessly in the human digestive
tract, cry9C can
survive digestion and remains stable in the
human stomach. Thus,
its potential to cause allergies is higher.
The FDA demands extra
allergy testing for new food with such stable
proteins. AgrEvo,
the German firm seeking cry9C approval, has
conducted some more
tests, including a comparison of cry9C's molecular
structure with
known allergy-causing proteins. So far, no
similarities have been
found. But as the EPA evaluates the corn for
human ingestion, the
reality is that there is no surefire way of
testing new proteins
like cry9C for their potential to trigger
allergies. (See: Rick
Weiss, Washington Post, 15 Aug 1999)
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/health/daily/aug99/gmfood15.htm>
2.1.3. CLAIM: GE-FOODS ARE NOT TOXIC
- A case in which
a GE-product might have resulted in toxic
contaminants: a Japanese firm that makes the
food supplement
L-tryptophan changed its production process
and switched to GE
bacteria, at the same time removing some steps
in their
purification process. The new process resulted
in a toxic
contaminant that could have come from the
GE-bacteria used in
producing the L-tryptophan. Before the product
could be recalled,
it had killed 37 and hospitalized 1,500.
<http://www.natural-law.ca/genetic/NewsNov-Dec97/GENews12-23Trypt.htm>
- About 37 people
died and some 1,500 became sick after
Japanese company Showa Denko K.K. produced
the amino acid
tryptophan using GE - and inadvertently introduced
a toxin. A Web
site operated by survivors of the 1989 outbreak
agrees with those
basic facts, although one of the articles
posted there lists only
28 deaths. (Aberdeen American News, S.D.;
Knight Ridder/Tribune
Business News)
+ The L-tryptophan
contaminant came not from the GE-bacteria
but from a non-GE source which was overlooked
due to the change
in the purification process,
- A non-GE contaminant
cannot be ruled out. Unfortunately, A
mysterious fire destroyed all samples of the
GE-bacteria used for
the production process, making it impossible
for investigators to
conclusively determine the real cause. (See:
)
- According to
some FDA scientists, GE food may bring "some
undesirable effects such as increased levels
of known naturally
occurring toxicants, appearance of new, not
previously identified
toxicants, increased capability of concentrating
toxic substances
from the environment (e.g., pesticides or
heavy metals), and
undesirable alterations in the levels of nutrients."
In other
words, scientists from the FDA itself suspect
that GE could make
foods toxic. (NYTimes full page ad, 18 Oct
1999)
- Dr. Arpad Pusztai
found that a diet of potatoes engineered
to express the snowdrop lectin weakened rats'
immune systems and
adversely affected the kidney, thymus, spleen,
gut and brain of
the animals. If confirmed, Pusztai's conclusions
will reinforce
concerns that gene insertion itself may create
new toxins; it
will also implicate the toxin commonly used
in other GE-crops -
the Bt toxin which, Pusztai says, is also
a lectin.
+ The Royal Society
of London reviewed Pusztai's study and
found it flawed and unworthy of publication.
- After the Royal
Society's review, however, Pusztai
submitted the results of his study to The
Lancet, one of the
world's most prestigious medical journal,
which decided to
publish the study. (See: The Lancet, Oct 1999)
* The UK's Royal
Society has written to the Natural Law
Party indicating that it has called for Dr
Pusztai's work to be
repeated because of the outstanding uncertainties
it considers
arise from it. (From: "NLP Wessex" <nlpwessex@bigfoot.com>,
19
Nov 1999) In a way, this is a recognition
by the Royal Society
that Pusztai's work deserves to be taken seriously,
a reversal of
their earlier condemnation of Pusztai's work.
- The concern
of pediatric neurologist Dr. Martha Herbert of
the Council for Responsible Genetics is "the
immature gut and
immature body of infants." If introduced too
early, even proteins
that are normally part of our diet can lead
to auto-immune and
allergic reactions later on, she said. "If
a substance harms
adults, it may well harm babies, the sick
and the elderly more
severely, and after smaller exposures," Dr.
Herbert warned in her
June 1999 statement. (See: ) <http://>
+ BT: The Bt
formulation has been in use as a biopesticide
for decades and is not considered harmful
to human beings. It is
one of the few insecticides that organic farmers
are allowed to
use.
- BT: The Bt
biopesticide is relatively safe, compared to
chemical pesticides, but it is not completely
safe. The dried Bt
spores, for instance, may be harmful to the
human immune system.
French scientists at le Bouchet army research
labs found that the
spores caused lung inflammation, internal
bleeding and death in
lab mice. Last year, French scientists isolated
a Bt strain that
destroyed tissue in the wounds of a French
soldier in Bosnia. The
strain, known as H34, also infected wounds
in immuno-suppressed
mice. Now the same team has found that H34
can kill mice with
intact immune systems if they inhale the spores.
Francoise
Ramisse of le Bouchet and her colleagues found
that healthy mice
inhaling 108 spores of Bt H34 died within
eight hours from
internal bleeding and tissue damage. (See:
New Scientist, 29 May
1999)
+ BT: Spores
from mutants of the Bt H34 strain which did not
produce the toxin were equally lethal to mice,
suggesting that
the Bt toxin was not to blame. Researchers
think the symptoms are
caused by other toxins. The bacterium's close
cousin, Bacillus
cereus, produces a toxin that ruptures cell
membranes. And in
1991, Japanese researchers showed that B.
thuringiensis produces
the same toxin. (See: New Scientist, 29 May
1999)
+ BT: Since the
natural Bt toxin is relatively safe, then
the GE-toxin in corn is safe too.
- BT: The Bt
corn toxin is not identical to the natural
toxin. The natural Bt gene which produces
the toxin was
substantially modified before it was transferred
to corn. The
toxin gene in Bt corn is a truncated version
(at both 5' and 3'
ends) of the Bt toxin and is the smallest
fragment that still
possesses toxicity to insects. (See: M. Vaeck
et al. Nature 328,
33-37, 1987, as cited by Heine Deelstra).
* BT: Why is it a bad thing if they are not identical?
- BT: This means
that, unlike the natural Bt toxin, the Bt
corn toxin has never existed in nature, until
Bt corn started
synthesizing it. It is risky to put into our
gut any substance
which our gut has never seen before, because
we have not evolved
to handle such a substance. In our experience
with synthetic
chemicals, this has led to various long-term
problems like
cancers.
+ BT: The Bt
natural gene produces a large, inactive
pro-toxin that is about 1200 amino acids in
length. This
pro-toxin releases upon digestion by proteases
(in the insects
gut) an active 68,000 Dalton fragment. So
the pro-toxins of
plants and Bt may differ in length, while
the active toxic
fragment is exactly the same in size and mode
of action.
Truncation of sequences before and after the
'toxic fragment'
might affect, due to folding differences,
(1) the crystallisation
properties and (2) the susceptibility to proteases
of the
pro-toxin. The occurrence of (1) and/or (2)
are not known to me.
(Heine J. Deelstra <h.j.deelstra@bioledu.rug.nl>,
on GENTECH
list)
- BT: The Bt
corn toxin is up to 100 times more powerful
than the natural toxin. This is part of the
high-dose strategy
which supposedly delays the development of
resistance in corn
borers. However, such high doses may also
be riskier to
non-target species, including human beings
who ingest the toxin
when they eat Bt corn.
- BT: The expression
of the full-length [Bt] toxin was too
low to achieve pest resistance in plants other
than tobacco
(against the tobacco hornworm) and tomato
plants. Toxin levels
were so low that protection was not attained
against less
sensitive, but agronomically-important insect
pests. Researchers
then modified part of the Bt toxin coding
sequence so that it was
efficiently expressed (and translated) in
plants. This was done
by using a synthetic toxin gene for amino
acids 1-453 (coding for
the same amino acids as the natural Bt toxin
gene but using
codons preferred by plants) and fusing this
with the (natural)
gene fragment encoding for amino acids 454-615.
The rest of the
bacterial gene (amino acids 616-1178) was
not used. Expression of
this gene in cotton plants showed that Bt
toxin levels were
increased by 100 times and that Bt toxin constituted
0.02% of the
protein in the plant. (See: Recombinant DNA,
2nd edition by James
D. Watson et al. and Moleculaire Biologie
van Schimmels en
Planten (in Dutch), 1998 by Prof. J.G.H Wessels,
as cited by
Deelstra)
- The genetically
engineered sweetener Aspartame has caused
thousands of documented disease cases worldwide.
(From:
pmligotti@earthlink.net)
2.1.4. CLAIM: GE-FOODS DO NOT CAUSE CANCER
- HT: Since herbicide-resistant
GE-crops lead to greater
herbicide use, cancer risk can also come from
exposure to higher
levels of herbicides like bromoxynil (Rhone-Poulenc's
Buctril)
and glyphosate (Monsanto's Roundup). Authors
Marc Lappe and Britt
Bailey (Against the Grain, 1998) warn that
bromoxynil
bioaccumulates, because it is fat-soluble.
Rat and rabbit studies
have shown birth defects, other developmental
disorders in
fetuses, tumors, and carcinomas at levels
ranging from 20 to 300
parts per million. (See: Lappe, Marc and Britt
Bailey; Against
the Grain, 1998) (http:)
- HT: Glyphosate
exposure, on the other hand, can triple the
risk of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, say cancer
specialists Dr.
Lennart Hardell and Dr. Mikael Eriksson of
Sweden's Orebro
Hospital, in a study published in the American
Cancer Society
journal (See: Cancer, 3/15/99) (http:)
- RBGH: U.S.
food campaigner Robert Cohen warns about the
hormone Insulin-like Growth Factor-1 (IGF-1),
identical versions
of which occur in cows and humans. In 1994,
Cohen says, the U.S.
FDA approved the use of a GE-hormone (rBGH)
in cows to stimulate
milk production. Using rBGH raises IGF-1 levels
in cows' milk by
80%. IGF-1, Cohen warns, is a key factor in
prostrate cancer
(Science, 1/98), breast cancer (The Lancet,
5/98), and lung
cancer (Journal of the NCI, 1/99). Most recently,
Cohen cites a
report in the Journal of the American Dietetic
Association
(10/99, p.1231), which found IGF-1 levels
in the blood of milk
drinkers 10% higher than in non-drinkers.
The implication:
GE-milk exposes its drinkers to higher cancer
risks. (See: )
- RBGH: On December
15, 1998, the Center for Food Safety, on
behalf of a broad coalition, filed a legal
petition in
Washington, D.C. against the FDA to have rBGH
taken off the
market. The CFS petition cites mounting evidence
that the
original testing of rBGH was flawed. In 1990
the FDA said BGH was
"safe for human consumption." Part of its
findings were based on
90-day rat feeding studies in which they reported
"no
toxicologically significant changes..." Based
largely on this
conclusion, FDA did not require human toxicological
tests usually
required for a veterinary drug. However in
April 1998,
researchers from Health Canada, the Canadian
equivalent to FDA,
issued a report contradicting FDA's findings.
Canadian
researchers found studies showing that rats
were absorbing rBGH
after all. In fact, between 20 and 30 percent
of the rats were
developing distinct immunological reactions.
Additionally, cysts
formed in the thyroid of some male rats and
infiltrated the
prostate - both warning signs for potential
cancer hazards.
- RBGH: Milk
from cows injected with rBGH, which is not
analogous to normal BGH (7), has elevated
insulin-like growth
factor that is implicated as a risk factor
in human breast cancer
(8,9). (See: "Will genetically engineered
crops mean adulterated
and toxic food, bodies, and ecosystems?",
Michael W. Fox, Senior
Scholar/ Bioethics, The Humane Society of
the United States 2100
L Street, NW Washington, DC 20037)
- RBGH: The EU
Scientific Committee on Animal Health and
Animal Welfare on Animal Health Aspects of
the Use of Bovine
Somatotropin, rBST, (adopted March 10th 1999)
has recommended
that, due to foot problems, mastitis and injection
site reactions
in dairy cows, rBST from an animal welfare
and health point of
view, should not be used. This is an important
recommendation
given the upcoming vote on rBST in International
Trade.
- RBGH: At the
previous 22nd Codex session, the Codex
Alimentarius Commission decided to suspend
the consideration of
Maximum Reside Limits for rBGH. The reason
for the suspension was
so that scientific data could be re-evaluated.
Since then, there
has been more evidence that rBGH is not safe.
The 23rd Session of
the Codex Alimentarius Commission was held
in Rome, June 28 -
July 3, 1999. Since the U.S. realized that
they were not going to
win on this issue, they essentially dropped
it.
+ These examples
are not due to the effect of GE but rather
the use of the chemicals or hormones.
- HT:/RBGH: But
the higher cancer risks are the consequence
of GE products (more herbicide residues in
food, higher IGF-1
levels in milk, etc.). People would not have
been exposed to
these risks if HT crops or rBGH had not been
developed.
2.1.5. CLAIM: GE-FOODS DO NOT GIVE RISE TO PATHOGENS
- "The evidence
is now overwhelming that horizontal gene
transfer has been responsible for both the
rapid spread of
antibiotic resistance and for the emergence
of virulent strains
of pathogens in recent years... One main contributing
factor to
the recent increase in the scope and frequency
of horizontal gene
transfers may be the deliberate acts of genetic
engineers to
break down species barriers. They do so by
constructing a range
of chimaeric vectors for cloning, and transferring
genes... Thus,
genetic engineering biotechnology has opened
effectively opened
up highways for horizontal gene transfer and
recombination, where
previously, there was only restricted access
through narrow,
tortuous footpaths." (See: Mae Wan-Ho, Terje
Traavik, Orjan
Olsvik, Tore Midtvedt, Beatrix Tappeser, C.
Vyvyan Howard,
Christine von Weizsaecker, and George C. McGavin;
Gene Technology
in the Etiology of Drug-resistant Diseases,
1998.
+ Their conclusion
is unsupported by there data; no recent
increase of transfer has been observed.
- In May 1999,
the British Medical Association, which
counts some 80% or nearly 115,000 of Britain's
medical doctors,
issued an official statement in May 1999 expressing
concern over
the safety of GE-foods. The BMA recommended
a moratorium on
planting commercial GE-crops in the UK "until
there is scientific
consensus (or as close agreement as reasonably
achievable) about
the potential long-term environmental effects."
The BMA also
called for 1) segregation at source, "to enable
identification
and traceability" of GE-foods; 2) labelling
GE-imports and
banning unlabelled ones, if the industry refuses
to segregate;
and 3) more robust systems of disease surveillance,
to deal with
"potential emergence of new diseases associated
with GM material
which will be obscure and difficult to diagnose".
(See: "The
Impact of Genetic Modification on Agriculture,
Food and Health",
British Medical Association, May 1999)
- Mae Wan-Ho
and Angela Ryan of the UK Open University
warned last July 1999 that "no transgenic
plant containing the
CaMV promoter should be released," because
the Cauliflower Mosaic
Virus (CaMV) promoter is "very likely to recombine
with other DNA
in the host genome, including dormant viral
DNA, as well as with
other viruses in the host cell." The problem
covers practically
all GE-plants released so far. These GE-plants,
according to
Ryan, "have the potential to create new viruses
or other invasive
genetic elements." (See: )
- There is potential
for vector recombination to generate
new virulent strains of viruses, especially
in transgenic plants
engineered for viral resistance with viral
genes. In plants
containing coat protein genes, there is a
possibility that such
genes will be taken up by unrelated viruses
infecting the plant.
In such situations, the foreign gene changes
the coat structure
of the viruses and may confer properties such
as changed method
of transmission between plants. The second
potential risk is that
recombination between RNA virus and a viral
RNA inside the
transgenic crop could produce a new pathogen
leading to more
severe disease problems. Some researchers
have shown that
recombination occurs in transgenic plants
and that under certain
conditions it produces a new viral strain
with altered host
range. (Steinbrecher, R.A. (1996) From Green
to Gene Revolution:
the environmental risks of genetically engineered
crops. The
Ecologist 26, 273-282. As cited in: "Ten reasons
why
biotechnology will not ensure food security,
protect the
environment and reduce poverty in the developing
world"; Miguel
A. Altieri, UC Berkeley and Peter Rosset,
Institute for Food and
Development Policy, Oakland, CA)
- The Cauliflower
Mosaic Virus (CaMV) and HIV have
interchangeable components, according to five
researchers of the
John Innes Centre and Sainsbury Laboratory
(UK). (See John Innes
Centre Annual Report, 1998/1999) If they meet
in nature, they
could recombine to form chimeric viruses with
potentially
devastating properties. (jcummins@julian.uwo.ca,
6 Nov 1999) This
can happen, for instance, if pollen from a
GE plant is inhaled by
an HIV-positive or AIDS-stricken person.
- The 1999 UK
John Innes Centre and Sainsbury Laboratory
Annual report specifically acknowledges that
this particular
viral promoter is prone to 'recombination'
events (see
http://www.btinternet.com/~nlpwessex/Documents/camv.htm
for more
information).
- One must consider
not only the "fate" of GMOs but also the
genes and viruses or parts thereof, that have
been inserted into
them. Such "naked DNA", in the form of recombinant
and modified
nucleic acids, has been found capable of surviving
and remaining
functional longer after organisms' death than
was assumed
previously.(6,30) Furthermore, xenobiotics,
especially dioxins
and various agrichemicals, can act as mutagens
(31), altering the
structure and sequence of DNA and also increasing
the
permeability of cells and the incorporation
of foreign DNA into
living organisms. (See: "Will genetically
engineered crops mean
adulterated and toxic food, bodies, and ecosystems?",
Michael W.
Fox, Senior Scholar/ Bioethics, The Humane
Society of the United
States 2100 L Street, NW Washington, DC
20037)
- The use of
the Cauliflower Mosaic Viral promoter (CaMV)
has the potential to reactivate dormant viruses
or create new
viruses in all species to which it is transferred.
CaMV is known
to be found in practically all current transgenic
crops released
commercially or undergoing field trials. This
transgenic
instability increases the possibility of promotion
of an
inappropriate over-expression of genes to
the transferred
species. The development of cancer may be
one consequence of such
inappropriate over-expression of genes. The
scientists behind the
research "strongly recommend that all transgenic
crops containing
CaMV 35S or similar promoters which are recombinogenic
should be
immediately withdrawn from commercial production
or open field
trials. All products derived from such crops
containing
transgenic DNA should also be immediately
withdrawn from sale and
from use for human consumption or animal feed".
(See: Mae-Wan Ho,
Angela Ryan, and Joseph Cummins, "Cauliflower
Mosaic Viral
Promotor - A recipe for Disaster?", Microbial
Ecology in Health
and Disease (Dec 1999).
2.1.6. CLAIM: GE-FOODS DO NOT CAUSE ANTIBIOTIC-RESISTANCE
- Many GE-foods
contain antibiotic-resistance marker (ARM)
genes. These genes can be acquired by harmful
bacteria through
horizontal gene transfer, making it more difficult
to cure
diseases.
+ There is very
low probability that ARM genes in GE-plants
can transfer to pathogenic bacteria.
- In May 1999,
The British Medical Association called for a
"ban on the use of antibiotic resistance marker
genes in GM food,
as the risk to human health from antibiotic
resistance developing
in micro-organisms is one of the major public
health threats that
will be faced in the 21st Century." (See:
"The Impact of Genetic
Modification on Agriculture, Food and Health",
British Medical
Association, May 1999) (http:/)
+ Modified DNA
quickly breaks down in the gut, so it cannot
transfer antibiotic resistance
- Using an "artificial
gut", Dutch researchers showed that
DNA remains intact for several minutes in
the large intestine. If
the GE bacteria were a type normally found
in the gut, such as
Enterococcus, the experiment showed each had
a 1 in 10 million
chance of passing DNA containing ARM genes
to an native gut
bacterium when they came in contact. There
are normally around a
thousand billion gut bacteria, suggesting
that many would be
transformed. If some normal gut bacteria were
killed off - as in
the guts of people or animals in antibiotics
- the transfer rate
from gut-type bacteria increased tenfold.
(See: New Scientist, 30
Jan 1999)
- Safer New Screen
for GM Crops: Rockefeller University and
University of Singapore researchers can now
screen for GM crops
without having to insert an ARM gene. The
new method, described
in Nature, uses a gene that enhances a plant's
use of its own
growth hormones. (Irish Times, 13 Sep 1999)
If ARM genes are
safe, why are so much research funds being
spent looking for
alternatives to these genes?
+ Because plants with ARM genes won't sell, that's why.
- They won't
sell because medical doctors, like members of
the British Medical Association, have warned
against their
dangers.
- Countries which have banned the use of ARM genes: Norway
- Countries where
a ban on the use of ARM genes has been
proposed: Europe (See:)
2.1.7. CLAIM: GE-FOODS DO NOT AFFECT OUR IMMUNE SYSTEM
- Twenty two
leading scientists recently declared that
animal test results linking GE foods to immuno-suppression
are
valid. (NYTimes full page ad, 18 Oct 1999)
2.1.10. OTHERS
- HT: Lappe
and Bailey also noted the "remarkably high
estrogenic activity of soy isoflavones," elevated
levels of which
have been found in herbicide-treated GE-soya.
"If ingested by
nursing infants, these isoflavones can produce
circulating levels
equivalent to 13,000 to 22,000 times the normal
plasma estradiol
concentrations found in babies, with unknown
and potentially
dangerous secondary effects," they warned.
Early exposure to
estrogens, they wrote, is associated with
sex organ dysfunctions
and higher risks of vaginal adenocarcinoma
and other tumors.
(See: Lappe, Marc and Britt Bailey; Against
the Grain, 1998)
+ HT: On the
isoflavone statement reread
http://www.gene.ch/gentech/1999/Jul-Aug/msg00200.html
(From: "H J
Deelstra" <H.J.Deelstra@bioledu.rug.nl>)
- The Scottish
Crop Research Institute and the University of
Dundee, reported that the snowdrop lectin
(the same lectin
Pusztai used in his GE-potato study) can bind
with human white
blood cells, raising questions about safety
of the lectin itself.
(See: The Lancet, Oct 1999) (http:)
2.2. CLAIM: GE-CROPS DON'T HARM THE ENVIRONMENT
- Summary: Once
released into the environment, live GE
organisms will be practically impossible
to recall and will be a
permanent source of genetic contamination
and pollution. We
therefore oppose field releases, including
field-testing, of
live GE organisms.
2.2.1. CLAIM: GENETIC CONTAMINATION (ESCAPE AND SPREAD) CAN BE AVOIDED
+ Pollen does
not travel very far. Isolation distances of
50-100 meters will prevent any genetic contamination.
- Pollen can
be carried by wind, bees and other insects,
birds, and other pollinators. Animals can
eat seeds and then
travel long distances. Their droppings can
contain viable seeds.
People can inadvertently transport seeds hundreds
or even
thousands of kilometers from the source.
- Studies in
Denmark, Scotland and Lower Saxony in Germany
have shown that GMO rapeseed can pass on its
traits to, not only
non-GMO rapeseed, but also weedy relatives
up to 2.5 km away.
This can lead to superweeds.
- Research by
the Scottish Crop Research Institute reported
at the Gene Flow in Agriculture: Revelence
for Transgeneic Crops
Conference, Keele University April 1999 (British
Crop Protection
Council Symposium Proceedings No 72) reported
oilseed rape pollen
at 4km from a field of oilseed rape.
- Scientists
from the Scottish Crop Research Institute in
Dundee have shown that as high as 7% of the
natural rape plants
in a field 400 meters away were pollinated
by GM pollen. They
said that oilseed rape pollen had been found
4 km away from the
nearest source - further than it had been
previously discovered.
They said "bees may be important pollen vectors
over a range of
distances" and concluded that "the results
suggest that
farm-to-farm spread of OSR [oilseed rape]
transgenes will be
widespread." (See: New Scientist, April 1999)
- The European
Commission has formulated 5-point emergency
plan if GE plants result in widespread illness
or death of
wildlife. The plan includes: 1) methods and
procedures for
controlling the GMOs in case of unexpected
spread; 2) methods for
decontamination of the areas affected and
eradication of the
GMOs; 3) methods for disposal or sanitation
of plants, animals,
soils, etc. exposed during and after the spread;
4) methods for
isolating area affected by spread; and 5)
plants for protecting
human health and environment in case undesirable
effects occur.
(See: Independent, London, 4 Apr 1999)
- Steve Jones
(professor of genetics, University College,
London): Those [transgenic] genes are going
to get out into other
plants. Everybody knows that. And we have
no idea what is going
to happen. (BBC, 12 Apr 1999)
- Spontaneous
hybrids and backcrosses occured between GE
oilseed rape and its weedy relative, Brassica
campestris, under
field conditions (Jorgensen, R.B. and B. Andersen.
1994.
Spontaneous hybridization between oilseed
rape (Brassica napus)
and weedy B. campestris (Brassicaceae): a
risk of growing
genetically modified oilseed rate. American
Journal of Botany
81:1620-1626, as cited by Kapuscinski 1999).
- HT: Transgenic,
herbicide-tolerant weed-like plants,
exhibiting high fertility and the same morphology
and chromosome
numbers as in the weedy relative, were produced
in field
experiments where GE herbicide-tolerant interspecific
hybrids
were grown together with the weedy relative.
(Mikkelsen, T.R.,
Andersen, B. and R.B.Jorgensen. 1996. The
risk of crop transgene
spread. Nature 380:31, as cited by Kapuscinski
1999)
- HT: Arabidopsis
thaliana, weed species often used for GE
studies, was found to be more prolific and
promiscuous when
genetically modified. This implies that GE
can substantially
increase the probability of transgene escape,
heightening the
risk of producing weedy or pest populations
of wild relatives. In
field studies, herbicide-resistant Arabidopsis
thaliana produced
by gene transfer of a resistance allele outcrossed
to wild
relatives roughly 20 times more often than
ordinary mutants
expressing the same mutant allele as the transgenic
plants.
(Bergelson, J., Purrington, C.B. and G. Wichmann.
1998.
Promiscuity in transgenic plants. Nature 395:
25, as cited by
Kapuscinski 1999)
- "This is only
the latest in a long list of field trials
showing that genetically engineered crops,
once released, are
totally uncontainable. They will become a
nightmare for
conventional farmers to control. For farmers
who do not want to
grow them, such as the organic sector, these
crops will be almost
impossible to avoid." (Dr. Michael Antoniou)
- John Innes
Centre, one of Europe's leading research
institute on GM crops, carried out research
commissioned by the
UK Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and
Food. They reported: GE
crops will "inevitably" contaminate organic
crops. Pollen and
seed pollution by GE crops could not be avoided
entirely and
"acceptable levels" of contamination would
have to be set. They
estimated that 1% of organically-grown plants
in any one field
could become GM hybrids because of pollen
spread. They concluded
that contamination by seed or pollen cannot
be entirely
eliminated. (BBC, 17 Jun 1999)
- Scientists
have found GM pollen in beehives nearly 5km
from an official trial site, Friends of the
Earth said today.
These are the first published monitoring results
of GM pollen
from a farm-scale trial site and show GM pollen
travelling
further than ever previously detected. It
also reveals the scale
of the threat the trials pose to non-GM and
organic farmers,
beekeepers and the wider environment, said
Friends of the Earth.
The government's rules for farm-scale trials
require only a
50-metre separation between GM crops and other
fields. (Amanda
Brown, AAP, London, 30 Sep 1999)
- Scientists
have found GM oilseed rape pollen four and a
half kilometres from a trial site. Friends
of the Earth had
contracted the National Pollen Research Unit
at University
College, Worcester to monitor airborne pollen
on roads and public
rights of way around the farm scale trial
for spring oilseed rape
at Model Farm, Pirton, Near Watlington, Oxfordshire
in June and
July 1999. Pollen traps were placed on six
bee hives sited in the
area. Two were 500 metres from the crop, two
were 2.75 kilometres
from the crop and two were 4.5 km. The pollen
was collected and
analysed by a bee and honey consultant, Sarah
Brookes, of
Evesham, Worcestershire. Six samples of airborne
pollen and 6 of
beehive pollen were sent to the laboratory
of the Federal
Environment Agency in Austria for DNA analysis.
All six beehive
samples were found to contain GM oilseed rape
pollen from an
AgrEvo variety and 2 out of 6 airborne samples.
The Government's
rules for the farm scale trials require only
a 50 metre
separation distance between GM crops and other
fields. For seed
crops and organic crops the recommended distance
is 200m. The
trial shows GM pollen at distances further
than ever previously
detected and shows the scale of the threat
the trials pose to
non-GM crops, beekeepers and the wider environment
- HT: And scientists
are finding that some GE crops, such
as herbicide-resistant canola in Canada, are
cross-pollinating
with wild relatives more widely than had been
predicted, creating
hardy weeds that can survive herbicidal sprays.
(See: Rick Weiss,
Washington Post, 15 Aug 1999)
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/health/daily/aug99/gmfood15.htm>
+ HT: Gary Barton
(Monsanto's director of biotechnology
communications): "Resistance can develop"
but superweeds - hybrid
plants resistant to herbicide - were not an
issue since they
could always be sprayed with other weedkillers
to which they were
not resistant. (See: Independent, London,
25 Apr 1999)
- HT: The potential
transfer through gene flow of genes
from herbicide resistant crops to wild or
semidomesticated
relatives can lead to the creation of superweeds.
(Lutman, P.J.W.
(ed.) (1999) Gene flow and agriculture: relevance
for transgenic
crops. British Crop Protection Council Symposium
Proceedings No.
72. Stafordshire, England. As cited in: "Ten
reasons why
biotechnology will not ensure food security,
protect the
environment and reduce poverty in the developing
world"; Miguel
A. Altieri, UC Berkeley and Peter Rosset,
Institute for Food and
Development Policy, Oakland, CA)
- HT: There is
potential for HT varieties to become serious
weeds in other crops (See: Duke l996, Holt
and Le baron l990).
(Duke, S.O. (1996) Herbicide resistant crops:
agricultural,
environmental, economic, regulatory, and technical
aspects, p.
420. Lewis Publishers, Boca Raton; See also:
Holt, J.S. and H.M.
Le Baron (1990) Significance and distribution
of herbicide
resistance. Weed Technol. 4, 141-149. As cited
in: "Ten reasons
why biotechnology will not ensure food security,
protect the
environment and reduce poverty in the developing
world"; Miguel
A. Altieri, UC Berkeley and Peter Rosset,
Institute for Food and
Development Policy, Oakland, CA)
- A scientific
report, carried out for the British
government in 1997 but not published until
now, concluded that GE
oilseed rape could breed with ordinary farmers'
crops and make
them inedible. The study, conducted by the
prestigious Scottish
Crops Institute for the Ministry of Environment,
says that
contamination of farmers' ordinary fields
is "inevitable" under
current farming practices. (UK Sunday Independent,
21 Feb 1999)
- Genetic contamination
and pollution can occur through live
DNA fragments.
- There is evidence
that foreign DNA can enter the body via
the gastrointestinal tract and cross the placenta
(1,2). (See:
"Will genetically engineered crops mean adulterated
and toxic
food, bodies, and ecosystems?", Michael W.
Fox, Senior Scholar/
Bioethics, The Humane Society of the United
States 2100 L Street,
NW Washington, DC 20037)
- STRAINS of
farm-bred fish developed to grow fat quickly
are threatening to drive Britain's majestic
wild salmon into
extinction. Millions of GM fish have escaped
into the Atlantic
from offshore farms in Europe and America.
And the new strains
are mating with wild salmon, polluting their
gene pool and
producing hybrids that can't survive in the
open ocean. (Mail, 19
Sep 1999)
- Although the
ecological risks issue has received some
discussion in government, international, and
scientific circles,
discussions have often been pursued from a
narrow perspective
that has downplayed the seriousness of the
risks. (See: Kendall,
H.W., R. Beachy, T. Eismer, F. Gould, R.
Herdt, P.H. Ravon, J
Schell and M.S. Swaminathan (1997) Bioengineering
of crops.
Report of the World Bank Panel on Transgenic
Crops, World Bank,
Washington, D.C. p. 30; See also: Royal Society
(1998)
Genetically modified plants for food use.
Statement 2/98, p. 16.
London. As cited in: "Ten reasons why biotechnology
will not
ensure food security, protect the environment
and reduce poverty
in the developing world"; Miguel A. Altieri,
UC Berkeley and
Peter Rosset, Institute for Food and Development
Policy, Oakland,
CA)
-- Dr. Norman
Ellstrand (Professor of Genetics, University
of California, one of the world's leading
authorities in genetic
engineering) on the economic implications
for farmers of gene
exchange between crops and weedy relatives:
"We see this as a
multi-million dollar problem. In Europe, there
is already a big
problem with gene flow between wild beet and
cultivated beet.
Oil-seed rape also has close relatives and
is going to cause
problems in the future. One would expect that
the kind of genes
that are now being engineered are going to
be the ones that have
a higher potentiality for causing trouble."
(From: Protect
Organic! Campaign jasonab@mediaone.net (617)
661-5609)
2.2.2. CLAIM: GE-CROPS REDUCE CHEMICAL USE
+ GE crops will
reduce the use of herbicides, insecticides
and other chemicals.
+ BT: Prakash
of Tuskegee University points out that before
Bt corn was introduced, farmers controlled
the corn borer with
conventional insecticide sprays that are toxic
not only monarch
butterfly larvae but also other desirable,
non-target species
like lady bugs. By cutting down on using these
insecticides, Bt
corn is a boon to beneficial species and the
environment.
"Ultimately the biggest benefit of biotech
will be cultivating
crops that use no herbicides, insecticides
and fertilizers at all
- and that even have nutrients and vaccines
added, possibly at
lower costs to consumers down the line," says
Prakash.
- BT: Corn farmers
very seldom spray field corn for corn
borers. Doing so will simply be a waste of
money, because the
borers are inside the corn stem, and can't
be reached by the
spray. Thus, using Bt corn does not really
reduce chemical use.
- HT: Crops engineered
to be resistant to specific
herbicides may encourage more liberal use
of those herbicides.
This has been anticipated by one manufacturer,
who has applied to
ANZFA (Australia-New Zealand Food Authority)
to have the
allowable residue of the herbicide glyphosate
(Roundup) in foods
sold in New Zealand increased by 200 times.
In areas of the USA
where GE-crops that produce their own insecticide
are grown,
pesticide use has not decreased. (See: "13
Myths about Genetic
Engineering", Consumers for Education about
Genetic Engineering,
Dunedin Polytech, as posted by Deborah E Leech
<dleech@mail.coin.missouri.edu> on the
SANET list)
- The British
Medical Association urged that: the risk that
GM crops may increase the use of herbicides
and pesticides in the
environment needs to be comprehensively assessed
to determine
their full environmental impact. (See: "The
Impact of Genetic
Modification on Agriculture, Food and Health",
British Medical
Association, May 1999)
- Patent applications
by Novartis of Basle, Switzerland
imply the need for more pesticides to get
the best out of GM
plants. The applications (WO 99/35910 and
WO 99/35913) were filed
after Novartis scientists realised that a
wide spectrum of insect
pests was attacking Bt maize, its major GM
crop. So they tried on
the Bt maize different combinations of their
pesticides. Their
patent applications identify pesticide combinations
that could
raise maize yields by 20 per cent. The same
pesticides appear to
increase the yields of other GM plants, including
herbicide-
tolerant ones. So Novartis extended its patent
applications to
cover use of the pesticides on a long list
of GM crops including
maize, cereals, soya beans, potatoes, rice,
cotton and mustard.
Novartis' patent applications belie claims
that GE crops will
reduce pesticide use. (See: Andy Coghlan and
Barry Fox, New
Scientist, 18 December 1999)
-- Section 1.5:
"All materials and/or the products produced
from genetically engineered/modified organisms
(GEO/GMO) are not
compatible with the principles of organic
production (either the
growing, manufacturing, or processing) and
therefore are not
accepted under these guidelines." (See: Codex
Guidelines for the
Production, Processing, Labelling and Marketing
of Organically
Produced Foods)
<http://www.fao.org/WAICENT/FAOINFO/ECONOMIC/ESN/codex/default.htm>
2.2.3. CLAIM: GE-CROPS DO NOT HARM DIVERSITY
- HT: The use
of HT crops undermine the possibilities of
crop diversification thus reducing agrobiodiversity
in time and
space. (Altieri, M.A. (1994) Biodiversity
and Pest Management in
Agroecosystems. Haworth Press, New York. As
cited in: "Ten
reasons why biotechnology will not ensure
food security, protect
the environment and reduce poverty in the
developing world";
Miguel A. Altieri, UC Berkeley and Peter Rosset,
Institute for
Food and Development Policy, Oakland, CA)
- Ecological
theory predicts that the large-scale landscape
homogenization with transgenic crops will
exacerbate the
ecological problems already associated with
monoculture
agriculture. Unquestioned expansion of this
technology into
developing countries may not be wise or desirable.
There is
strength in the agricultural diversity of
many of these
countries, and it should not be inhibited
or reduced by extensive
monoculture, especially when consequences
of doing so results in
serious social and environmental problems.
(Altieri, M.A. (1996)
Agroecology: the science of sustainable agriculture.
Westview
Press, Boulder. As cited in: "Ten reasons
why biotechnology will
not ensure food security, protect the environment
and reduce
poverty in the developing world"; Miguel A.
Altieri, UC Berkeley
and Peter Rosset, Institute for Food and Development
Policy,
Oakland, CA)
- The trend to
create broad international markets for single
products, is simplifying cropping systems
and creating genetic
uniformity in rural landscapes. History has
shown that a huge
area planted to a single crop variety is very
vulnerable to new
matching strains of pathogens or insect pests.
Furthermore, the
widespread use of homogeneous transgenic varieties
will
unavoidably lead to "genetic erosion," as
the local varieties
used by thousands of farmers in the developing
world are replaced
by the new seeds. (Robinson, R.A. (1996) Return
to
Resistance:breeding crops to reduce pesticide
resistance.
AgAccess, Davis. As cited in: "Ten reasons
why biotechnology will
not ensure food security, protect the environment
and reduce
poverty in the developing world"; Miguel A.
Altieri, UC Berkeley
and Peter Rosset, Institute for Food and Development
Policy,
Oakland, CA)
- A single GM
fish released into the wild could wipe out
local populations of the original species,
biologists warn in the
New Scientist (4 Dec 1999). William Muir and
Richard Howard of
Purdue University, Indiana, studied fish carrying
the human
growth hormone gene (hGH), which increases
growth rate and final
size. US and British biologists are doing
similar experiments
with GE salmon. Muir and Howard put hGH in
embryos of Japanese
medaka, a common aquarium fish, which then
matured faster and
produced more eggs than normal fish, rapidly
spreading the new
gene. But only 2/3 of the GE medaka survived
to reproductive age,
which led the population to dwindle. In a
computer model, 60 GE
fish in a wild population of 60,000 fish,
caused extinction
within 40 generations. Even a single GE animal
could lead to
extinction, they found, but it would take
longer. "You have the
very strange situation where the least fit
individual in the
population is getting all the matings - this
is the reverse of
Darwin's model," says Muir. The researchers
say this is the first
evidence that GMOs could have catastrophic
consequences on their
own species. (See: Environmental News Service,
2 Dec 1999)
- An aquarium
fish, Japanese medaka (Oryzias latipes),
modified with a growth gene hGH were more
succesful in attracting
mates. Thus the hGH gene spread rapidly through
the population.
However only 2/3 of the GE medaka survived
to reproductive age
compared with wild medakas. Thus the spread
of the hGH gene could
make populations dwindle and eventually become
extinct. A
computer model showed that releasing 60 GE
fish into a wild
population of 60,000 resulted in extinction
in just 40
generations. Even a single modified fish could
also result in
extinction, though over a longer period. The
work may also apply
to salmon who have similar mating preferences.
(See: Proceedings
of the National Academy of Sciences, vol 96,
p 13 853)
2.2.4. CLAIM: THE DEVELOPMENT OF BT RESISTANCE CAN BE CONTROLLED
+ BT: Resistance
will be controlled by using a high-dose
strategy to kill all corn borers, and requiring
farmers to plant
20-40% of their fields with non-Bt corn, to
provide susceptible
pests who will mate with resistant pests
- BT: Farmers
find it ridiculous to be required to reserve
20-40% of their crops as feed for pests they
want to eliminate in
the first place.
- BT: In the
earliest days of the debate, the suggested
refugia size was 5%. Later, it rose to 10%.
Now, it is 20-40%. If
the trend continues, they will be suggesting
a 100% non-Bt field
soon, which is what we've been arguing for
in the first place.
- BT: The high-dose/refugia
strategy can only work
resistance is recessive and: i) dose should
be very toxic so that
all heterozygotes for resistance are killed;
ii) resistance
alleles are very rare; and iii) susceptible
insects are within
mating distance of resistant insects. ECB
have been found to
exhibit resistance to Bt toxin in a dominant
way, which will
hasten instead of retard the spread of resistance.
(See: Science
284: 965-967, 1999)
- BT: F.Huang,
L.L.Buschman (both with the Dept. of
Entomology, Kansas State U) and W.H.McGaughey
(USDA, Agric.
Research Center Service, Grain Mktg &
Prod. Research Center): ECB
resistance to a Bt spray formulation (Dipel)
appears to be
inherited as an incompletely dominant autosomal
gene. This
contrasts with the resistance of other insects,
which has been
characterized as recessive. If it is not recessive,
the
usefulness of the high-dose/refugia strategy
may be diminished.
- BT: Dominant
mutants conferring resistance to Bt toxin can
be recovered from Corn Borers exposed to the
toxin. Such mutants
would spread like wildfire through corn fields
with refuge plots
because over half the off-springs of mating
between mutant and
wild type insects would be resistant to Bt
toxin. The refuge
would provide a rich breeding ground for spread
of the dominant
mutants. (See: "Inheritance of resistance
to Bacillus
thuringiensis toxin (Dipel ES) in the European
Corn Borer";
Haung,F., Buschman,L., Higgins,R. and McGaugen,W.,
Science, 7 May
1999:965-967, as cited by Joseph Cummins)
- BT: Bt resistance
has emerged among pink bollworms, a
major cotton pest, in Arizona cotton fields.
(See: California
Farmer Magazine, mid-January 1999)
- BT: When Monsanto
and other companies took the naturally
occurring insecticide bacterium Bt and spliced
its operating
mechanism into crops, organic farmers were
concerned that insects
would quickly become resistant to Bt, removing
a crucial tool of
environmentally sound farming only to serve
corporate interests.
These concerns are being borne out in last
year's cropping
trials. (See: "Wake-up call for biotech foods",
Wisconsin State
Journal, 22 Apr 1999)
- BT: At the
same time, recent studies have pointed to a
variety of other problems that seem to be
emerging from Bt corn.
One report, for example, suggests that the
EPA's primary strategy
for preventing the emergence of Bt-resistant
insects-a plan that
calls for planting "refuges" of conventional
corn in nearby
fields-may be doomed to fail because Bt resistance
genes in
insects behave differently than scientists
had thought. (See:
Rick Weiss, Washington Post, 15 Aug 1999)
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/health/daily/aug99/gmfood15.htm>
- BT: Another
study showed that Bt can alter the time it
takes an insect to reach adulthood. That could
dash the EPA's
hopes that Bt-resistant insects will mate
with Bt-susceptible
ones and give birth to offspring still vulnerable
to the
chemical. (See: Rick Weiss, Washington Post,
15 Aug 1999)
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/health/daily/aug99/gmfood15.htm>
- BT: GM plants
which produce their own insecticides
closely follow the pesticide paradigm, which
is itself rapidly
failing due to pest resistance to pesticides.
Instead of the
failed "one pest-one chemical" model, GE emphasizes
a "one
pest-one gene" approach, shown over and over
again in laboratory
trials to fail, as pest species rapidly adapt
and develop
resistance to the pesticide present in the
plant. (Alstad, D.N.
and D.A. Andow (1995) Managing the Evolution
of Insect Resistance
to Transgenic Plants. Science 268, 1894-1896.
As cited in: "Ten
reasons why biotechnology will not ensure
food security, protect
the environment and reduce poverty in the
developing world";
Miguel A. Altieri, University of California,
Berkeley and Peter
Rosset, Institute for Food and Development
Policy, Oakland, CA)
- BT: Not only
will the new GM varieties fail over the
short-to-medium term, despite so-called voluntary
resistance
management schemes (Mallet, J. and P. Porter
(1992) Preventing
insect adaptations to insect resistant crops:
are seed mixtures
or refugia the best strategy? Proc. R. Soc.
London Ser. B. Biol.
Sci. 250. 165-169 As cited in: "Ten reasons
why biotechnology
will not ensure food security, protect the
environment and reduce
poverty in the developing world"; Miguel A.
Altieri, UC Berkeley
and Peter Rosset, Institute for Food and Development
Policy,
Oakland, CA), but in the process may render
useless the natural
pesticide "Bt," which is relied upon by organic
farmers and
others desiring to reduce chemical dependence.
Bt crops violate
the basic and widely accepted principle of
"integrated pest
management" (IPM), which is that reliance
on any single pest
management technology tends to trigger shifts
in pest species or
the evolution of resistance through one or
more mechanisms (NRC
l996). (National Research Council (1996) Ecologically
Based Pest
Management. National Academy of Sciences,
Washington DC. As cited
in: "Ten reasons why biotechnology will not
ensure food security,
protect the environment and reduce poverty
in the developing
world"; Miguel A. Altieri, UC Berkeley and
Peter Rosset,
Institute for Food and Development Policy,
Oakland, CA)
- BT: When the
product is engineered into the plant itself,
pest exposure leaps from minimal and occasional
to massive and
continuous exposure, dramatically accelerating
resistance.
(Gould, F. (1994) Potential and Problems with
High- Dose
Strategies for Pesticidal Engineered Crops.
Biocontrol Science
and Technology 4, 451-461. As cited in: "Ten
reasons why
biotechnology will not ensure food security,
protect the
environment and reduce poverty in the developing
world"; Miguel
A. Altieri, UC Berkeley and Peter Rosset,
Institute for Food and
Development Policy, Oakland, CA)
- BT: Bt will
rapidly become useless, both as a feature of
the new seeds and as an old standby sprayed
when needed by
farmers that want out of the pesticide treadmill.
(Pimentel, D.,
M.S. Hunter, J.A. LaGro, R.A. Efroymson, J.C.
Landers, F.T.
Mervis, C.A. McCarthy and A.E. Boyd (1989)
Benefits and Risks of
genetic Engineering in Agriculture.BioScience
39, 606-614. As
cited in: "Ten reasons why biotechnology will
not ensure food
security, protect the environment and reduce
poverty in the
developing world"; Miguel A. Altieri, UC Berkeley
and Peter
Rosset, Institute for Food and Development
Policy, Oakland, CA)
+ BT: Resistance
has already been observed in Hawaii where
dusts containing Bt spores were repeatedly
applied onto the same
field (up to 15X in one year). So, resistance
development is not
unique to GE.
- BT: Expressing
the Bt toxin in the plant is the fastest
way to develop resistance, because it releases
the toxin 24 hours
a day, in all parts of the plant, whether
there is infestation or
not. This is like spraying daily whether there
is a pest or not,
or taking antibiotics daily, whether you are
sick or not. If
true, the Hawaii case stresses the need to
use insect control
measures sparingly, only when they are really
needed.
2.2.5. CLAIM: BT IS NOT HARMFUL TO NON-TARGET SPECIES
+ BT: The Bt toxin will not harm non-target species.
- BT: Iowa researchers
have found Bt corn pollen deadly to
monarch butterflies. First, the Iowa study
determined the amount
of corn pollen deposited on A. syriaca leaves
within and adjacent
to a Bt corn field at 0 m, 1m, and 3m. The
highest levels of
pollen deposition was found on plants within
the corn field, and
lowest levels found at three meters from the
edge of the corn
field. Leaf samples taken from within and
at the edge of the corn
field were used to assess mortality of first
instar monarch, D.
plexippus exposed Bt and non-Bt corn pollen.
Within 48 hours,
there was 19% mortality in the Bt corn pollen
treatment compared
to 0% on non-Bt corn pollen exposed plants
and 3% in the no
pollen controls. (See: "Non-target effects
of Bt corn pollen on
the Monarch butterfly (Lepidoptera: Danaidae)"
by L. Hansen, Iowa
State University, Ames , IA 50011 and J. Obrycki,
Iowa State
University, Ames, IA 50011. (Contact e-mail:
lrahnsen@iastate.edu)
- BT: Cornell
University researchers, in a letter to the
journal Nature, May 20 issue, reported that
pollen from Bt corn
harmed monarch butterfly larvae in laboratory
tests. In the
Cornell study, one group of monarch (Danaus
plexippus)
caterpillars fed on milkweed (Asclepias curassavica)
leaves
dusted with pollen from Bt corn, another group
fed on milkweed
leaves dusted with pollen from non-GE corn,
and a third group fed
on leaves without added pollen. The researchers
found that the
caterpillars that ate leaves with pollen from
the Bt corn ate
less, grew more slowly and died sooner. Results
were similar to
those reported earlier by Hansen and Obrycki
(http://www.ent.iastate.edu/entsoc/ncb99/prog/abs/d81.html)
who
used leaves collected in corn fields. The
Cornell researchers
(Losey, Rayor and Carter, who can be contacted
at
jel27@cornell.edu) collected pollen and applied
it to lab-raised
milkweed leaves. (See: Losey, J.J.E., L.S.
Rayor and M.E. Carter
(1999) Transgenic pollen harms monarch larvae.
Nature 399: 214)
- BT: Concerns
over impact on birds that feed on insects
targetted by Bt crops like the skylark, linnet
and corn bunting
in the UK.
- BT: Bt crops
have a negative effect on Chrysoperla carnea,
a beneficial insect, based on three studies
by A. Hilbeck, M.
Baumgartner, et. al. of the Swiss Federal
Research Station for
Agroecology and Agriculture. The green lacewings
suffered
reproductive problems and reduced longevity.
(See: Hilbeck, A.,
Baumbartner, M., Fried, P.M. and F. Bigler,
1998. Effects of
transgenic Bt corn-fed prey on mortality and
development time of
immature Chrysoperla carnea (Neuroptera: Chrysopidae).
Environmental Entomology 27:480-487, as cited
by Kapuscinski
1999))
- BT: Still other
studies suggest that Bt corn may be
inadvertently killing beneficial insects such
as ladybugs and
lacewings, which eat insect pests. If true,
then the insecticidal
crops may be giving reprieves to as many insect
pests as they are
killing. (See: Rick Weiss, Washington Post,
15 Aug 1999)
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/health/daily/aug99/gmfood15.htm>
- BT: Beneficial
insects that feed on insect prey reared on
transgenic insect-resistant crops exhibited
increased mortality
and reduced developmental time (See: Birch,
A N.E., Geoghegan,
I.E., Majerus, M.E.N., Hackett, C., and J.
Allen. 1996/7,
Interactions between plant resistance genes,
pest aphid
populations and beneficial aphid predators.
Scottish Crop
Research Institute Annual Report, 1996/7:
68-72, as cited by
Kapuscinski 1999) Researchers led by Dr. Nicholas
Birch of the
Scottish Crop Research Institute, Dundee,
fed GE GNA potato to
aphids, which were in turn fed to ladybird
beetles. The
ladybirds' lives were shortened by up to half
the expected
life-span, and their fertility and egg-laying
was significantly
reduced. Females were apparently affected
more seriously than
males and a change of diet to aphids not exposed
to GE plants
seemed to reverse the process. Potato aphids
were fed to adult
two-spot ladybirds for 12 days, before switching
back to non-GE
diet. Female ladybirds fed with GE-affected
aphids died on the
average after 36 days, compared with the 74
days of those in a
control group fed on aphids not exposed to
a GE diet. The study
was published in the scientific journal Molecular
Breeding. (See:
Guardian, London, 4 Mar 1999)
* Butterfly populations
are at an almost 30-year low in the
Sacramento Valley, adjacent foothills and
the Sacramento-San
Joaquin River Delta, researchers say. Entomologists
find the data
particularly worrisome because the decline
is so widespread and
there is no clear reason for it. Some species
that typically are
very common - including orange sulphur butterflies
- have been
almost absent in the region this year. A few
varieties were up in
numbers, but the overall trend was way, way
down. ``In all
candor, I don't understand this,'' said Arthur
Shapiro, an
entomologist at the University of California
at Davis. ``Many
more species are down than up. If this were
the stock market,
investors would be worried.'' Monarchs, large
orange-and-black
migratory butterflies that are among the most
easily identified
of insects, also declined. At Natural Bridges
State Beach in
Aptos (Santa Cruz County), where Northern
California monarchs
winter, 14,000 butterflies were counted, down
from an average of
about 60,000. Shapiro said there is no evidence
linking
California monarch declines with GM crops.
Shapiro said there is
no apparent reason for the decline. ``Pesticide
use patterns
haven't really changed and recent habitat
loss hasn't been
sufficient to account for this,'' he said.
``Nothing has really
changed that can explain these oddities, unless
something subtle
is going on that has finally reached a threshold
level.'' (Glen
Martin, San Francisco Chronicle, 22 December
1999)
<http://www.commondreams.org/>
- Shapiro's response
in the above case of crashing
butterfly populations shows how some scientists
can totally miss
the obvious. Bt toxin kills lepidopterans,
butterflies are
lepidopterans. Since 1997, millions of acres
of field have been
planted with Bt corn. How can Shapiro say
that "there is no
evidence" linking these declines to GM crops,
or that "nothing
has really changed that can explain these
oddities"? At least,
he should point out the Bt crops are one possible
cause, and this
should be explored further.
2.2.6. CLAIM: GE-CROPS HAVE NO HARMFUL EFFECT ON SOIL ECOLOGY
+ BT: Bt toxin
from GE-plants is very short-lived in soil
(Eric Sachs of Monsanto, in response to a
question re impacts of
Bt corn on soil microbial community, 18 Jun
1999 EPA-USDA Bt corn
workshop, as cited by Charles Benbrook)
- BT: GE crops
are building up Bt toxins in the soil,
damaging the soil food web and harming beneficial
insects. (Gene
Exchange, Union of Concerned Scientsts, Fall/Winter
1998)
- BT: New York
University researchers found out that unlike
natural Bt toxin, the active toxin produced
by Bt crops do not
disappear when added to soil, but become rapidly
bound to soil
particles, and are not broken down by soil
microbes. The
researchers contend that these GE Bt toxins
can build up in the
soil, killing Bt-sensitive soil organisms
and increasing
selection pressure for resistance to develop.
In addition, a
broader range of organisms is likely to be
susceptible to the
active, GE toxins. (See: Seedling, Mar 1999,
Vol 16 No 1)
- BT: "Bound
humic acid-toxin complexes were toxic to larvae
of the tobacco hornwork (Manduca sexta). The
lethal concentration
necessary to kill 50% of the larvae (LC50)
of the bound toxin was
comparable with that of the free toxin, indicating
that the
binding of the toxin to humic acids did not
affect insecticidal
activity... The result of these studies indicate
that the toxins
from B. thuringiensis introduced in transgenic
plants and
microbes could persist, accumulate, and remain
insecticidal in
soil as a result of binding to humic acids,
as well as on clays,
as previously described. This persistence
could pose a hazard to
non-target organisms and enhance the selection
of toxin-resistant
target species." (See: C.Crecchio and G.Stotzky
1998.
Insecticidal activity and biodegradation of
the toxin from
Bacillus thuringiensis subsp. Kurstaki bound
to humic acids from
soil. Soil Biol. Biochem. 30: 463-470). See
also: J. Koskella and
G. Stotzky, "Microbial Utilization of Free
and Clay-Bound
Insecticidal Activity after Incubation with
Microbes," Applied
and Env. Microbiology, Sep 1997: 3561-3568.
See further: H. Tapp
and G. Stotzky, "Persistence of the Insecticidal
Toxin from Bt
subsp. Kurstaki in Soil," Soil Biology and
Biochemistry, Vol 30
No 4 1998: 471-476.)
- BT: Bt toxin
present in crop foliage plowed under after
harvest can adhere to soil colloids for up
to 3 months,
negatively affecting the soil invertebrate
populations that break
down organic matter and play other ecological
roles. (See:
Donnegan, K.K., C.J. Palm, V.J. Fieland, L.A.
Porteous, L.M.
Ganis, D.L. Scheller and R.J. Seidler (1995)
Changes in levels,
species, and DNA fingerprints of soil micro
organisms associated
with cotton expressing the Bacillus thuringiensis
var. Kurstaki
endotoxin. Applied Soil Ecology 2, 111-124.
As cited in: "Ten
reasons why biotechnology will not ensure
food security, protect
the environment and reduce poverty in the
developing world";
Miguel A. Altieri, UC Berkeley and Peter Rosset,
Institute for
Food and Development Policy, Oakland, CA)
(See also: Palm, C.J.,
D.L. Schaller, K.K. Donegan and R.J. Seidler
(1996) Persistence
in Soil of Transgenic Plant Produced Bacillus
thuringiensis var.
Kustaki (-endotoxin. Canadian Journal of Microbiology
(in press).
As cited in: "Ten reasons why biotechnology
will not ensure food
security, protect the environment and reduce
poverty in the
developing world"; Miguel A. Altieri, UC Berkeley
and Peter
Rosset, Institute for Food and Development
Policy, Oakland, CA)
- BT: DNA released
from living and dead cells can persist in
the environment and be transferred to other
organisms. An
organism may be dead, but its "naked" DNA
released from decaying
cells may remain biologically active for potentially
thousands
years, especially in certain soils and marine
sediments. (30)
Naked DNA (nucleic acids) ingested by mice
can be transferred to
offspring and be voided and spread in animals'
feces. (2) (See:
"Will genetically engineered crops mean adulterated
and toxic
food, bodies, and ecosystems?", Michael W.
Fox, Senior Scholar/
Bioethics, The Humane Society of the United
States 2100 L Street,
NW Washington, DC 20037)
- BT: Studies
Note Risks of GM Plants: Dr. Guenther
Stotzky, soil microbiologist at New York University,
has found
that Bt toxin in the soil, as it might be
found after a crop is
plowed under, can remain active for at least
eight months. "We
were surprised," Dr. Stotzky said. "I'm sure
it hangs around
longer. We just terminated the experiment
after eight months."
- Ethanol-producing
GE microbes had adverse effects on wheat
plants grown on sandy soil (Holmes, M.T.,
Ingham, E.R. Doyle,
J.D. and C.W.Hendricks. 1998. Effects of Klebsiella
planticola
SDF20 on soil biota and wheat growth in sandy
soil. Applied Soil
Ecology 326:1-12, as cited by Kapuscinski
1999)
- BT: The Dec.
2 issue of the scientific journal Nature
<http://www.nature.com/server-java/Propub/nature/402480A0.pdf>
describes a study which indicates that Bt
toxins from GE crops
are leaching into the soil through the plants'
root systems,
damaging or killing beneficial soil microorganisms,
and
disrupting the soil food web. The report also
documents that Bt
toxins bind with soil particles for up to
243 days and remain
toxic to soil insects for long periods of
time. This study comes
in the aftermath of other research indicating
a hazardous buildup
of Bt toxins in the soil after Bt crops are
plowed under. The
Nature study fuels the fire of a growing movement
to ban all Bt
crops because of their documented damage to
the environment and
their threat to organic agriculture. Last
February the Center for
Food Safety, Greenpeace, and the International
Federation of
Organic Agriculture Movements filed a lawsuit
in US Federal Court
to force all Bt crops off the market. See:
<http://www.icta.org>
(Organic View, Vol. 1 No. 18, 8 Dec 1999)
- BT: Dr.
Charles Benbrook (former member of the National
Academy of Sciences and head of Benbrook Consulting
Services):
"What goes on underground in a field planted
with today's Bt-corn
varieties is largely a mystery. Enhance the
toxin levels 100- to
1,000-fold and it becomes a mystery of some
consequence and
immediacy." (Organic View, Vol. 1 No. 18,
8 Dec 1999)
2.2.10. OTHERS
2.3. CLAIM: GE RISKS CAN BE MANAGED THROUGH USUAL RISK ASSESSMENT
2.3.1 CLAIM: WE HAVE ASSESSED THE RISKS FROM GE-CROPS AS MINIMAL
- In fact methods
for risk assessment of transgenic crops
are not well developed. (Kjellsson, G and
V. Simonsen (1994)
Methods for risk assessment of transgenic
plants, p. 214.
Birkhauser Verlag, Basil. As cited in: "Ten
reasons why
biotechnology will not ensure food security,
protect the
environment and reduce poverty in the developing
world"; Miguel
A. Altieri, UC Berkeley and Peter Rosset,
Institute for Food and
Development Policy, Oakland, CA)
- There is also
justifiable concern that current field
biosafety tests tell little about potential
environmental risks
associated with commercial-scale production
of GE crops. (See:
"Ten reasons why biotechnology will not ensure
food security,
protect the environment and reduce poverty
in the developing
world"; Miguel A. Altieri and Peter Rosset,
Oct 1999)
+ The benefits of GE outweigh the risks.
- Assessing risk
means to anticipate the various potentially
harmful events that can occur, and totaling
the probability of
each event multiplied by the consequence of
that event. This
means an event of low probability can still
be very risky if its
consequences are very serious. For GE organisms,
we still lack
the knowledge to anticipate many of the harmful
events, or to
measure their probability or consequences.
- Richard Lewontin,
Professor of Genetics at Harvard
University: "We have such a miserably poor
understanding of how
the organism develops from its DNA that I
would be surprised if
we don't get one rude shock after another."
(See: "13 Myths about
Genetic Engineering", Consumers for Education
about Genetic
Engineering, Dunedin Polytech)
- Funds for
research on environmental risk assessment are
very limited. For example, the USDA spends
only 1% of the funds
allocated to biotechnology research on risk
assessment, about
$1-2 million per year. Given the current level
of deployment of
GE plants, such resources are not enough to
even discover the
"tip of the iceberg". (See: "Ten reasons why
biotechnology will
not ensure food security, protect the environment
and reduce
poverty in the developing world"; Miguel A.
Altieri and Peter
Rosset, Oct 1999)
- Risks increase
as the GE organisms that carry them
multiply. Unlike oil spills, chemical releases
or nuclear leaks,
which eventually dissipate, living GE organisms
reproduce and
multiply, and they cannot be recalled once
released.
- The British
Medical Association urged that: the
precautionary principle should be applied
in developing GM crops
or foodstuffs, as we cannot at present know
whether there are any
serious risks to the environment or to human
health involved in
producing GM crops or consuming food products.
(See: "The Impact
of Genetic Modification on Agriculture, Food
and Health", British
Medical Association, May 1999)
+ There is no
such thing as zero risk or 100% safety.
Everything involves some risk.
- We are not
looking for zero risk or 100% safety. But we
must first objectively assess the actual risk
from a GE product,
so that the public or whoever will be at risk
can decide for
themselves if they want to be exposed to that
risk or not. This
decision cannot be made the scientists or
experts alone. Risk is
the product of the probability of an event
and the cost of its
consequences, if it occurs. Today, we do not
know enough about
the potentially harmful events that can occur
from GE products,
nor their probability of occuring or the cost
of their occurence.
We simply know very little today. This justifies
holding off
field releases until the public has enough
information to decide.
2.3.2. CLAIM: GE IS LIKE ANY OTHER TOOL WHOSE RISKS CAN BE MANAGED
- GE is not like
any other tool. It is a technology of
incredible power to disrupt the very basis
of life on Earth. Most
risk assessments assume well-intentioned genetic
engineers. Very
little public debate has occurred regarding
the risks associated
with GMOs that may be created by ill- or evil-intentioned
technologists with access to typical university
biotech labs.
- Joseph Rotblat,
the British physicist who won a 1995 Nobel
Prize: "My worry is that other advances in
science may result in
other means of mass destruction, maybe more
readily available
even than nuclear weapons. Genetic engineering
is quite a
possible area, because of these dreadful developments
that are
taking place there." (See: "13 Myths about
Genetic Engineering",
Consumers for Education about Genetic Engineering,
Dunedin
Polytech, as posted by Deborah E Leech
<dleech@mail.coin.missouri.edu> on the
SANET list)
2.3.10. OTHERS
2.10. OTHERS
3. SCIENTIFIC CLAIMS: GE TECHNOLOGIES ARE BASED ON SOUND SCIENCE
3.1. CLAIM: THERE IS SCIENTIFIC CONSENSUS ON THE SAFETY OF GE PRODUCTS
- There is no
scientific consensus at all. In fact, the
scientific debate on various issues has intensified,
with some
scientists insisting that GE crops are safe,
other scientists
insisting that we do not know for sure at
this time because of
lack of scientific studies, and an increasing
number of
scientists insisting they are not safe.
- Statement by
scientists: We, the undersigned scientists,
call for the immediate suspension of all environmental
releases
of GM crops and products; for patents on life-forms
and living
processes to be revoked and banned; and for
a comprehensive
public enquiry into the future of agriculture
and food security
for all. ... The hazards of GM crops and products
to biodiversity
and human and animal health are now becoming
apparent, and some
even acknowledged by sources within the UK
and US Governments. In
particular, the horizontal spread of antibiotic
resistance marker
genes from GM crops will compromise the treatment
of
life-threatening infectious diseases which
have come back
worldwide. New findings show that the horizontal
spread of
transgenic DNA can occur, not only by ingestion
but via breathing
in pollen and dust. The cauliflower mosaic
viral promoter, widely
used in GM crops, may enhance horizontal gene
transfer and has
the potential to generate new viruses that
cause diseases.
(Signed: 231 scientists from 31 countries,
14 Dec 1999)
<http://www.i-sis.dircon.co.uk>
- Here are some
highly respected scientists who have taken a
position against GE and its risks:
-- Professor
Richard Lacey, microbiologist, medical doctor,
and Professor of Food Safety at Leeds University
has become one
of the best-known figures of food science
since his prediction of
the BSE (mad cow disease) crisis, made more
than seven years ago.
Recently Professor Lacey has spoken out strongly
against the
introduction of genetically engineered foods,
because of the
essentially unlimited health risks." "The
fact is, it is
virtually impossible to even conceive of a
testing procedure to
assess the health effects of genetically engineered
foods when
introduced into the food chain, nor is there
any valid
nutritional or public interest reason for
their introduction."
(From: Protect Organic! Campaign jasonab@mediaone.net
(617)
661-5609)
-- Professor
Mae-Wan Ho of the UK Open University Department
of Biology says, "Genetic engineering bypasses
conventional
breeding by using artificially constructed
parasitic genetic
elements, including viruses, as inside cells.
These vectors slot
themselves into the host genome. The insertion
of foreign genes
into the host genome has' long been known
to have many harmful
and fatal effects including cancer of the
organism." (From:
Protect Organic! Campaign jasonab@mediaone.net
(617) 661-5609)
-- Professor
Dennis Parke of University of Surrey School of
Biological Sciences, a former chief advisor
on food safety to
Unilever Corporation and British advisor to
the US FDA on safety
aspects of biotechnology writes: "In l98 hundreds
of people in
Spain died after consuming adulterated rapeseed
(canola) oil.
This adulterated rapeseed oil was not toxic
to rats." Dr. Parke
warns that current testing procedures for
genetically altered
foods including rodent tests- are not proving
safety for humans.
He has suggested a moratorium on the release
of genetically
engineered organisms, foods, and medicines.
(From: Protect
Organic! Campaign jasonab@mediaone.net (617)
661-5609)
-- Dr. Peter
Wills, theoretical biologist at Auckland
University writes "Genes encode proteins involved
in the control
of virtually all biological processes. By
transferring genes
across species barriers which have existed
for eons between
species like humans and sheep we risk breaching
natural
thresholds against unexpected biological processes.
For example,
an incorrectly folded form of an ordinary
cellular protein can,
under certain circumstances, be replicative
and give rise to
infectious neurological disease."' (From:
Protect Organic!
Campaign jasonab@mediaone.net (617) 661-5609)
-- Dr. Joseph
Cummins, Professor Emeritus of Genetics at the
University of Western Ontario warns: "Probably
the greatest
threat from genetically altered crops is the
insertion of
modified virus and insect virus genes into
crops. It has been
shown in the laboratory that genetic recombination
will create
highly virulent new viruses -from such constructions'.
Certainly
the widely used cauliflower mosaic virus is
a potentially
dangerous gene. It is a pararetrovirus meaning
that it multiplies
by making DNA from RNA messages. It is very
similar to the
Hepatitis B virus and related to HIV. Modified
viruses could
cause famine by destroying crops or cause
human and animal
diseases of tremendous power." (From: Protect
Organic! Campaign
jasonab@mediaone.net (617) 661-5609)
-- Dr. John Fagan,
an award-winning microbiologist and
cancer researcher, Professor of Microbiology
at Maharishi
University of Management, has renounced $3
million in US
government research grants to publicize the
dangers of misuse of
biotechnology. He advocates a science-based
precautionary
approach requiring the labeling of all novel
foods. He says
"without labeling it will be very difficult
for scientists to
trace the source of new illness caused by
genetically engineered
food." (From: Protect Organic! Campaign jasonab@mediaone.net
(617) 661-5609)
3.2. CLAIM: PRO-GE SCIENTISTS ARE OBJECTIVE AND MOTIVATED BY PURE
SCIENCE
- Some 90% of
GE research is funded by the biotech
industry. (Data from Terje Traavik, University
of Tromso, Norway)
3.3. CLAIM: STUDIES WHICH HIGHLIGHT UNSAFE ASPECTS OF GE ARE FLAWED
- An increasing
number of researches, published in
peer-reviewed scientific journals, are raising
concerns about the
safety of GE crops. Instead of doing more
scientific research to
confirm these findings, the biotech industry
is instead engaging
in a dishonest media campaign to malign and
discredit independent
scientists.
3.3.1. CLAIM: PUSZTAI'S LECTIN POTATO STUDY IS FLAWED SO IT IS RIGHT
TO SACK HIM
- Dr. Arpad Pusztai,
a world-reknowned expert on lectins,
had began a #1.6-million study which indicated
that a GE-potato
diet weakened rats' immune systems and adversely
affected the
animals' internal organs. When he shared with
the media (with his
superior's permission) some of his concerns,
Pusztai was promptly
sacked from his research post. His papers
were confiscated, he
was prohibited from talking to the media,
and his research team
was closed down.
- Some 20 scientists
from 13 countries issued a statement
deploring the harsh treatment by Scotland's
Rowett Research
Institute of world-renowned British researcher
and lectin expert
Dr. Arpad Pusztai and demanding his reinstatement.
(See: )
- In April last
year [1998], a scientist, Arpad Pusztai,
from the Rowett Research Institute in Aberdeen,
UK, unwisely
announced on television that experiments had
shown intestinal
changes in rats caused by eating GE potatoes.
He said he would
not eat such modified foods himself and that
it was "very, very
unfair to use our fellow citizens as guineapigs".
A storm of
publicity overtook Pusztai. He was removed
from his job, a
sacrifice that did not quell public alarm
in the UK or in Europe.
Last week (May 22, p1769 ) we reported that
the Royal Society had
reviewed what it could of Pusztai and colleagues'
evidence and
found it flawed, a gesture of breathtaking
impertinence to the
Rowett Institute scientists who should be
judged only on the full
and final publication of their work. (See:
The Lancet, Vol 353 No
9167, 29 May 1999, "Health risks of genetically
modified foods")
- Monsanto Funded
the Rowett Research Institute: The
Institute that sacked and alienated Arpad
Pusztai over his GE
research received a sum of PST 140 000 before
the controversy
blew up. Monsanto's media adviser claims the
money was granted to
the Institute's Dairy Business Group research.
After initially
supporting the findings disclosed by Pusztai
on British
television last year, the Institute sacked
him and accused him of
scientific inaccuracy and bumbling. (Source:
Mail on Sunday,
13/2/99)
- Despite the
publication of Pusztai's research in the Oct
1999 issue of the Lancet, pro-biotech advocates
continue to
repeat the industry lie that his research
as "flawed".
- Thanks to the
courageous example of Dr. Arpad Pusztai and
other independent researchers, an increasing
number of scientists
are coming out with their research results,
which are not
necessarily favorable to the biotech industry.
3.3.2. CLAIM: HILBECK'S GREEN LACEWING STUDY IS FLAWED
- Hilbeck's study
was published in a peer-reviewed
scientific journal. (See: Hilbeck, A., Baumbartner,
M., Fried,
P.M. and F. Bigler, 1998. Effects of transgenic
Bt corn-fed prey
on mortality and development time of immature
Chrysoperla carnea
(Neuroptera: Chrysopidae). Environmental Entomology
27:480-487)
3.3.3. CLAIM: LOSEY'S MONARCH BUTTERFLY STUDY IS FLAWED
- Losey's research
was published in a peer-reviewed
scientific journal. Losey warned that their
lab findings should
not be automatically extrapolated to field
conditions. This
simply means that field studies must also
be done. Why were these
studies not done before millions of acres
were planted with Bt
corn? (See: Losey, J.J.E., L.S. Rayor and
M.E. Carter (1999)
Transgenic pollen harms monarch larvae. Nature
399: 214)
3.3.4. CLAIM: STOTZKY'S BT TOXIN SOIL PERSISTENCE STUDY IS FLAWED
-Stotzky's studies
on the soil persistence of both the
natural Bt toxin and the Bt corn toxin were
published in
peer-reviewed scientific journals. (See: C.Crecchio
and G.Stotzky
1998. Insecticidal activity and biodegradation
of the toxin from
Bacillus thuringiensis subsp. Kurstaki bound
to humic acids from
soil. Soil Biol. Biochem. 30: 463-470). See
also: J. Koskella and
G. Stotzky, "Microbial Utilization of Free
and Clay-Bound
Insecticidal Activity after Incubation with
Microbes," Applied
and Env. Microbiology, Sep 1997: 3561-3568.
See further: H. Tapp
and G. Stotzky, "Persistence of the Insecticidal
Toxin from Bt
subsp. Kurstaki in Soil," Soil Biology and
Biochemistry, Vol 30
No 4 1998: 471-476.)
3.3.5. CLAIM: MAE WAN HO'S ANTI-GE STAND IS UNSCIENTIFIC
- Ho's warnings
against the use of the Cauliflower Mosaic
Virus promoter and the danger of horizontal
gene transfer have
recently been published in peer-reviewed scientific
journals.
(See: Mae-Wan Ho, Angela Ryan, and Joseph
Cummins, "Cauliflower
Mosaic Viral Promotor - A recipe for Disaster?",
Microbial
Ecology in Health and Disease (Dec 1999).
- The biotech
industry should stop maligning independent
researchers simply because their results raise
concerns about
commercial products.
3.3.10. OTHERS
3.4. CLAIM: GE-FOODS HAVE UNDERGONE THOROUGH SCIENTIFIC TESTS
+ GE food is
extensively tested and the GE food at present
on our supermarket shelves is perfectly safe
to eat. GE foods
have been one of the most thoroughly tested
foods in history.
- The US FDA
does not require testing, just assurances from
the GE food manufacturer that the product
is safe. Glickman
acknowledged that none of the agencies responsible
for the safety
of GM foods - USDA, FDA or Environmental Protection
Agency - had
enough staff or resources to conduct such
testing. (Marian
Burros, Reuters News Service, 14 Jul 1999)
- While Glickman
stressed that most studies had indicated
that there were no known health risks to consumers,
he said no
long-term studies had been conducted - one
of the central
arguments made by Europeans. In the past few
years members of the
EU have refused to import many products that
contain GE
ingredients. (Marian Burros, Reuters News
Service, 14 Jul 1999)
- No GE food
testing is done in America. We rely almost
entirely on the testing carried out by the
GE biotech firms that
have spent billions of dollars developing
the food and intend to
make a profit selling it to us. There are
serious doubts about
the adequacy of the testing and the validity
of the conclusions
drawn from the results. Independent long-term
testing is required
before we can be sure that GE food is safe
to eat. (See: "13
Myths about Genetic Engineering", Consumers
for Education about
Genetic Engineering, Dunedin Polytech, as
posted by Deborah E
Leech <dleech@mail.coin.missouri.edu> on
the SANET list)
+ In 1996, only
one GE-food feeding test had been published
- done by Monsanto (no harmful effects observed)
(See: )
+ BT: A feeding
study on broiler chickens by a Novartis
researcher was published 1998 (no harmful
effects observed)
Abstract: "A 38-d feeding study evaluated
whether standard
broiler diets prepared with transgenic Event
176-derived "Bt"
corn (maize) grain had any adverse effects
on male or female
broiler chickens as compared to diets prepared
with nontransgenic
(isogenic) control corn grain. No statistically
significant
differences in survival or BW were observed
between birds reared
on mash or pelleted diets prepared with transgenic
corn and
similar diets prepared using control corn.
Broilers raised on
diets prepared from the transgenic corn exhibited
significantly
better feed conversion rations and improved
yield of the
Pectoralis minor breast muscle. Although it
is not clear whether
this enhanced performance was attributable
to the transgenic corn
per se, or due to possible slight differences
in overall
composition of the formulated diets, it was
clear that the
transgenic corn had no deleterious effects
in this study." The
authors also wrote that "to our knowledge,
this is the first
published large-scale feeding study of transgenic
corn." (See:
J.Brake (NCSU) and D.Vlachos (Novartis), "Evaluation
of
Transgenic Event 176 Bt corn in Broiler Chickens,"
1998, Poultry
Science 77:648-6??)
+ BT: The Bt
toxin is safe to mammals, as confirmed by rat
feeding experiments. Unlike the gut of target
insects, the
mammallian gut has no receptors which the
toxin can bind to.
- Pusztai's rat
study on GE potatoes with the GNA lectin
published October 1999 - the only independent
study so far -
observed some harmful effects (See: The Lancet,
Oct 1999) (http:)
- No feeding
studies had been done on swine or cattle (major
consumers of GE-corn and -soya), primates,
or human volunteers
- No study on the long-term effects of GE-food had been done
- Studies of
their effects in combination with other toxins
or with conventional chemicals are non-existent
(See:) (http:)
+ Millions of
Americans are already buying GE food and
nobody has gotten sick eating them.
+ Dr. Prakash
adds that every aisle of the supermarket now
has GM corn and soybean derived products,
from soaps and baby
foods to Coke, which contains GE high fructose
corn syrup. And
all the products have been widely consumed
for about two years,
with no apparent ill health effects reported.
(Dr. C.S. Prakash,
a geneticist and professor of biotechnology
at Tuskegee
University in Tuskegee, Ala.)
- The feeding
of GE-food to the American population is not
a scientific experiment but a criminal act
of doing uncontrolled
experiments on human subjects without their
knowledge or consent.
It is not possible to determine from the uncontrolled
feeding of
unlabelled GE-foods to Americans how much
foods have contributed
to the greater incidence of allergies, emergence
of new or more
virulent pathogens, or higher cancer rates.
3.10. OTHERS
4. ECONOMIC CLAIMS: GE-CROPS ARE ECONOMICALLY COMPETITIVE
- Summary: Based
on the actual experience after the 1999
harvests of U.S. farmers who planted GE crops,
it is now clear
that the market considers GE crops as undesirable
contaminants.
If mixed with a non-GE batch, that batch will
be considered
contaminated and cannot be sold in some markets
or will fetch a
lower price in other markets. Consumers want
GE-free foods, more
and more firms are going GE-free, and GE-imports
are banned in
some countries. Why plant an undesirable contaminant?
Why let a
neighbor plant an undesirable contaminant
which can
cross-pollinate and contaminate your own crops?
4.1. CLAIM: GE-CROPS WILL INCREASE YIELDS
- On the whole,
GE crops do not lead to higher yields and in
many occasions, they have in fact produced
lower yields.
- Dr. Charles
Benbrook presented evidence that farmers who
use Monsanto's RoundUp Ready soybeans are
getting lower yields
than farmers using conventional soybeans.
(See: Campaign on Food
Safety News #20, 14 Jul 1999)
- Some researchers
have shown that none of the GE seeds
significantly increase the yield of crops.
Indeed, in more than
8,200 field trials, the Roundup Ready seeds
produced fewer
bushels of soybeans than similar natural varieties,
according to
a study by Dr. Charles Benbrook, the former
director of the Board
on Agriculture at the National Academy of
Sciences. (Peter
Rosset, "World Hunger: Twelve Myths")
- Recent experimental
trials have shown that GE seeds do
not increase the yield of crops. A recent
study by the USDA
Economic Research Service shows that in 1998
yields were not
significantly different in GE versus non-GE
crops in 12 of 18
crop/region combinations. In the six crop/region
combinations
were Bt crops or HRCs fared better, they exhibited
increased
yields between 5-30%. Glyphosphate tolerant
cotton showed no
significant yield increase in either region
where it was
surveyed. This was confirmed in another study
examining more than
8,000 field trials, where it was found that
Roundup Ready soybean
seeds produced fewer bushels of soybeans than
similar
conventionally bred varieties (United States
Department of
Agriculture (1999) Genetically Engineered
Crops for Pest
Management. USDA Economic Research Service,
Washington, DC. As
cited in: "Ten reasons why biotechnology will
not ensure food
security, protect the environment and reduce
poverty in the
developing world"; Miguel A. Altieri, UC Berkeley
and Peter
Rosset, Institute for Food and Development
Policy, Oakland, CA)
- Dr Will McCarty,
University of Mississippi Extension
Service Cotton specialist: "Before you plant
transgenic
varieties, be sure you need the value-added
trait. Also evaluate
the yields of varieties with the transgenic
trait you desire, and
study the risk and benefit ratio, if any.
In other words, if you
feel you need to plant Bt and the variety
does not or has not
yielded well for you or in your area, consider
the risk of not
using it and the potential cost of additional
insect control
versus potential yield loss to planting it.
The same can be said
for a transgenic variety for herbicide tolerance.
Before you pay
extra for the convenience of using a particular
herbicide
over-the-top, be sure the variety fits your
farm and will yield
well. .... Also, transgenic varieties may
not perform as well as
did their parents. Just because you have had
good experience with
a particular variety does not mean you will
have the same results
with a transgenic version." (Agronomy Notes,
5 Oct 1999)
- Dr Alan Blaine,
soya bean specialist, University of
Mississippi extension service: "The vast majority
of the problems
soybean growers have encountered over the
last couple of years
have been on relatively new varieties. Instead
of taking 6 to 8
generations for a variety to reach the market,
we are seeing
varieties blown up and put on the market in
probably 3 to 4
generations. It is this trend that has caused
many of you to
experience poor performance from many new
varieties. Steer away
from planting a variety just because someone
tells you how good
it is. Prove it to yourself and this should
be done with no less
than 2 years of yield test data. Variations
in growing conditions
cause varietal differences to be expressed,
and 1999 really
exposed some potential weakness in several
varieties." (Agronomy
Notes, 5 Nov 1999)
-- Studies at
the Department of Entomology, Ohio State
University by Hal Wilson indicate no yield
difference between Bt
and non-Bt lines. At their Northwestern Station,
3 non-Bt maize
hybrids averaged corn borer injury of 1.08
cavities per plant
compared to 0.55 the previous week at the
Western Station. In
1997 trials at the Northwestern Station, injury
in non-Bt maize
averaged 1.66 cavities per plant, with no
significant difference
in yields between the Bt and the equivalent
non-Bt maize. This is
their third year of comparison trials. Over
this 3-year period,
corn borer injury per non-Bt plant has averaged
0.54 cavities at
the Western Station and 0.74 at the Northwestern
Station. The
results accumulated to date raise questions
about the economic
benefits of Bt-maize hybrids if such technology
must be purchased
at premium prices. (AgBiotecNet Oct 99)
<http://iris.biosci.ohio-state.edu/osuent/>
4.2. CLAIM: GE CROPS WILL REDUCE FARMERS' COSTS AND RAISE THEIR INCOME
- GE seeds cost 20-30% higher than conventional seeds.
+ BT: Bt corn will result in lower pesticide costs.
- BT: This is
offset by the higher seed costs, by the need
to maintain 20-40% of the field as sacrificial
refugia for
non-resistant corn borers, and the lower market
price of GE corn.
- Farmers incur
higher costs to segregate GE from
conventional crops.
- Because of
risks associated with GE crops insurance
companies in the USA and UK are now reluctant
to insure them.
This can raise insurance costs. (See: "13
Myths about Genetic
Engineering", Consumers for Education about
Genetic Engineering,
Dunedin Polytech, as posted by Deborah E Leech
<dleech@mail.coin.missouri.edu> on the
SANET list)
- Surveyors warned
yesterday that farmers who plant GM crops
could see their land values fall, and that
tenants of such land
might face bills to make up the shortfall.
The Royal Institute of
Chartered Surveyors (RICS) called for the
creation of a land
register through which potential buyers, and
banks, could find
out if and when GM crops had been planted
or grown on a
particular holding. However, the RICS report,
sent to the
Government's Office of Science and Technology
and other
departments, warned that growing such crops
might lower the value
of the land. In the case of tenant farmers,
a landlord could, in
effect, sue for any shortfall in land value
caused by the tenant
growing GM crops. (INDEPENDENT, London, 12
Mar 1999)
- Farmers growing
GE crops have to sign binding contracts
with the biotechnology producers. These
commit them to using
only the herbicides produced by that company
and prohibit them
from the traditional practice of saving seed
for the next season.
(See: "13 Myths about Genetic Engineering",
Consumers for
Education about Genetic Engineering, Dunedin
Polytech, as posted
by Deborah E Leech <dleech@mail.coin.missouri.edu>
on the SANET
list)
- HT: The integration
of the seed and chemical industries
appears destined to accelerate increases in
per acre expenditures
for seeds plus chemicals, delivering significantly
lower returns
to growers. Companies developing herbicide
tolerant crops are
trying to shift as much per acre cost as possible
from the
herbicide onto the seed via seed costs and/or
technology charges.
Increasingly price reductions for herbicides
will be limited to
growers purchasing technology packages. In
Illinois, the adoption
of herbicide resistant crops makes for the
most expensive soybean
seed-plus-weed management system in modern
history -between
$40.00 and $60.00 per acre depending on rates,
weed pressure,
etc. Three years ago, the average seed-plus-weed
control costs on
Illinois farms was $26 per acre, and represented
23% of variable
costs; today they represent 35-40% (Benbrook
l999). (Benbrook, C.
l999 World food system challenges and opportunities:
GMOs,
biodiversity and lessons from America's heartland
(unpub.
manuscript). As cited in: "Ten reasons why
biotechnology will not
ensure food security, protect the environment
and reduce poverty
in the developing world"; Miguel A. Altieri,
UC Berkeley and
Peter Rosset, Institute for Food and Development
Policy, Oakland,
CA) Many farmers are willing to pay for the
simplicity and
robustness of the new weed management system,
but such advantages
may be short-lived as ecological problems
arise.
-- The National
Family Farm Coalition (NFFC), consisting of
farm, conservation and rural advocacy groups
from 33 U.S. states,
has launched a 9-point petition titled "Farmers'
Declaration on
Genetic Engineering in Agriculture." It identified
the ff impacts
of GE: increased economic uncertainty among
farmers; loss of
critical markets; loss of farmer independence
due to corporate
control of the seed supply; impure products
due to genetic drift;
social and economic disruption. In their 9-point
petition, U.S.
farmers demanded: a suspension of approval
and releases of GE
seeds and agriculture products until their
comprehensive impacts
are independently assessed; liability by corporate
agribusiness
for damages from GE crops and livestock; that
GE firms bear the
burden of proof of safety as well as bear
the cost of an
independent review. (Email: nffc@nffc.net)
- Because consumers
don't want GE-food, GE crops fetch a
lower price in the market; some markets will
even reject them.
Non-GE crops now receive a premium and as
more countries reject
GE foods, the opportunities to sell GE produce
overseas are
diminishing.
-- In summary,
GE crops may in some cases increase yields
slightly. However, in the case of Bt crops,
20-40% of the fields
have to be sacrificed as refugia. Furthermore,
the seeds will
cost some 20-30% higher, and the harvest may
have to be sold at a
lower price as more and more companies try
to keep their products
GE-free in response to consumer demand. As
Deutsche Bank said, GE
crops are bound to be losers, economics-wise.
4.3. CLAIM: CONSUMERS WANT GE-FOODS
- Opinion polls
consistently show that more than 90% of
Americans support the labeling of GE foods.
A 1999 Time poll
revealed that close to 60% would avoid such
foods if they were
labeled. (NYTimes full page ad, 18 Oct 1999)
- "Ag Biotech:
Thanks, But No Thanks?" - that was the title
of a July 1999 report of investment analysts
Frank Mitsch and
Jennifer Mitchell of the Deutsche Banc Alex.
Brown, the largest
investment firm in the world. The two said
they were "willing to
believe that GMO crops are safe," but they
warned that the "no
thanks" attitude "appears to be in the lead
in Europe and could
easily become the thought process in the United
States as well."
Earlier, three analysts from the same company
had sent investors
a report entitled "GMOs Are Dead," advising
them to sell their
Pioneer Hi-Bred stocks.
<http://www.dmg.com/central/ver40/index.html>
<http://www.biotech-info.net/Deutsche.html>
- In Britain,
for example, where GE food labeling is
required, poll results last March [1999] showed
that nine out of
10 shoppers would switch supermarkets and
travel considerable
distances to avoid such food. (See: "Wake-up
call for biotech
foods", Wisconsin State Journal, 22 Apr 1999)
- Some 86% of
consumers questioned in a poll for Here's
Health magazine said they would switch to
a different supermarket
if it banned all GE products. On top of this,
84% of the same
sample of 1,030 shoppers said they would be
willing to travel
double the distance it normally takes to visit
their supermarket
if they could be sure of shopping in a GM-free
environment. (The
Press Association, 10 Mar 1999)
- More than 100
chefs and food writers launched a campaign
to oppose "freakish" GM food yesterday. Antonio
Carluccio, Antony
Worrall Thompson, Fay Maschler and Annie Bell,
food writer for
The Independent, were among those who pledged
to secure a ban on
the release of all GM organisms into the food
chain. In a joint
statement, they said: "As food professionals
we object to the
introduction of [GM] foods into the food chain.
This is imposing
a genetic experiment on the public, which
could have
unpredictable and irreversible adverse consequences.
" In a
recent Mori poll, 61 per cent of respondents
said they would not
be happy to eat GM food. (INDEPENDENT, London,
27 Jan 1999)
- Washington,
D.C.: Citing major deficiencies in the
government's regulatory system, a coalition
of environmentalists
and scientists issued a document today calling
for the suspension
of all further releases of GMOs. The Pacific
Declaration was
first drafted at a national meeting on July
26-28, 1999 at the
Commonweal Conference Center in Bolinas, California.
The
Declaration cites the failure of governmental
agencies to review
the long-term prospects for environmental
and human harm stemming
from GMOs. Among the groups endorsing the
Declaration are the
Sierra Club, Friends of the Earth, the American
Corn Growers
Association, Rural Advancement Foundation
International (RAFI),
the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy,
the Council for
Responsible Genetics, the Edmonds Institute,
and the Center for
Ethics and Toxics (CETOS). (CETOS press statement,
12 Oct 1999)
- SEOUL, Sept
9 (Reuters) - The Korea Consumer Protection
Board said last Thursday its survey had found
that 94.7 percent
of the total 526 survey respondents said labelling
for GM foods
was necessary - 71.5 percent said all the
time and 23.2 percent
in some cases. (Reuters, 9 Sep 1999)
- The ff U.S.
organizations have asked for the suspension
of all further releases of GMOs: Sierra Club,
Friends of the
Earth, the American Corn Growers Association,
Rural Advancement
Foundation International (RAFI), the Institute
for Agriculture
and Trade Policy, the Council for Responsible
Genetics, the
Edmonds Institute, and the Center for Ethics
and Toxics (CETOS).
(CETOS press release, 12 Oct 1999)
- Australian
farmers reject GE: "That the Federation oppose
the release of 'Genetic Modification' of both
livestock and other
farm produce and that we continue to promote
R&D of those
products by natural means." (Western Australian
Farmers
Federation, Rural Press Report, 15 Sep 1999)
- California
Labeling Initiative: California volunteers are
gathering signatures to put an initiative
on the ballot that
would require GE foods labeling. The initiative
would require
labeling of "crops and livestock containing
genetic material
transferred from one species to another or
other DNA
modifications not commonly possible under
natural conditions,
such as cell fusion, gene deletion or doubling,
and induced
sequence or encapsulation variations." To
qualify for the Nov
2000 ballot, 413,000 valid California voter
signatures are needed
by February 20. If such initiative passes,
implications for the
rest of the country are huge. Food firms which
are not GE-free
would need to add labels if they wanted to
do business in our
most populated state. Legislation on GE foods
is also being
considered in New York, Vermont and Minnesota
in the next year.
(Organic View, Vol. 1 No. 18, 8 Dec 1999)
- U.S.: More
than 30 farm groups in the U.S., representing
tens of thousands of farmers, have warned
their members they are
risking their livelihoods if they plant GE
crops, because these
had become so unpopular with consumers. "Export
markets in Europe
and Asia are saying 'no' to foods produced
from GM crops and
farmers know they have to respond to consumer
demand if they are
to survive," Gary Goldberg, head of the American
Corn Growers
Assoc., said. He predicted that 25% fewer
GM crops would be
planted next year in US fields, based on talks
with farmers and
local seed company salesmen. "We believe that
farmers in mass
exodus are moving away from planting GM crops
next year," he
said. The farmers' main concern is that growing
consumer demand
for traditional seed varieties will create
a two-tier market in
which GM products will fall in price. Farmers
have said they are
concerned about paying premium prices for
GM seeds and then
finding they can't sell their crops. Grain
dealer Jerry Bertrand
said: "I can't tell them with certainty that
I'll take their GM
corn and soya next year because I don't know
if there'll be a
market for it." The farm groups also warned
that inadequate
testing of GM seeds could make farmers vulnerable
to massive
lawsuits if the seeds were later found to
have negative
environmental effects. Some European countries
have banned
American maize and soya shipments because
US authorities cannot
guarantee they only contain EU-approved varieties.
The US says
this has cost it approximately $200m in maize
sales alone over
the past two years, and will raise the issue
with the WTO. (24
Nov 1999)
4.4. CLAIM: COMPANIES ARE SHIFTING TO GE-FOODS
- With more and
more major food retailers, restaurants, and
processors in Germany, Austria, Switzerland,
France, Scandinavia,
the UK, and other nations going "GE-free"
a tremendous market now
exists for certified "non-GE" and organic
products.
- GM-free feed
cannot meet rising demand: Not enough non-GM
soya or derived products are available on
the international
market to met growing demand for GM-free animal
feed, according
to [National Farmers Union]'s Dr Vernon Barber.
(See The Farmer's
Guardian, 15 Oct 1999, UK)
- AUSTRALIA:
Australian trade authorities announced Jan. 8,
1999, the largest shipment of canola (rapeseed)
ever exported
from Australia. The $16.5 million dollar shipment
is bound for
oilseed crushing plants in Europe. According
to Graham Lawrence,
managing director of the New South Wales Grains
Board, "Europe
has moved to become a major buyer this year
because Australia is
the only country to guarantee non-GM canola."
- CANADA: The
Canada press have noted continuing indecision
among rapeseed (canola oil) farmers whether
to plant GE rapeseed
in the next growing season. Over one-half
of Canada's canola crop
this year is GE. Canada has lost almost a
billion dollars in
canola sales to Europe since the GE controversy
erupted in 1997.
If Japan (which is likely) and China cut back
on canola
purchases, Canada's rapeseed farmers will
be facing economic
disaster. (Organic View, Vol. 1 No. 18, 8
Dec 1999)
- Canada has
lost $300-400 million in canola sales to
Europe IN 1998 because authorities have followed
the US model of
co-mingling GE and non-GE grains. This year
over 50% of Canada's
13.4 million acres of canola are GE.
- U.S.: There
have been virtually no corn exports from the
US to the EU States because the GE corn cannot
be separated from
the rest of the crop, costing American farmers
about $200 million
a year. (Marian Burros, Reuters News Service,
14 Jul 1999)
- BRAZIL: Almost
no US corn (nor Canadian canola oil) has
being exported to the EU for the past two
years because of
consumer resistance. Meanwhile Brazil, where
a GE ban is in
effect, is exporting record-breaking amounts
of soya to the EU;
while Australia is exporting increasing amounts
of non-GE canola
to Japan. (See: Cummins, Ronnie and Ben Lilliston,
Campaign for
Food Safety News #22, 21 Oct 1999) <http://www.purefood.org;
http://www.organicconsumers.org>
- U.S.: The National
Corn Growers Association acknowledges
that U.S. corn sales to Europe plunged from
nearly 70 million
bushels in 1997 to less than 3 million last
year because the U.S.
crop contained a small amount of GE corn.
(See: "Wake-up call for
biotech foods", Wisconsin State Journal, 22
Apr 1999)
- Last fall,
testers in Europe detected traces of GE corn
in organic corn chips made by elodi Nelson's
company, Prima Terra
Inc. of Hudson, Wis. Some of the corn supplied
to Prima Terra
from a certified organic supplier was contaminated,
it turned
out, with minuscule amounts of GE corn, perhaps
because a few
grains of GE pollen blew into the organic
grower's fields from a
neighboring farm. The positive test forced
Prima Terra to recall
87,000 bags of chips valued at $147,000. (Rick
Weiss, Washington
Post, 15 August 1999)
- Carlsberg to
Avoid GM corn: Carlsberg AS said it will
henceforth brew its beer only from malt and
no longer use corn to
reassure consumers of a GM-free product. (AFP,
12 Nov 1999)
- The maker of
Gerber baby food is dropping suppliers who
use GE corn and soybean products, the company's
CEO confirmed
today. The move by Novartis follows a request
from Greenpeace for
information on the company's use of GE products.
The company was
evaluating their use before then, said Al
Piergallini, president
and CEO of its North American consumer health
division, based in
Summit. Novartis plans to drop some of the
company's grain
suppliers this summer in favor of producers
who use non-GE corn
and soybeans. Those ingredients account for
less than 2 percent
of Gerber's products, mainly dry cereal, Piergallini
said.
Novartis said it was turning to other suppliers
anyway, and is
taking its changes a step further by adding
a new promise to try
to use only organic - pesticide- and herbicide-free
- ingredients
in Gerber products. Two other baby-food makers,
H.J. Heinz Co. of
Pittsburgh and Poway, Calif.-based Healthy
Time Natural Foods,
have made similar product changes in response
to Greenpeace
concerns. Gerber is the nation's largest maker
of baby food,
producing 5.5 million jars per day and annual
worldwide sales of
$1 billion. (AP Online, 30 Jul 1999)
- Dow Jones reported
on October 5 that the Japanese futures
market (where buyers pay in advance for future
deliveries) for US
soybeans which were harvested last year are
"declining rapidly"
because last year's soybeans "are mixed with
large amounts of GM
products." According to Dow Jones, "Japanese
[grain] traders are
rapidly switching to imports of GM-free soybeans."
With giant
importers in the EU, Japan, and other nations
now demanding
GE-free foods, more large transnational grain
traders are
expected to follow the example of Archer Daniels
Midland, who
announced in September they expect US farmers
and grain elevators
to start separating out and segregating GE
from non-GE grains.
Archer Daniels Midland purchases fully 1/3
of all corn, soybeans,
and wheat produced in the US. (See: Cummins,
Ronnie and Ben
Lilliston, Campaign for Food Safety News #22,
21 Oct 1999)
<http://www.purefood.org; http://www.organicconsumers.org>
- Europe's biggest
bank has advised the world's largest
investors to sell their shares in leading
GMO makers because
consumers do not want to buy their products.
In a report sent to
several thousand of the world's large institutional
investors,
including British pension funds, Deutsche
Bank says that "growing
negative sentiment" is creating problems for
the leading
companies, including Monsanto and Novartis.
"More broadly
speaking, it appears the food companies, retailers,
grain
processors, and governments are sending a
signal to the seed
producers that 'we are not ready for GMOs'."
Since the report was
circulated to investors, shares in companies
named have fallen
against a rising trend in stock markets generally
and the frenzy
to takeover seed companies has stopped. In
the six months to
yesterday Monsanto's stocks had fallen 11%,
and Delta & Pine, a
seed company that owns the terminator gene,
which Monsanto is
taking over, has lost 18% of its value. The
Deutsche Bank's
Washington analysts, Frank Mitsch and Jennifer
Mitchell, say it
is nine months since they first voiced their
concerns that the
biotech industry was "going the way of the
nuclear industry in
this country, but we count ourselves surprised
at how rapidly
this forecast appears to be playing out. Deutsche
Bank's first
research report, dated May 21 and entitled
GMOs Are Dead, said:
"We predict that GMOs, once perceived as a
bull case for this
sector, will now be perceived as a pariah.
"The message is a
scary one - increasingly, GMOs are, or in
our opinion, becoming a
liability to farmers," it adds. Non-GMO grains
were already
gaining a premium price which would, if the
trend continued, far
outweigh any economic benefit in growing GMOs.
GM grains would
have to be sold at a discount. "Farmers who
planted (Monsanto's)
Roundup Ready soya could end up regretting
it." It could become
an "earnings nightmare" for Pioneer Hi-Bred
(a company due to be
taken over by the chemicals giant DuPont)
and for Monsanto which
is buying Delta & Pine, a stock, the bank
says, not worth holding
on to. The concerns of European consumers
are real, concludes the
report. "European consumers have recently
been through the mad
cow crisis, the French Aids-tainted blood
crisis, the Dutch pig
plague crisis, the Belgium chicken dioxin
crisis, the Belgian
Coca-Cola crisis, etc. Therefore hearing from
unsophisticated
Americans that their fears are unfounded may
not be the best way
of proceeding." (Paul Brown and John Vidal,
GUARDIAN (London), 25
August 1999)
- Monsanto, the
beleaguered U.S. biotech firm, is coming
under intense pressure from Wall Street analysts
and professional
investors in New York to dismember itself
in the wake of the
campaign against GM food. New York's financial
community is now
convinced that successful protests from consumers
and
environmental groups in Europe have hurt Monsanto's
growth
prospects and its stock market rating so badly
that the only
option to realise some value for investors
would be some kind of
sell-off. (The Guardian, 22 Oct 1999, London)
- The following
companies are part of the growing list of
firms which have declared that they will not
use GE-ingredients
or sell GE-foods:
- AUSTRALIA:
Vitasoy International Holdings Ltd., Australia
(AFX Asia, 2 Nov 1999); Sanitarium Health
Food Company,
Australia; Cadbury-Schweppes, Australia; Master
Foods, Australia;
Mars Confectionery, Australia; Wyeth, Australia;
Heinz Watties
Australasia
- CANADA: McCain
Foods, Canada's French-fries giant (Ottawa
Citizen, 29 Nov 1999);
- New Brunswick-based
McCain Foods, the largest potato and
frozen french fry processor in the world,
announced they would no
longer accept Monsanto's Bt potatoes for their
brand-name
products. The McCain decision comes in the
wake of a recent
highly-publicized petition by 200 scientists
of Canada's own
health department to Allan Rock, the Health
Minister, saying they
lacked sufficient staff and resources to examine
potential health
risks of GE foods. (Ottawa Citizen, 29 Nov
1999)
- FRANCE: Carrefour (France's largest supermarket chain);
- ITALY: Esselunga;
- JAPAN: Nissin
Food Products; Kirin Brewery; Itochu Corp,
Japanese trading house; Itochu Feed Mills;
Sapporo Breweries;
Nippon Flour Mills; Fuji Oil Co.; Japan Tofu
Association;
- Major food
and beverage companies in Japan have begun
removing GE soybean and corn ingredients in
their products. Kirin
Brewery, Sapporo Breweries, Itochu Feed Mills,
Nippon Flour
Mills, Nissin, Fuji Oil Co., and the Japan
Tofu Association,
among others have decided to either ban GE
ingredients completely
or put a major marketing effort into sourcing
and selling GE-free
products. A division of Honda Motor Company
announced they were
building a soy-handling plant in Ohio to supply
the sharply
rising demand for non-GE soybeans in Japan.
Interpress on Oct. 14
reported a similar move by Pioneer-Hibred
Japan, who announced a
major business venture to import non-GE soybeans
from the US. In
the same article Interpress called attention
to a 1999 poll in
Tokyo where "90% of those surveyed expressed
deep concern over
the growing trend toward biotechnology." Japan
is the largest
importer of food products and animal feeds
in the world. (See:
Cummins, Ronnie and Ben Lilliston, Campaign
for Food Safety News
#22, 21 Oct 1999) <http://www.purefood.org;
http://www.organicconsumers.org>
-- Kibun Food
Chemifa Co Ltd, Japan's largest soybean milk
maker, said yesterday it will stop using GM
ingredients in its
soybean milk products by March 2000. A Kibun
official said: The
company will use rice bran oil instead of
corn oil and sugar
instead of high fructose corn syrup (HFCS),
to remove consumer
safety concerns. For soymilk, Kibun imports
non-GM soybean from
China. "We have decided to eliminate all the
GM ingredients from
soymilk products." Kibun holds 50% of Japan's
soymilk market
worth some 17 billion yen this year. (Reuters,
21 Dec 1999)
-- Nisshin Flour
Milling Co Ltd, Japan's largest flour
miller, said yesterday it will stop using
ingredients from GM
corn and soybeans in its flour products for
home use by the end
of Feb 2000. A company spokesman said: The
company will use wheat
protein instead of soybean protein due to
consumer concerns about
GE food safety. "We found it difficult to
secure a sufficient
volume of ingredients made from non-GM corn
and soybeans."
Nisshin uses 2,000 tonnes of corn starch,
soybean protein and soy
powders annually in its flour products for
home use. It is also
talking to corporate clients about eliminating
GM ingredients
from its business-use flour products. (Reuters,
21 Dec 1999)
-- Japanese corn
snack maker Tohato Inc, which is now
completely dependent on U.S. corn, plans to
switch to corn grits
made in France in order to avoid the GM label.
A Tohato spokesman
declined to say how much corn the company
uses for corn snack
production. But one trader at a Japanese trading
house estimates
Tohato needs 200 tonnes of corn a year. (Aya
Takada, Reuters, 24
Aug 1999)
- MEXICO: Grupo
Maseca, Mexico's leading producer of corn
flour;
-- SOUTH AFRICA:
Retail chain Woolworths said today it had
decided to remove all known GM foods from
its shelves until they
were proven safe, making it the first South
African retailer to
take that stance. "The current situation with
regard to GE food
in South Africa is unsatisfactory," Woolworths
said in a
statement. "Woolworths have stated their intention
to remove GE
food from their shelves." (Reuters, 21 Dec
1999)
- SWITZERLAND: Migros;
- UK: Unilever,
the world's largest food manufacturer (See:
Independent, 28 Apr 1999); Tesco (Britains
biggest supermarket
chain, sales: #18.5bn) (See: Observer, 7 Mar
1999); Asda, a major
British supermarket chain (See: Independent,
27 Jan 1999);
Kentucky Fried Chicken UK (See: Daily Mail,
23 Feb 1999);
Iceland, a British frozen food specialist;
Marks and Spencer,
another British retail chain; Waitrose, UK;
McDonald's, UK (See:
Observer, 7 Mar 1999); Burger King, UK (See:
Daily Mail, 23 Feb
1999); United Biscuits, UK (See: Observer,
7 Mar 1999);
Sainsbury, UK;
- U.S.: Gerber Baby Foods; Heinz; Burger King;
-- U.S.: Whole
Foods Market Inc. and Wild Oats Markets Inc.,
the two largest natural-food store chains
in the U.S., plan to
ban GM ingredients from their hundreds of
private-label products.
They would be the largest U.S. food retailers
to ban GM
ingredients. The Austin-based Whole Foods
operates 103 stores in
22 states and Washington, D.C., and has more
than 600 products
carrying its brand name. Boulder, Colorado-based
Wild Oats
operates 110 stores in 22 states and British
Columbia. It has
about 700 products under its own brand. ``You're
seeing more and
more examples of this,'' said Frank Mitsch,
an analyst with
Deutsche Banc Alex Brown. (From: Brett Chase,
Bloomberg/Newsroom,
30 Dec 1999) <bchase1@bloomberg.net>
- GM food has
been banned from the staff cafeteria at
Monsanto Co.'s UK headquarters by the company's
own caterer,
Monsanto confirmed Tuesday. Granada Food Services,
whose
customers include Monsanto's High Wycombe
office near London,
recently told clients it would not supply
food containing GM soya
or maize due to customer concerns. Granada
said the move was
designed "to ensure that you, the customer,
can feel confident in
the food we serve."
http://www.infobeat.com/stories/cgi/story.cgi?id=2562764499-062
- Caterers at
the House of Commons serve food that avoids
GM ingredients "in response to the general
unease about such
foods expressed by significant numbers of
our customers". At the
Welsh and Scottish Assemblies, caterers also
have a policy of
avoiding GM ingredients, and the European
Parliament has banned
them too. (Alex Kirby, BBC Online, 22 Dec
1999)
<http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_574000/574245.stm>
4.5. CLAIM: COUNTRIES ARE RAPIDLY ADOPTING GE-CROPS
- AUSTRALIA:
Australia's $14 billion farm export sector is
shunning GE crops due to fears of "consumer
backlash." Despite
heavy biotech industry lobbying, the country
has not allowed the
commercialization of many GE products, including
sugar cane,
beer, and canola. The only GE crop grown on
a large-scale in
Australia is cotton. (Reuters, 15 Oct 1999)
- AUSTRIA: A
total ban on Bt corn, including field trials,
has been imposed
- BRAZIL: It
grows 25% of the world's soybeans. Its Supreme
Court ruled in June that Monsanto's GE soybeans
(RRS) cannot be
grown until the govt finalizes stringent regulations
on biosafety
and Monsanto completes an environmental impact
statement. Farm
and environment groups have made GE a major
national issue.
Monsanto reps admitted late-September that
no RRS soybeans will
be planted in 1999-2000 and that prospects
for 2000-2001 planting
are also in jeopardy. Analysts believe that
if Brazil's ban
continues for several more years (and sales
to the EU of non-GE
soya continue to grow), GE crops may never
gain significance in
the country. (See: Cummins, Ronnie and Ben
Lilliston, Campaign
for Food Safety News #22, 21 Oct 1999) <http://www.purefood.org;
http://www.organicconsumers.org>
- Brazil's state
of Rio Grande do Sul will launch what may
be the world's first program aimed at weeding
out GM crops, a
state official said Tuesday. Treating GM soybeans
like drug
plants, the state will offer farmers a total
of 10 million reals
(US$5.37 million) in special low-interest
loans if they rip out
GM soy - illegal in Brazil - and replant normal
varieties. "What
we are telling them it is better to lose seedlings
than lose
their entire crop," said the state's agriculture
secretary, Jose
Hermeto Hoffmann. (Phil Stewart, Reuters,
7 Dec 1999)
- EUROPE: Public
opposition to GE foods is so strong that
the European Union requires the labeling of
all newly
manufactured GE products from the U.S. The
approval of new GE
crops in the EU has ground to a halt. No new
varieties have been
approved in the last 15 months. (Marian Burros,
Reuters News
Service, 14 Jul 1999)
- INDIA: India's
Supreme Court ruled on Feb. 23 to halt all
field trials of Monsanto's Bt Cotton. The
court said that no
field trials can be permitted on a large scale
unless the rules
and guidelines are amended ensuring protection
of the
environment, biodiversity and human health.
The court ruling was
a response to the petition of Dr Vandana Shiva
of the Research
Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology,
which also calls
for a 3-5 year moratorium on field releases.
(See: Environmental
News Service, February 23, 1999)
- INDONESIA,
PAKISTAN: Officials recently announced plans
for more stringent safety-testing of GE imports.
crops and
imports. (See: Cummins, Ronnie and Ben Lilliston,
Campaign for
Food Safety News #22, 21 Oct 1999)
- ITALY: Farm
Minister Paolo De Castro on Friday blocked 3
GM crops - maize, soya and chicory - that
had completed testing
and were ready to proceed to field planting...
For the moment, De
Castro has also halted all new GM testing
programs. He said he
wanted responsibility for the schemes to be
shared by regional
governments before giving the go-ahead. (Xinhua,
5 Nov 1999)
- ITALY: The
govt has temporarily suspended the use of 7 GM
food products, a Health Ministry statement
said Friday.
"Following opinions from the Italian Health
Institute and the
Health Council, the Health Ministry will take
a precautionary
step, in conformity with EU regulations, to
suspend temporarily
the use of the substances," it said. The Health
Council said the
7 GM products are maize Bt11, maize Mon 810,
rapeseed oil Gt73,
rapeseed oil MS1 RS1, rapeseed oil RF2 MS1,
maize Mon 809 and
maize T25. The ministry statement said the
suspension followed
complaints by environmental groups over allegedly
irregular sales
procedure, but the ministry gave no details
and did not say how
long the suspension could last. The Health
Council said it was
not possible to guarantee that genetic alteration
of foods was
safe. (Reuters World Report, 17 Dec 1999)
- NORWAY, DENMARK:
The governments have banned the
commercialization of GM organisms and food
- PARAGUAY: Its
Biosafety Commission, supported by many
NGOs, called on August 4 for GE-free production
in Paraguay.
(See: Cummins, Ronnie and Ben Lilliston, Campaign
for Food Safety
News #22, 21 Oct 1999) <http://www.purefood.org;
http://www.organicconsumers.org>
-- PORTUGAL:
The Agriculture Ministry suspended on 27 Dec
1999 all commercial growing of GE-corn in
Portugal next season.
There had been two approvals (Novartis and
Monsanto varieties)
and 15 more were expected. There was a single
year of GE corn
production in Portugal (1999), with a total
area of about 1300
hectares (about 0.5% of all cultivated corn).
This U-turn follows
strong NGO pressure and rising consumer awareness
in the last few
weeks. Cited as reasons were the precautionary
principle and the
present inability to accurately and independently
monitor the
impacts of the releases. Growers had earlier
voiced concern about
the lower market value of GE or mixed corn
production. (Margarida
Silva, Quercus, Portugal, 28 Dec 1999) <msilva@esb.ucp.pt>
- RUSSIA: The
sale to the population of foodstuffs and
medicinal preparations, obtained from GM sources,
without special
marking on the package will be banned, starting
from July 1,
2000. (TASS, 5 Oct 1999)
- THAILAND: They
will set up GMO-free agricultural zones to
promote exports, a senior Thai official said.
'Agricultural
products from GMO-free zones exported to foreign
markets will be
guaranteed by Thai authorities as GMO-free,'
said Newin Chidchob,
deputy agriculture minister... 'We have no
policy of allowing
trading in modified food in Thailand. GMO
plants are banned from
import, except for study and research, and
we never produce and
export such food,' Newin said. In certain
areas, the govt will
control the whole process of production from
seed to harvest, he
said, noting the zone will be expanded until
the entire nation is
GMO-free. (Kyodo, 27 Sep 1999)
- THAILAND: The
govt announced Oct. 18 it will ban imported
GE seeds "pending clear scientific proof that
they are safe."
Fears reached new levels last week when a
shipment of GE wheat
from the U.S. mysteriously arrived in Thailand.
EU warned that
Thai rice may be rejected if shipments are
found contaminated
with GE rice being grown in Thailand. (AP,
18 Oct 1999)
- US soybean
exports to Europe have declined from $2.1
billion in 1996 to $1.1 billion in 1999,
and will likely decline
to zero over the next 12 months as Greenpeace,
Friends of the
Earth, and other anti-biotech campaigners
drive GE soy and
corn-derived animal feeds off the market.
As the same thing
happens in Japan, Korea, Taiwan, and the rest
of Asia-not to
mention the US and Canada-GE grains, for all
practical purposes,
will be dead. Meanwhile exports of GE-free
soybeans from Brazil
to Europe are booming, with sales rising from
3.1 million tons to
5.4 million tons over the past year. (Organic
View, Vol. 1 No.
18, 8 Dec 1999)
4.6. CLAIM: SEGREGATING NON-GE CROPS IS IMPOSSIBLE OR VERY EXPENSIVE
+ Complicating
the issue, GE DNA or proteins can disappear
during processing, so products can test negative
despite their GE
origins. At the same time, even a sprinkling
of GE cornmeal or
soy flour from a previous shipment can make
an entire grain silo
or rail car of otherwise non-GE food test
falsely positive as GE.
(Rick Weiss, Washington Post, 15 August 1999)
** Traders estimate
purchasing costs for U.S. corn by
Japanese end-users could rise as much as 50
percent if they seek
non-GM crops. As for U.S. soybeans, purchasing
costs by Japanese
users are expected to rise by about 30 percent.
(Aya Takada,
Reuters, 24 Aug 1999)
- Multinational
grain marketer Archer Daniels Midland
recently announced that it will separately
market non-GE soybeans
and will reject any GE corn not accepted in
Europe. (See:
"Wake-up call for biotech foods", Wisconsin
State Journal, 22 Apr
1999)
- The Korean
Bean Processing Association and the Korea
Soybean Food Association said Thursday that
they want to
cultivate non-GM beans through free contracts
with farming groups
in the U.S., Canada and Australia... Meanwhile
the Korea Consumer
Protection Board said Wednesday that a GM
bean ingredient has
been found in 18 tofu (bean curd) products
out of 22 examined, or
81.8 percent, and many famous tofu makers
were also found to have
used GM beans imported from the U.S. (Asia
Pulse, 4 Nov 1999)
- Reuters news
service reported on Oct. 29 Canadian Wheat
Board chief, Greg Arason, saying that the
giant Canadian grain
exporting agency "must mobilize to identify
and segregate GM
wheat and barley from natural grain," to reassure
consumers and
safeguard Canada's multi-billion dollar wheat
export market.
Although GE wheat has not yet been commercialized,
Monsanto and
other companies hope to market GE wheat in
a few years. (Organic
View, Vol. 1 No. 18, 8 Dec 1999)
- Reuters news
service in Paris reported on Dec. 1 that
Minneapolis-based grain commodities giant
Cargill is "studying
whether to adopt a system that would segregate
GM soybeans from
non-GM organisms for the purpose of supplying
European
consumers." Apparently Archer Daniels Midland
and other grain
traders' booming sales of GE-free soybeans
and corn are starting
to cut in to Cargill's profit margins. Both
Cargill, ADM, and the
rest of the firms that make up the international
grain cartel now
see the writing on the wall. (Organic View,
Vol. 1 No. 18, 8 Dec
1999)
- US-based Burger King
told Farmers Weekly that although it
has not banned GM foods, no GM ingredients
are used in its
products, including French fries. (Farmers
Weekly, 3 Dec 1999)
+ Europe's banning
of GE-foods is simply a protectionist
move. It is a trade issue, not a health issue.
- Even analysts
from Deutsche Bank, the largest investment
bank in the world, who were themselves willing
to concede that
GE-foods were safe, were telling their investors
to sell their
Pioneer stocks, because the health concerns
of Europeans are
real, not imagined. (http://www.dmg.com/central/ver40/index.html)
In fact, not only Europeans but also Americans
have called for a
recall of GE-foods on the market. (See: anti-FDA
lawsuit)
+ Segregation
is going to be very expensive. The consumers
will eventually realize that the cost of segregation
is
prohibitive and they will accept mixed foods.
- No segregation
costs will be incurred in countries and
areas which have so far refused to commercialize
or even
field-test GE-crops. These areas will therefore
enjoy a huge
advantage compared to those who jumped early
into the GE-crop
bandwagon. Other countries should learn from
this experience and
stop even the field-testing of GE-crops until
all the necessary
studies in biologically confined laboratories
have been done and
there is widespread scientific consensus on
the safety of a GE
product to be released.
4.10. OTHERS
5. LEGAL CLAIMS: THE GE INDUSTRY IS STRICTLY REGULATED BY GOVERNMENTS
- Summary: The
collusion of corporations who are in a hurry
to recover their investments in GE research
and governments which
are heavily targetted by corporate lobbyists
is forcing GE crops
on farmers and GE foods on consumers.
- Lord Sainsbury,
the UK Minister of Science, and member of
the Supermarket chain family, was revealed
to have had
confidential discussions with Monsanto representatives
at key
points over the last months. Sainsbury was
further shown to have
strong personal business interests in the
genetic engineering
food industry. He is a shareholder and investor
in GE companies.
His own company, Diatech, is the patent holder
of the cauliflower
mosaic promoter, which is believed to be at
the centre of the
Pusztai/Rowett Institute controversy. Environmental
groups have
called for his resignation. (See: Guardian
UK, 16 Feb 1999)
5.1. CLAIM: LABELLING IS NOT NECESSARY
+ One can always choose not to eat GE food.
- Because GE
food remains unlabeled, consumers cannot choose
between GE and non-GE food. Should health
problems arise, it will
be difficult to trace their source. Lack of
labels also helps
shield firms that could be potentially liable.
(Lappe, M and B.
Bailey l998. Against the grain: biotechnology
and the corporate
takeover of food. Common Courage Press, Monroe,
Maine. As cited
in: "Ten reasons why biotechnology will not
ensure food security,
protect the environment and reduce poverty
in the developing
world"; Miguel A. Altieri, UC Berkeley and
Peter Rosset,
Institute for Food and Development Policy,
Oakland, CA)
+ "We strongly
oppose efforts to have mandatory labelling or
segregation of genetically engineered products."
(US Sec of
Agriculture Dan Glickman, Dec 1998)
+ Food processors,
too, have lobbied against labeling these
goods. In Maine, where labeling legislation
was being considered,
the Grocery Manufacturers of America testified
recently that "the
FDA has determined that biotechnology-enhanced
foods are
equivalent to foods developed through crossbreeding
and
traditional methods. Thus, compulsory labeling
provides no
significant or useful information to consumers.
In fact,
mandatory labeling of biotechnology products
has the negative
impact of misleading consumers to believe
foods derived from
biotechnology are harmful."
+ With European
protests fresh in their minds, U.S. biotech
firms made a plea to the U.S. government recently:
Defend U.S.
rules that keep GM foods unlabeled or risk
a consumer backlash at
home. "We said to them that we really needed
their voice because
we don't want this to spread to the United
States," said Phillips
of the Biotechnology Industrial Organization.
(St. Louis
Post-Dispatch, Washington Bureau, 11 Aug 1999)
- U.S.: Glickman
also said the administration was
considering asking the food industry to do
voluntary information
labeling, a practice strongly opposed by the
biotech industry but
one that has been demanded by the Europeans
and some American
consumers. (Marian Burros, Reuters News Service,
14 Jul 1999)
- U.S.: The government
said yesterday that labels were
likely to be required on U.S. GE foods to
give consumers more
information. "Some type of informational labeling
is likely to
happen," Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman
said in a speech.
(Reuters News Service, 14 Jul 1999)
- U.S.: Nonprofit
Mothers for Natural Law, of Fairfield,
Iowa, submitted nearly 500,000 signatures
to federal officials
calling for mandatory labeling of GE foods
at a June 17 event in
Washington, D.C. (Aberdeen American News,
S.D.; Knight
Ridder/Tribune Business News, 1999)
- U.S.: Even
Americans who do not necessarily oppose GE
believe that such products should be labeled.
In a survey by the
European company Novartis, more than 90 percent
called for
labeling. In addition, more than 500,000 people
signed a petition
to the FDA demanding mandatory labeling of
such foods. The Center
for Food Safety, a nonprofit advocacy group,
has filed a lawsuit
against the FDA to reclassify genetic modification
as an additive
that would require labeling. When the Agriculture
Department
proposed organic food regulations, more than
280,000 people filed
comments protesting the inclusion of GM foods
as organic. (Marian
Burros, Reuters News Service, 14 Jul 1999)
- U.S.: The Sierra
Club declared with a flourish last week
that it is joining the debate on GM food.
The group's president,
Carl Pope, wrote to President Clinton that
the 550,000-member
club wants mandatory labeling of GM products.
(St. Louis
Post-Dispatch, Washington Bureau, 11 Aug 1999)
- U.S. Lawmakers
seek labeling for GE food: Everybody who
eats food made in America deserves to know
what's in it, a
bipartisan group of lawmakers said as they
offered legislation to
create special food labels. "Today's limited
scientific knowledge
warrants allowing consumers to make a better,
more informed
choice," said Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio,
leader of an effort
to identify for the marketplace all GE food.
(AP, 11 Nov 1999)
-- Hironori Kijima,
director-general of the Japan Tofu
Association, expects GM labelling will create
annual demand for
300,000 tonnes of non-GM soybeans from Japanese
soybean curd
makers. Japan imported 2.45 million tonnes
of soybeans in the
first half of 1999, of which imports from
the U.S. accounted for
2.11 tonnes or 86.2 percent. In the same period
Japan imported
9.13 million tonnes of corn, of which imports
from the U.S.
accounted for 8.82 million tonnes or 96.5
percent. "We want to
avoid the GM label as it could hurt the image
of our products. We
plan to switch to non-GM soybeans," Kijima
said. (Aya Takada,
Reuters, 24 Aug 1999)
- U.K.: In May
1999, the British Medical Association, which
counts some 80% or nearly 115,000 of Britain's
medical doctors,
issued an official statement expressing concern
over the safety
of GE-foods. The BMA recommended a moratorium
on planting
commercial GE-crops in the UK "until there
is scientific
consensus (or as close agreement as reasonably
achievable) about
the potential long-term environmental effects."
The BMA also
called for 1) segregation at source, "to enable
identification
and traceability" of GE-foods; 2) labelling
GE-imports and
banning unlabelled ones, if the industry refuses
to segregate
(See: "The Impact of Genetic Modification
on Agriculture, Food
and Health", British Medical Association,
May 1999)
- SOUTH KOREA:
The Korea Consumer Protection Board said
last Thursday its survey had found that 94.7
percent of the total
526 survey respondents said labelling for
GM foods was necessary
- 71.5 percent said all the time and 23.2
percent in some cases.
(Reuters, Seoul, 9 Sep 1999)
- ASIA: Despite
biotech industry and US govt complaints,
mounting public pressure has forced regulatory
authorities in
Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, and Japan
to begin to
implement programs of mandatory labeling of
GE foods. Although
consumer and public interest groups in these
countries have
criticized proposed labeling rules as incomplete
and riddled with
loopholes, US trade officials are "concerned"
about the possible
loss of "billions of dollars" in US grain
exports to the region,
according to a Sep 1 Reuters story. Similar
labeling demands are
building in Malaysia and the Philippines,
while farm and consumer
groups in India have called for an outright
ban on GE crops and
imports. (See: Cummins, Ronnie and Ben Lilliston,
Campaign for
Food Safety News #22, 21 Oct 1999) <http://www.purefood.org;
http://www.organicconsumers.org>
- The 15-country
European Union, as well as Australia and
New Zealand, has ordered the labeling of foods
with modified DNA.
The Japanese government has just published
a list of 30 GM foods,
including tofu, that soon must carry labels.
(St. Louis
Post-Dispatch, Washington Bureau, 11 Aug 1999)
- E.U.: That
problem of being able to back up a claim that a
food either contains or does not contain GE
ingredients has
plagued regulators in the European Union,
where a law went into
effect in September saying all GM foods must
be labeled. (Rick
Weiss, Washington Post, 15 August 1999)
- Last summer,
two consumer groups sued the US FDA, claiming
that the agency's failure to institute a labeling
regimen for GM
food is in violation of the Food, Drug and
Cosmetic Act. The law
demands that food additives not "generally
recognized as safe" be
labeled. This spring, activists gathered half-million
signatures
calling for labeling of GM food and submitted
them to Congress
and other officials. (Rick Weiss, Washington
Post, 15 August
1999)
- U.S.: The no-labels
policy hinges on a decree by the FDA
in 1992. The FDA rules that food from new
plant varieties is
"generally recognized as safe" (GRAS) and
that it is no different
from conventional food in nutrition or in
storage and handling
needs. So, no special labeling is needed.
That was 4 years before
farmers, pushed by Monsanto and other biotech
firms, began sowing
millions of acres with GM soybeans and corn.
Neither the FDA nor
US food distributors anticipated the anti-GMO
resistance abroad.
Now the chickens are coming home to roost,
with a strong debate
over the adequacy of American food labeling.
(See: St. Louis
Post-Dispatch, Washington Bureau, 11 Aug 1999)
- Countries which
have adopted mandatory labelling: UK,
Australia-New Zealand Food Standards Council
(Dec 1998),
- The EU has
issued a directive requiring the mandatory
labelling of all GM crops and foods in the
market
- Countries which
are considering mandatory labelling:
Japan, South Africa, Philippines
- In Japan, 2,300
out of 3,300 local governments have asked
the national government to require mandatory
labeling of GM food
(See: "Wake-up Call for Biotech Foods," Wisconsin
State Journal,
22 Apr 1999)
- Jusco Co Ltd
said it will become the first major Japanese
supermarket operator to label food products
based on the genetic
origin of the crops used. Jusco, which operates
over 300 stores
nationwide, said it has decided to start labelling
GE food before
the government's label requirements are implemented
from 2001,
because of requests from consumers. (Reuters,
Tokyo, 8 Sep 1999)
+ Labelling is a form of trade discrimination.
+ Most food processors
and retailers are opposed to
labeling. They note that U.S. regulators have
deemed GM food
safe; they warn that labels could cost consumers
millions of
dollars. Mandatory labels, they say, would
wrongly imply
questions about the safety or nutritional
value of these foods.
"The concern," said Carl Feldbaum, president
of the Biotechnology
Industry Organization, "is that a label would
be seen as a
stigma, like a skull and crossbones." The
industry is also wary
of labels saying "GE free," because such labels
might imply
superiority, as in "fat free." The Grocery
Manufacturers of
America (GMA) recently announced that it and
other groups would
initiate a $1 million advertising and educational
campaign to
counter the nascent U.S. anti-biotech and
pro-labeling movements.
(Rick Weiss, Washington Post, 15 August 1999)
- Consumers have
a right to know and to choose what they
are eating. In the U.S., labelling falls under
First Amendment
freedoms to exchange information. (See: Philip
Bereano, Seattle
Times, Op Ed: "The Right to Know What We Eat,"
11 Oct 1998)
- RBGH: In 1993,
Ben & Jerry's triggered a 3-year legal
battle by labeling its milk products as free
from rBGH, a hormone
that boosts milk production. "People can say
'dolphin-free tuna'
and 'stone-ground wheat,' " said Liz Bankowski,
a senior director
for the company in South Burlington, Vt. "We
felt strongly that
people have the right to know how their milk
is produced." After
tangling with federal and state regulators
over the issue, Ben &
Jerry's won the right to keep the label as
long as it is
accompanied by a disclaimer saying the FDA
considers the milk
equivalent to conventional milk, and that
in any case there is no
known way of testing milk to confirm whether
it is really free of
the offending hormone. (Rick Weiss, Washington
Post, 15 August
1999)
- Below is a
list of processed foods that tested positive
for GE ingredients (September 1999). These
tests were not
"safety" tests; they were only to establish
the presence of
unlabeled GE ingredients. (NYTimes full page
ad October 18, 1999)
- Frito-Lay Fritos
Corn Chips * Bravos Tortilla Chips *
Kellogg's Corn Flakes * General Mills Total
Corn Flakes Cereal *
Post Blueberry Morning Cereal * Heinz 2 Baby
Cereal * Enfamil
ProSobee Soy Formula * Similac Isomil Soy
Formula * Nestle
Carnation Alsoy Infant Formula * Quaker Chewy
Granola Bars *
Nabisco Snackwell's Granola Bars * Ball Park
Franks * Duncan
Hines Cake Mix * Quick Loaf Bread Mix * Ultra
Slim Fast * Quaker
Yellow Corn Meal * Light Life Gimme Lean *
Aunt Jemima Pancake
Mix * Alpo Dry Pet Food * Gardenburger * Boca
Burger Chef Max's
Favorite * Morning Star Farms Better'n Burgers
* Green Giant
Harvest Burgers (now called Morningstar Farms)
* McDonald's
McVeggie Burgers * Ovaltine Malt Powdered
Beverage Mix * Betty
Crocker Bac-Os Bacon Flavor Bits * Old El
Paso Taco Shells *
Jiffy Corn Muffin Mix [Sources: Genetic ID
(an independent
testing firm) and Consumer Reports (September
1999).]
<http://www.turnpoint.org>
- List of GE-foods
in the U.S.: * Canola (oilseed rape) *
Chicory, red hearted (Radicchio) * Corn *
Cotton * Papaya *
Potato * Soybean * Squash * Tomato (Source:
Union of Concerned
Scientists) <http://www.turnpoint.org>
- A high percentage
of the following ingredients have been
made from GE plants, and are commonly found
in processed foods: *
Soy flour * Soy oil * Lecithin * Soy protein
isolates and
concentrates * Corn flour * Corn starch *
Corn oil * Corn
sweeteners & syrups * Cottonseed oil *
Canola oil
<http://www.turnpoint.org>
5.2. CLAIM: THE U.S. HAS THE STRICTEST FOOD REGULATIONS IN THE WORLD
+ The U.S. FDA
has determined that GE crops are as safe as
their conventional counterparts. The U.S.
has one of the most
stringent food regulatory regimes in the world.
- In February
1999, the Center for Food Safety sued the FDA
to have all GE foods taken off the market
on the grounds that
they are neither properly labelled nor safety-tested,
and that
lack of mandatory labeling illegally restricts
the freedom of
choice of those who would choose - on religious
or ethical
grounds - to avoid GE foods. (http://www.icta.org)
- In May 1998,
a coalition of public interest groups,
scientists, and religious leaders filed a
landmark lawsuit
against the U.S. Food and Drug Administration
to obtain mandatory
safety testing and labeling of all GE foods
(Alliance for
Bio-Integrity, et. al. v. Shalala). Nine eminent
life scientists
joined the coalition in order to emphasize
the degree to which
they think FDA policy is scientifically unsound
and morally
irresponsible. Now, the FDA's own files confirm
how well-founded
are their concerns. The FDA was required to
deliver copies of
these files-totaling over 44,000 pages-to
the plaintiffs'
attorneys. The FDA's records reveal it declared
GE foods to be
safe in the face of disagreement from its
own experts-all the
while claiming a broad scientific consensus
supported its stance.
Internal reports and memoranda disclose: (1)
agency scientists
repeatedly cautioned that foods produced through
recombinant DNA
technology entail different risks than do
their conventionally
produced counterparts and (2) that this input
was consistently
disregarded by the bureaucrats who crafted
the agency's current
policy, which treats GE foods the same as
natural ones. Besides
contradicting the FDA's claim that its policy
is science-based,
this evidence shows the agency violated the
U.S. Food, Drug and
Cosmetic Act in allowing GE foods to be marketed
without testing
on the premise that they are generally recognized
as safe by
qualified experts. The FDA admits it is operating
under a
directive "to foster" the U.S. biotech industry;
and this
directive advocates the premise that GE foods
are essentially the
same as others. However, the agency's attempts
to bend its policy
to conform with this premise met strong resistance
from its own
scientists, who repeatedly warned that genetic
engineering
differs from conventional practices and entails
a unique set of
risks. Numerous agency experts protested that
drafts of the
Statement of Policy were ignoring the recognized
potential for
bioengineering to produce unexpected toxins
and allergens in a
different manner and to a different degree
than do conventional
methods. Besides violating basic canons of
ethics, the FDA's
behavior flagrantly violates the U.S. Food,
Drug and Cosmetic
Act, which mandates that new food additives
be established safe
through testing prior to marketing. While
the FDA admits that GE
organisms fall under this provision, it claims
they are exempt
from testing because they are "generally recognized
as safe"
(GRAS), even though it knows they are not
recognized as safe even
by its own scientists let alone by a consensus
in the scientific
community. (Steven M. Druker, J.D., executive
director of the
Alliance for Bio-Integrity, coordinator of
the lawsuit against
the FDA to obtain mandatory safety testing
and labeling of GE
foods)
- The FDA's records
reveal it declared GE foods to be safe
in the face of disagreement from its own experts
- all the while
claiming a broad scientific consensus supported
its stance.
Internal reports and memoranda disclose that:
1) FDA scientists
repeatedly cautioned that foods produced through
recombinant DNA
technology entail different risks than do
their conventionally
produced counterparts; and 2) this input was
consistently
disregarded by the bureaucrats who crafted
FDA's policy, to treat
GE-foods the same as natural ones. (See: Statement
by Steven M.
Druker, J.D., executive director of the Alliance
for
Bio-Integrity, lawsuit coordinator, in collaboration
with the
Legal Department of the Center for Technology
Assessment in
Washington, D.C.).
- FDA's own scientists
repeatedly warned that genetic
engineering differs from conventional practices
and entails a
unique set of risks. Numerous FDA experts
protested that drafts
of the Statement of Policy were ignoring the
recognized potential
for bioengineering to produce unexpected toxins
and allergens in
a different manner and to a different degree
than do conventional
methods.
- Dr. Louis Priybl
(FDA Microbiology Group): "There is a
profound difference between the types of unexpected
effects from
traditional breeding and genetic engineering
which is just
glanced over in this document." He added that
several aspects of
gene splicing "...may be more hazardous."
(Steven M. Druker,
J.D., executive director of the Alliance for
Bio-Integrity,
coordinator of the lawsuit against the FDA
to obtain mandatory
safety testing and labeling of GE foods)
- Dr. Linda Kahl
(FDA compliance officer): The FDA was
"...trying to fit a square peg into
a round hole ... [by] trying
to force an ultimate conclusion that
there is no difference
between foods modified by genetic engineering
and foods modified
by traditional breeding practices."
She said: "The processes of
genetic engineering and traditional
breeding are different, and
according to the technical experts in
the agency, they lead to
different risks." (Steven M. Druker,
J.D., executive director of
the Alliance for Bio-Integrity, coordinator
of the lawsuit
against the FDA to obtain mandatory
safety testing and labeling
of GE foods)
- Dr. Jim Maryanski
(FDA Biotechnology Coordinator)
acknowledged there is no consensus about the
safety of GE foods
in the scientific community at large, and
FDA scientists advised
they should undergo special testing, including
toxicological
tests. (Steven M. Druker, J.D., executive
director of the
Alliance for Bio-Integrity, coordinator of
the lawsuit against
the FDA to obtain mandatory safety testing
and labeling of GE
foods)
+ Trust the
scientists who have assured us that GE food is
safe.
- The money for
scientific research on GE comes from either
the biotechnology companies or the government.
Both are committed
to the promises of biotechnology. This means
that even when
scientists have concerns about the safety
or commercial
application of the technology, it is often
hard for them to risk
their careers by being openly critical. (See:
"13 Myths about
Genetic Engineering", Consumers for Education
about Genetic
Engineering, Dunedin Polytech, as posted by
<dleech@mail.coin.missouri.edu> on the
SANET list)
- A "revolving
door" exists between the biotech industry and
U.S. regulatory bodies, seriously compromising
the U.S.
regulatory process. Many other countries rely
on the U.S.
process, so their approvals for GE field-testing
or
commercialization have been compromised too.
- Monsanto's
top dairy scientists Margaret Miller and
Suzanne Sechen, were hired by the US FDA to
review Monsanto's
research in the process of approving rBGH.
- Monsanto's
lawyer Michael Taylor was hired by the US FDA
to write the labelling laws governing rBGH.
- Suzanne Wuerthele
(BS in Biology, MA in Teaching Science,
PhD in Pharmacology, 7 years of post-doctoral
work,
board-certified toxicologist, worked in a
U.S. EPA regional
office for 13 years, a national expert in
toxicology and risk
assessment): I was introduced to GE a few
years back when I was
shown the "risk assessment" for a GE nitrogen-fixing
bacteria,
Rhizobium meliloti... I learned some very
disturbing things about
regulation of GE:
o EPA has an official position of "fostering" biotechnology;
o There is no
process - across all U.S. federal agencies -
to evaluate the hazards of GE organisms (we have such a
process for chemicals and it works pretty well). For GE,
however, no formal risk assessment methodologies. No
science policies... No conferences where scientific issues
of GE are debated. No understanding of the full range of
hazards from GE organisms. No discussion of or
consultation with the public to determine what constitute
"unacceptable risk". No method to even measure magnitude
of risks. Etc.
o When peer review
panels are put together, they are not
necessarily unbiased. They can be filled with GE
proponents or confined to questions which avoid the
important issues, so that a predetermined decision can be
justified.
...we are confronted with the most powerful
technology the world
has ever known, and it is being rapidly deployed
with almost no
thought whatsoever to its consequences. In
fact, we don't even
know yet the full extent of what it can do
to the environment and
to our health. The few scientists in regulatory
agencies who are
concerned are ignored or their concerns are
dismissed. Or they
are told to be silent. Good risk assessment
and good science,
which if they were used rationally, would
tell us that we're
making a big mistake, is not being used or
is being twisted.
(Susan Wuerthele, toxicologist)
- David W. Beier,
former head of Government Affairs for
Genentech, Inc., now chief domestic policy
advisor to Al Gore,
Vice President of the United States.
(http://www.edmonds-institute.org/door.html)
- Linda J. Fisher,
former Assistant Administrator of the
United States Environmental Protection Agency's
Office of
Pollution Prevention, Pesticides, and Toxic
Substances, now Vice
President of Government and Public Affairs
for Monsanto
Corporation. (http://www.edmonds-institute.org/door.html)
- Michael A.
Friedman, M.D., former acting commissioner of
the United States Food and Drug Administration
(FDA) Department
of Health and Human Services, now senior vice-president
for
clinical affairs at G. D. Searle & Co.,
a pharmaceutical division
of Monsanto Corporation.
(http://www.edmonds-institute.org/door.html)
- L. Val Giddings,
former biotechnology regulator and
(biosafety) negotiator at the United States
Department of
Agriculture (USDA/APHIS), now Vice President
for Food &
Agriculture of the Biotechnology Industry
Organization (BIO).
(http://www.edmonds-institute.org/door.html)
- Marcia Hale,
former assistant to the President of the
United States and director for intergovernmental
affairs, now
Director of International Government Affairs
for Monsanto
Corporation. (http://www.edmonds-institute.org/door.html)
- Michael (Mickey)
Kantor, former Secretary of the United
States Department of Commerce and former Trade
Representative of
the United States, now member of the board
of directors of
Monsanto Corporation.
(http://www.edmonds-institute.org/door.html)
- Josh King,
former director of production for White House
events, now director of global communication
in the Washington,
D.C. office of Monsanto Corporation.
(http://www.edmonds-institute.org/door.html)
- Terry Medley,
former administrator of the Animal and Plant
Health Inspection Service (APHIS) of the United
States Department
of Agriculture, former chair and vice-chair
of the United States
Department of Agriculture Biotechnology Council,
former member of
the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
food advisory
committee, and now Director of Regulatory
and External Affairs of
Dupont Corporation's Agricultural Enterprise.
(http://www.edmonds-institute.org/door.html)
- Margaret Miller,
former chemical laboratory supervisor for
Monsanto, now Deputy Director of Human Food
Safety and
Consultative Services, New Animal Drug Evaluation
Office, Center
for Veterinary Medicine in the United States
Food and Drug
Administration (FDA).
(http://www.edmonds-institute.org/door.html)
- Michael Phillips,
recently with the National Academy of
Science Board on Agriculture, now head of
regulatory affairs for
the Biotechnology Industry Organization.
(http://www.edmonds-institute.org/door.html)
- William D.
Ruckelshaus, former chief administrator of the
United States Environmental Protection Agency
(USEPA),,now (and
for the past 12 years) a member of the board
of directors of
Monsanto Corporation.
(http://www.edmonds-institute.org/door.html)
- Michael Taylor,
former legal advisor to the United States
Food and Drug Administration (FDA)'s Bureau
of Medical Devices
and Bureau of Foods, later executive assistant
to the
Commissioner of the FDA, still later a partner
at the law firm of
King & Spaulding where he supervised a
nine-lawyer group whose
clients included Monsanto Agricultural Company,
still later
Deputy Commissioner for Policy at the United
States Food and Drug
Administration, and later with the law firm
of King & Spaulding.,
now head of the Washington, D.C. office of
Monsanto Corporation.*
(http://www.edmonds-institute.org/door.html)
- Lidia Watrud,
former microbial biotechnology researcher at
Monsanto Corporation in St. Louis, Missouri,
now with the United
States Environmental Protection Agency Environmental
Effects
Laboratory, Western Ecology Division.
(http://www.edmonds-institute.org/door.html)
- Jack Watson,
former chief of staff to U.S. President Jimmy
Carter, now a staff lawyer with Monsanto Corporation
in
Washington, D.C. (http://www.edmonds-institute.org/door.html)
- Clayton K.
Yeutter, former Secretary of the U.S.
Department of Agriculture, former U.S. Trade
Representative (who
led the U.S. team in negotiating the U.S.
Canada Free Trade
Agreement and helped launch the Uruguay Round
of the GATT
negotiations), now a member of the board of
directors of Mycogen
Corporation, whose majority owner is Dow AgroSciences,
a wholly
owned subsidiary of The Dow Chemical Company.
(http://www.edmonds-institute.org/door.html)
- Larry Zeph,
former biologist in the Office of Prevention,
Pesticides, and Toxic Substances, U.S. Environmental
Protection
Agency, now Regulatory Science Manager at
Pioneer Hi-Bred
International. (http://www.edmonds-institute.org/door.html)
5.3 CLAIM: BIOTECH FIRMS FOLLOW THE REGULATIONS STRICTLY
- Monsanto has
been condemned for making 'wrong, unproven,
misleading and confusing' claims in a #1m
advertising campaign.
The Advertising Standards Authority, the industry's
official
watchdog, criticised the firm for wrongly
giving the impression
that GE potatoes and tomatoes had been tested
and approved for
sale in Britain. ASA also dismissed Monsanto's
assertion that GM
crops were grown 'in a more environmentally
sustainable way' than
ordinary crops as unproven. (John Arlidge,
Observer (London), 28
Feb 1999)
- Almost 200
cotton farmers in Georgia, Florida, and North
Carolina are suing Monsanto for damages after
crop failures of
Monsanto's Bt and Roundup Ready cotton seeds.
In a separate
lawsuit 25 cotton farmers in Texas, Oklahoma,
Mississippi, and
Louisiana are suing Monsanto for fraud and
misrepresentation -
also in regard to Bt cotton crop failures.
(See: Augusta
Chronicle, Georgia, 25 Jan 1999)
- Biotech giant
Monsanto exported Canadian GE potatoes to
Ukraine, ignoring the domestic laws which
require environmental
impact assessment, according to a Greenpeace
report published
today... Monsanto NewLeaf potatoes were exported
to Ukraine in
1997 and 1998 with the help of Solanum-PEI,
a joint venture
company created by Monsanto and the government
of PEI. (See:
Canada Newswire, 17 Sep 1999)
- Monsanto was
fined #17,000 by magistrates in Lincolnshire
for failing to maintain a 6-metre pollen boundary
around a field
trial of GE oilseed rape. The crops were all
destroyed. Although
Monsanto pleaded guilty, the company said
that the mistake was
entirely the responsibility of contractors.
The seed producers
for the trial, Perryfield Holdings, were fined
#14,000 and
ordered to pay #5,000 costs in a prosecution
by the Health and
Safety Inspectorate. (Source: The Guardian,
February 18 1999)
- The Senate
Agriculture Committee is demanding that new
studies of BST be carried out following allegations
that BST
files were stolen at Health Canada, and that
scientists
expressing doubts about Monsanto's safety
tests have been
pressurized to water down their comments.
Health Canada refused
to approve rBST in Canada in January 1999.
Controversy has also
erupted following evidence that a scientist
representing Canada
on the Jecfa panel was suggested by Monsanto.
- John Hermann,
chair of the Joint Expert Committee on Food
Additives (Jecfa), which reports back to the
Codex Commission,
has admitted that an FDA official on the panel
passed
confidential EU documents to Monsanto. The
official, Dr. Nick
Weber, has been accused by Consumer's International
of
professional misconduct and 'breach of trust'.
He was, however,
defended by Hermann. It also appears that
a former Monsanto rBST
analyst participated in the Jecfa review and
helped draft the
Committee's report, although she did not take
part in the actual
vote approving rBGH. (Gregory Palast, UK Observer,
14 Mar 1999)
-- Monsanto included
false information about a GE crop in a
safety assessment submitted to U.K. government
advisers. The firm
was forced to redo its research after it emerged
last month that
crucial information about the gene it proposed
to put in a new
strain of maize was incorrect. Monsanto was
called "incompetent"
by scientists of the U.K.'s influential Advisory
Committee on
Releases into the Environment (Acre). The
committee accused
Monsanto of submitting sloppy research, "poor
interpretation" and
work far below required standards. The agro-chemical
company
misdefined the gene it planned to insert into
the maize which was
genetically engineered to be resistant to
Monsanto's Roundup
herbicide. Minutes of Acre's meeting last
month show that members
were furious that Monsanto had asked them
to approve a marketing
application based on inaccurate information.
Sources close to the
meeting say Monsanto was called "incompetent"
and that the
standard of its work was "wholly unacceptable".
Acre told
Monsanto to do its research again after Monsanto
scientists -
asked for clarification about their research
- realised that
their "molecular data . did not support the
conclusions". The
minutes of the meeting, on 13 January 1999,
deliver a sharp
rebuke to Monsanto, saying that ". the molecular
data submitted
by the applicant did not support the conclusions
regarding
genomic organisation of the transgenes". The
Monsanto application
was last month approved by the UK after the
company spent several
months redoing its research and scientists
concluded that the GM
maize would not harm human or animal health.
It will now be
submitted to other European countries for
assessment. But the
decision to grant approval has proved controversial
with other
scientists who say that it casts doubt on
other work carried out
by Monsanto. "It's very worrying. This means
that somebody
somewhere in Monsanto is getting it wrong,"
said Janey White, a
molecular biologist. The mistake also has
international
implications because Monsanto's maize is already
grown in America
and will soon be sold around the world. Monsanto
has had to tell
regulatory authorities in Japan and Europe,
now considering an
application to sell the GM maize, that its
data is incorrect. The
same GM maize is exported widely from America
and is believed to
be used in food sold in Britain. "It is our
policy to advise all
the relevant authorities of any new information,"
said Alistair
Clemence, regulatory affairs manager for maize
in Europe. "We
haven't totally messed up, but there was a
certain part of the
gene sequence we hadn't defined properly."
Licences to sell and
plant GM crops in Britain are based on work
done by the
agrochemical companies themselves and not
on independent tests
carried out by the Government. (Marie Woolf,
Sunday Independent,
21 Feb 1999)
5.10. OTHERS
6. MORAL CLAIMS: MORAL IMPERATIVES GUIDE GE TECHNOLOGIES
6.1. CLAIM: GE-CROPS WILL FEED THE WORLD'S HUNGRY
+ GE will make Third World agriculture more productive.
- Most innovations
in agricultural biotechnology have been
profit-driven rather than need-driven. The
real thrust of the GE
industry is not to make third world agriculture
more productive,
but rather to generate profits (Busch, L.,
W.B. Lacey, J.
Burkhardt and L. Lacey (1990) Plants, Power
and Profit. Basil
Blackwell, Oxford. As cited in: "Ten reasons
why biotechnology
will not ensure food security, protect the
environment and reduce
poverty in the developing world"; Miguel A.
Altieri, UC Berkeley
and Peter Rosset, Institute for Food and Development
Policy,
Oakland, CA) This is illustrated by reviewing
the principal
technologies on the market today: a) herbicide
resistant crops
such as Monsanto's "Roundup Ready"soybeans,
seeds that are
tolerant to Monsanto's herbicide Roundup,
and b) Bt crops which
are engineered to produce their own insecticide.
In the first
instance, the goal is to win a greater herbicide
market-share for
a proprietary product and in the second to
boost seed sales at
the cost of damaging the usefulness of a key
pest management
product (the Bt based microbial insecticide)
relied upon by many
farmers, including most organic farmers, as
a powerful
alternative to insecticides.
- These technologies
respond to the need of biotechnology
companies to intensify farmers' dependence
upon seeds protected
by so-called" intellectual property rights,"
which conflict
directly with the age-old rights of farmers
to reproduce, share
or store seeds. (Hobbelink, H. (1991) Biotechnology
and the
future of world agriculture. Zed Books, Ltd.,
London. p. 159. As
cited in: "Ten reasons why biotechnology will
not ensure food
security, protect the environment and reduce
poverty in the
developing world"; Miguel A. Altieri, UC Berkeley
and Peter
Rosset, Institute for Food and Development
Policy, Oakland, CA)
Whenever possible corporations will require
farmers to buy
company's brand of inputs and will forbid
farmers from keeping or
selling seed. By controlling germplasm from
seed to sale, and by
forcing farmers to pay inflated prices for
seed-chemical
packages, companies are determined to extract
the most profit
from their investment. (Krimsky, S. and R.P.
Wrubel (1996)
Agricultural Biotechnology and the Environment:
science, policy
and social issues. University of Illinois
Press, Urbana. As cited
in: "Ten reasons why biotechnology will not
ensure food security,
protect the environment and reduce poverty
in the developing
world"; Miguel A. Altieri, UC Berkeley and
Peter Rosset,
Institute for Food and Development Policy,
Oakland, CA)
+ Without GE-crops,
we cannot feed the world's rapidly
increasing population.
- GE crop yields
are in general no better than conventional
crops and in some instances are even worse.
(See yield discussion
under economic claims.)
- There is no
relationship between the prevalence of hunger
in a given country and its population. For
every densely
populated and hungry nation like Bangladesh
or Haiti, there is a
sparsely populated and hungry nation like
Brazil and Indonesia.
The world today produces more food per inhabitant
than ever
before. Enough is available to provide 4.3
pounds every person
everyday: 2.5 pounds of grain, beans and nuts,
about a pound of
meat, milk and eggs and another of fruits
and vegetables. The
real causes of hunger are poverty, inequality
and lack of access.
Too many people are too poor to buy the food
that is available
(but often poorly distributed) or lack the
land and resources to
grow it themselves (Lappe, Collins and Rosset
l998). (Lappe,
F.M., J. Collins and P. Rosset (1998). World
Hunger: twelve
myths, p. 270. Grove Press, NY. As cited in:
"Ten reasons why
biotechnology will not ensure food security,
protect the
environment and reduce poverty in the developing
world"; Miguel
A. Altieri, UC Berkeley and Peter Rosset,
Institute for Food and
Development Policy, Oakland, CA)
+ GE crops will
save the world from famine.
- A major cause
of famine is the unequal global distribution
of food. Food mountains exist in much of the
western world and
food is regularly dumped. Poor people
have limited ability to
buy either GE or non-GE food. There is no
evidence that GE crops
produce higher yields than conventional crops
or that GE products
will be cheaper. (See: "13 Myths about Genetic
Engineering",
Consumers for Education about Genetic Engineering,
Dunedin
Polytech, as posted by Deborah E Leech
<dleech@mail.coin.missouri.edu> on the
SANET list)
- Dr. Geoffrey
Clements (physicist and leader of the Natural
Law Party, UK): "Perfectly safe natural alternatives
are readily
available, and no one believes the propaganda
that GE crops are
essential to help feed the hungry or to secure
food stocks for
the future. In fact, if the GE revolution
is not halted and if
the balance of Nature continues to be disrupted,
we would well
see the worst famines and disease of all time."
- The dramatic
effects of rotations and intercropping on
crop health and productivity, as well as of
the use of biological
control agents on pest regulation have been
confirmed repeatedly
by scientific research. The problem is that
research at public
institutions increasingly reflects the interests
of private
funders at the expense of public good research
such as biological
control, organic production systems and general
agroecological
techniques . Civil society must request for
more research on
alternatives to biotechnology by universities
and other public
organizations (Krimsky and Wrubel l996).
- Much of the
needed food can be produced by small farmers
located throughout the world using agroecological
technologies
(Uphoff, N and Altieri, M.A. l999 Alternatives
to conventional
modern agriculture for meeting world food
needs in the next
century. Report of a Bellagio Conference.
Cornell International
Institute for Food, Agriculture and Development.
Ithaca, NY. As
cited in: "Ten reasons why biotechnology will
not ensure food
security, protect the environment and reduce
poverty in the
developing world"; Miguel A. Altieri, UC Berkeley
and Peter
Rosset, Institute for Food and Development
Policy, Oakland, CA)
- New rural devt
approaches and low-input technologies
used by farmers and NGOs around the world
are already making a
significant contribution to food security
at the household,
national and regional levels in Africa, Asia
and Latin America.
(Pretty, J. Regenerating agriculture: Policies
and practices for
sustainability and self-relieance. Earthscan.,
London. As cited
in: "Ten reasons why biotechnology will not
ensure food security,
protect the environment and reduce poverty
in the developing
world"; Miguel A. Altieri, UC Berkeley and
Peter Rosset,
Institute for Food and Development Policy,
Oakland, CA)
- Yield increases
are being achieved by using approaches
based on agroecological principles that stress
diversity,
synergy, recycling and integration; and social
processes that
stress community participation and empowerment.
(Rosset, P. l999
The multiple functions and benefits of small
farm agriculture in
the context of global trade negotiations.
Institute for Food and
Development Policy, Food First Policy Brief
No.4. As cited in:
"Ten reasons why biotechnology will not ensure
food security,
protect the environment and reduce poverty
in the developing
world"; Miguel A. Altieri, UC Berkeley and
Peter Rosset,
Institute for Food and Development Policy,
Oakland, CA)
- When such features
are optimized, yield enhancement and
stability of production are achieved, as well
as a series of
ecological services such conservation of biodiversity,
soil and
water restoration and conservation, improved
natural pest
regulation mechanisms, etc. (Altieri, M.A.,
P.Rosset and L.A.
Thrupp. 1998 . The potential of agroecology
to combat hunger in
the developing world. 2020 Brief 55. International
Food policy
research Institute. Washington DC. As cited
in: "Ten reasons why
biotechnology will not ensure food security,
protect the
environment and reduce poverty in the developing
world"; Miguel
A. Altieri, UC Berkeley and Peter Rosset,
Institute for Food and
Development Policy, Oakland, CA)
- Far from being
a solution to the world's hunger problem,
the rapid introduction of GE crops may actually
threaten
agriculture and food security. First, widespread
adoption of
herbicide-resistant seeds may lead to greater
use of chemicals
that kill weeds. Yet, many noncrop plants
are used by small
farmers in the third world as supplemental
food sources and as
animal feed. In the United States, the Fish
and Wildlife Service
has found that Roundup already threatens 74
endangered plant
species. Biological pollution from GE organisms
may be another
problem. Monsanto is poised to acquire the
rights to a genetic
engineering technique that renders a crop's
seeds sterile,
insuring that farmers are dependent on Monsanto
for new seed
every year. Farming in the third world could
be crippled if these
genes contaminate other local crops that the
poor depend on. And
such genes could unintentionally sterilize
other plants,
according to a study by Martha Crouch, an
associate professor of
biology at Indiana University. Half the world's
farmers rely on
their own saved seed for each year's harvest.
(Peter Rosset,
"World Hunger: Twelve Myths")
- The biotech
industry's actual main motive is to create
profit windfalls by increasing sales of their
pesticides and
dominating the entire food supply. For example,
the patent on
Monsanto's herbicide known as "Roundup" will
expire soon.
Monsanto has enticed farmers with their experimental
GE crops to
absorb and tolerate their chemical pesticides
and their other
crops which create their own pesticide internally.
Monsanto,
DuPont, and Novartis are also taking direct
action to buy out and
bring the world's largest seed companies under
their control.
(From: pmligotti@earthlink.net)
+ There are no alternatives to GE crops
- The alternative
to GE is ecological agriculture, with
organic farming at its core. Since 1969, more
than 800,000 farms
have disappeared from America's landscape,
as large corporate
operations consumed smaller family-owned farms.
By 2000, the U.S.
Department of Agriculture predicts that half
of all U.S. farm
production will come from only 1 percent of
all farms. For those
wanting to preserve the livelihood of the
family farm, few
options for survival remain. One of the most
viable is organic
and natural farming, most successfully performed
on small plots
rather than thousands of acres. It's estimated
that organic
products alone will be a $6 billion economy
by 2001, with sales
of organic food growing between 20 percent
and 25 percent
annually. A Food Marketing Institute study
reports that organic
and natural foods are available at approximately
73 percent of
grocery stores and supermarkets. Of shoppers
surveyed in FMI's
study, more than 50 percent said they purchase
organic or natural
foods at least once a month; 35 percent said
they actively seek
out products that are labeled as "organic";
and 63 percent look
for products labeled "natural." Purchase of
organic products is
highest among consumers between 18 and 29
(31 percent), with a
heavier concentration of sales in the West
(34 percent),
according to the 1998 Fresh Trends Report
published by The
Packer. (John Fetto, American Demographics,
August 1999)
- The Rodale
Institute of Kutztown, Penn., recently
completed a 15-year study comparing organic
farming methods to
conventional methods, published in the November
11, 1998, issue
of the journal Nature. It concluded that yields
from organic
farming equal conventional yields after four
years. Experts have
shown that using pesticides does not guarantee
increased yields.
According to David Pimentel, professor of
insect ecology and
agricultural sciences at Cornell University,
``Although
pesticides are generally profitable, their
use does not always
decrease crop losses. For example, even with
the 10-fold increase
in insecticide use in the United States from
1945 to 1989, total
crop losses from insect damage have nearly
doubled from 7% to
13%''. (PRNewswire, 27 August 1999)
- At the 12th
(1999) annual Scientific Conference of the
International Federation of Organic Agriculture
Movements
(IFOAM), more than 600 delegates from over
60 countries voted
unanimously against the use of GMOs in food
production and
agriculture. The delegates called on all governments
and
regulatory agencies to immediately ban GE
in agriculture and food
production since it involves: 1) Negative
and irreversible
environmental impacts; 2) Release of organisms
which cannot be
recalled; 3) Removal of the right of choice,
both for farmers and
consumers; 4) Violation of farmers' fundamental
property rights
and endangerment of their economic independence;
5) Practices
which are incompatible with the principles
of sustainable
agriculture as defined by IFOAM; 6) Unacceptable
threats to human
health. (See: )
- US sales of
organic foods have grown between 20 - 25%
annually for the last 7 years, with overall
sales of between $3.5
and $4.2 billion.
6.2 CLAIM: LIFE PATENTS ARE NEEDED TO REWARD INNOVATION
+ Patents on
life are necessary to enable biotech firms to
recover their investments in developing GMOs
- GMO patents
will illegalize the age-old farmer practice
of saving and sharing seeds.
- A year ago,
Monsanto sued Percy Schmeiser for illegally
growing Monsanto's special GM canola, called
"Roundup Ready." The
68-year-old Percy, who has been farming in
Saskatchewan for 40
years, ushered me outside, walked to a hydro
line, and showed me
a growth of canary-yellow canola. "This is
it," he said, then he
took me to the north side of the building
where another shoot of
Roundup Ready GM canola was growing. "All
over the place," he
said. "It blows in the wind, cross-pollinates."
He pulled off one
of the flowers, popping open a pod of canola,
displaying the
freckle-sized, black seeds. "Little plant
like this makes a
minimum 4,000 seeds...maybe 10,000 seeds,"
he said. "Now they're
not saying I stole their seed," Percy said.
"Now they're saying
it doesn't matter how the (Monsanto canola)
gets into a farmer's
field. Doesn't matter if it's blown onto the
field or if it's by
cross-pollination. They say it's their patent
and if they find it
on your field they'll take your crop, they'll
sue you, they'll
fine you." (Martin O'Malley, CBC News Online,
29 Sep 1999)
- Edward Zielinski,
a Saskatchewan farmer, is being charged
with growing Monsanto GE canola without a
licence. Zielinski
claims that he unwittingly received and planted
Monsanto canola
from seed he swapped with another farmer in
exchange for wheat.
If found guilty, he could be forced to pay
$29,000. He would also
face a 3-year on-spot inspection of his fields
by Monsanto patent
enforcement and a gagging clause that would
prevent him from
disclosing the terms of the agreement. Zielinski's
suit comes in
the wake of a legal suit Monsanto has pinned
on another
Saskatchewan farmer, Percy Schmeiser, for
allegedly growing
Monsanto GE canola without a licence. Schmeiser,
whose case comes
before court in early autumn, maintains that
the ReadyRoundUp
canola pollinated his fields. (See: Sunday
Independent, March 14
1999)
- There is an
urgent need to challenge the patent system and
IPR intrinsic to the WTO which not only provide
MNCs with the
right to seize and patent genetic resources,
but that will also
accelerate the rate at which market forces
already encourage
monocultural cropping with genetically uniform
GM varieties.
Based on history and ecological theory, it
is not difficult to
predict the negative impacts of such environmental
simplification
on the health of modern agriculture (Altieri
l996). (See: "Ten
reasons why biotechnology will not ensure
food security, protect
the environment and reduce poverty in the
developing world";
Miguel A. Altieri and Peter Rosset, Oct 1999)
- USDA spent
$229,000 of US taxpayers' money to create the
new "technology protection system" with Delta
and Pine Land
Company. The research was done, according
to the inventor himself
(Melvin Oliver), to improve the bottom lines
of U.S. firms.
- Monsanto announced
in October 1999 that it was dropping
its Terminator seed program, confirming the
effectiveness of the
global campaign against the technology sterile
GE-seeds.
- According to
RAFI, every major seed and agrochemical firm
is developing its own version of Terminator
seeds. Novartis,
AstraZeneca, and Monsanto are among the MNCs
who have sterile
seeds in the pipeline; others like Pioneer
Hi-Bred, Rhone
Poulenc, and DuPont have seed technologies
that could easily be
turned into Terminators. The patents uncovered
by RAFI reveal
that companies are developing "suicide" seeds
whose genetic
traits can be turned on and off by an external
chemical "inducer"
mixed with the company's patented agrochemicals.
In the
not-so-distant future, farmers may be planting
seeds that will
develop into productive (but sterile) crops
only if sprayed with
a carefully prescribed regimen that includes
the company's
proprietary pesticide, fertilizer or herbicide.
The latest
version of Monsanto's suicide seeds won't
germinate unless
exposed to a special chemical, while AstraZeneca's
technologies
outline how to engineer crops to become stunted
or otherwise
impaired if not regularly exposed to the company's
chemicals.
Ignoring potential impacts on farmers around
the world, the seed
and agrochemical industry argues that GE seed
sterility is highly
beneficial to the environment because it will
eliminate the
problem of horizontal gene transfer - it will
prevent
cross-pollination and thus the escape of GE
genes from transgenic
plants to nearby weeds or wild relatives.
Suicide seeds could
eliminate the possibility of genetic pollution
and conveniently
offers a "green" rationale for acceptance
of genetic seed
sterility. Industry also argues that they
can't continue to
develop new, more productive varieties for
agriculture unless
they get a fair return on their investment.
A RAFI report
"Traitor Technology" provides an in-depth
analysis of the seed
sterility patents. For this study and a detailed
chart of patent
claims, visit RAFI's homepage at <http://www.rafi.org/>
-- Pioneer Hi-Bred
International Inc. is seeking to enforce
its corn patent by suing an Iowa farm-supply
dealership. Farm
Advantage of Belmont, Iowa sold Pioneer's
patented corn seed last
year without its permission. Pioneer has sued
Farm Advantage for
reselling its corn seeds, since Pioneer's
patent grants exclusive
control over the licensing of its product.
President of Farm
Advantage, Marvin Redenius is arguing that
the US Patent and
Trademark Office acted illegally when it granted
patents on GM
plants. Since the first patent on a life-form
was awarded in
1980, an increasing number of scientists,
environmental
organizations, farm organizations, trade organizations,
public
health organizations, and other NGOs (non-governmental
organizations) have opposed patents on the
grounds that they are
immoral and illegal. Pioneer is currently
engaged in several
other lawsuits, including a "germplasm misappropriation"
suit
against rival life science corporation Monsanto
Co. "Pioneer has
spent decades and billions of dollars developing
the world's
largest plant genetics library," claims Rick
McConnell, Pioneer
senior vice president for research and product
development, in a
February 1999 release. (Jon Akland, Research
Director, Foundation
on Economic Trends, 802-658-1472 phone 802-863-4665
fax)
6.3. CLAIM: GE TECHNOLOGIES WILL HELP THE INCURABLY SICK
* According to
New Scientist, US company GeneWorks of
Michigan state has 50 to 60 GE birds. Some
of these birds carry a
gene enabling them to produce human growth
factor in eggs, and
others produce a human antibody which could
be used to treat
disease. Another US company. AviGenics, has
birds which produce a
cancer treating interferon. It says the gene
- injected into bird
embryos as a protein contained in a harmless
virus - has already
been passed on to further generations of birds,
saving on
repeating the process. (New Scientist, 13
Nov 1999)
** An intense
effort to clone rhesus monkeys for medical
research is underway in the U.S. Tanja Dominko
at the Oregon
Regional Primate Centre said: "We are working
really hard to make
it happen in any way we can." She said this
would allow testing
of new drugs and vaccines on genetically-identical
animals, and
success means a step nearer to human application.
She admitted it
may be years before they succeed in cloning
monkeys, despite a
narrow failure 3 years ago, when two monkeys
were born after 166
nuclear transfer attempts. But they were not
identical as the
nuclei came from different sources. Also,
the cells used came
from embryos, not adults. Dominko's colleague,
Don Wolf said: "If
we can do this in monkeys, most people will
see the significance
of that to humans." Primates are preferred
as lab animals because
they are closely related to humans. Rhesus
monkeys are not an
endangered species and their reproductive
organs function almost
identically to those of humans. Female rhesus
monkeys' menstrual
cycle is even as long as that of humans. This
similarity, and the
similar scarcity of eggs, would mean that
any cloning technique
successful in rhesus monkeys would likely
be applicable to
humans. (BBC, "Multiple monkey cloning attempt,"
9 Apr 1999)
+ GE insulin has saved the lives of thousands of diabetics
- The high incidence
of diabetes correlates closely with
high consumption of refined sugars. A preventive
approach to
diabetes control will reduce, if not eliminate,
the need for GE
insulin. The alarming trend today is that,
increasingly, as food
companies, chemical companies and pharmaceutical
companies merge,
the same giant firms are now creating both
the causes of disease
as well as their cure.
6.4. CLAIM: GE IS CONSISTENT WITH OUR ETHICAL BELIEFS
- Vegetarians
try to avoid all animal food; but without
labeling they can't be sure that animal genes
have not been
inserted into their vegetables. Jews and Muslims
have rigid laws
against eating certain animals, yet their
tomatoes or lettuce may
one day contain pig genes. (NYTimes full page
ad, 18 Oct 1999)
- Some orthodox
rabbis, for example, say their strict
dietary laws require them to know when a foreign
gene - say, a
pig gene - has been spliced into their food.
No pig genes have
been put into crops, but one has been experimentally
engineered
into salmon to accelerate growth. (Rick Weiss,
Washington Post,
15 August 1999)
- What of the
suffering of genetically altered animals? One
GE "super pig" was unable to walk or stand.
A GE "super salmon"
had a monster head and couldn't swim, eat,
or breathe properly.
There are hundreds of such outcomes. (NYTimes
full page ad, 18
Oct 1999)
- More than two
dozen genes from human beings have already
been engineered into various animals. If we
eat them, can we call
it cannibalism? (NYTimes full page ad, 18
Oct 1999)
6.5. CLAIM: RELIGIOUS AUTHORITIES APPROVE OF MOST GE TECHNOLOGIES
+ Vatican experts
voiced a "prudent yes" to GE plants and
animals, but restated Church objections to
human cloning and the
modification of the human genetic code. Members
of the Pontifical
Academy for Life presented on Oct. 12 two
volumes of documents on
ethics and genetic technology, after more
than two years of
discussion and study. "We are increasingly
encouraged that the
advantages of genetic engineering of plants
and animals are
greater than the risks. The risks should be
carefully followed
through openness, analysis and controls, but
without a sense of
alarm," said Bishop Elio Sgreccia, vice president
of the
pontifical academy. "We give it a prudent
'yes,'" he said. "We
cannot agree with the position of some groups
that say it is
against the will of God to meddle with the
genetic make-up of
plants and animals." (CNS, 3 Nov 1999)
<http://www.inverizon.com/nnews1.htm>
- You cannot
resort to authority on moral issues. This is a
matter to be settled within every individual's
conscience, taking
into account the irreversibility of GE advances.
6.10. OTHERS
7. QUALITY CLAIMS: THE QUALITY OF GE-FOODS IS BETTER
7.1. CLAIM: GE FOODS ARE HEALTHIER AND MORE NUTRITIOUS
- No GE food
commercialized to date has been shown to be
more nutritious than non-GE food. Most
GE crops are only
designed to be resistant to specific herbicides,
to produce their
own insecticides or to have an increased shelf
life. (See: "13
Myths about Genetic Engineering", Consumers
for Education about
Genetic Engineering, Dunedin Polytech, as
posted by Deborah E
Leech <dleech@mail.coin.missouri.edu> on
the SANET list)
- 71% of GE acreage
is for HT-soya, which encourages farmers
to use more herbicides. Another 25+% is for
Bt crops, which puts
a toxin in the food itself.
- RBGH: The use
of rBGH to stimulate milk production in cows
resulted in udder inflamations, infections
and other problems
affecting milk quality (See: ) (http:)
+ Many fungal
toxins are harmful to human health (to name a
few species: Aspergillus flavus, Claviceps
purpurea etc), so
fungi-resistant GE plants could be even safer
than their parental
strain.
7.2. CLAIM: VIT. A AND IRON-RICH RICE WILL SOLVE A WORLDWIDE PROBLEM
+ Most rice varieties
today lack iron and vit. A, a health
problem for people who eat rice daily. In
1999, Swiss researchers
announced a GE rice variety with more beta-carotene,
which the
body metabolizes to vit. A. Work is also underway
on an iron-rich
rice variety, to be given free to poor farmers
in dev. countries
thru the Rockefeller Foundation. See: <www.rockfound.org>
(From:
m.j.cohen@cgiar.org)
+ BC (beta-carotene)
rice will help solve the widespread
problem of Vit. A deficiency.
+ Iron-rich rice
will help solve the widespread problem of
iron deficiency.
- The BC rice
and the iron-rich rice contain the CaMV
promoter which, according to scientists Mae
Wan Ho, Angela Ryan
and Joe Cummins, should not be used for GE
transformations. They
also use an antibiotic-resistance marker (ARM)
gene which,
according to the British Medical Association,
should be phased
out.
9.0. Websites On Genetic Engineering:
http://www.safe-food.org/welcome.html
http://www.natural-law.ca/genetic/geindex.html
http://www.greenpeace.org/~usa/reports/biodiversity/roundup
http://www.greenpeace.org/~comms/cbio/geneng.html
http://www.indiaserver.com/betas/vshiva/
http://users.westnet.gr/~cgian/biotech.htm
http://www.rafi.ca
http://www.purefood.org
http://www.med.upenn.edu/~bioethic/genetics/articles.html
http://www.ucsusa.org/agriculture/ag.docs.html
http://www.k2net.co.uk/~savage/ef/earthfirst.html
http://www.essential.org/crg/
http://www.envirolink.org/orgs/shag/
http://online.sfsu.edu/rone/gedanger.htm
http://www.bio-integrity.org
http://www.natural-law.org/issues/genetics/ge_hazards.html
http://www.bio-integrity.org/ http://www.peg.apc.org/~acfgenet/
http://www.indians.org/welker/genome.htm
http://www.solbaram.org/articles/clm505.html
http://www.netlink.de/gen/home.html
http://www.psagef.org/indexgen.htm
http://home.earthlink.net/~alto/boycott.html
http://www.notmilk.com http://www.biotech-info.net
10. MISCELLANEOUS:
+ The strong
anti-GE feelings in Europe is due to the
Europeans' distrust of their governments following
such food
scares as the "mad cow" disease and the dioxin-tainted
food in
Belgium. This springs from deep-seated cultural
differences.
"There is more reverence for nature there
and more of a belief
that food is sacred. Americans don't mind
eating McDonald's and
junk food... but Europeans eat traditional
foods they've eaten
for thousands of years, as they do in India.
They're perceiving
GM foods as somehow unnatural when really
there is no cause for
alarm." Prakash says that the GE produce and
products on the
American market are safe and "have been thoroughly
tested in
terms of their safety and environmental impacts."
(Dr. C.S.
Prakash, a geneticist and professor of biotechnology
at Tuskegee
University in Tuskegee, Ala.)