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Genetic Engineering Biotechnology - Challenges and Opportunities |
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Reproduced with permission from The Institute of Science in Society
Genetic Engineering Biotechnology - Challenges and
Opportunities
Dr. Mae-Wan Ho
Academy of Sciences, Kuala Lumpur, May 28, 1999
Thank you very much for inviting me to speak here. I am indeed very
honoured.
Earlier this month, I attended a Seminar on Biodiversity Law organised
by high court judges and legal consultants in Brasilia. They expected 50
to 100. In the event 1200 turned up. The seminar happens to coincide with
a series of battles over field trials and commercial approval of
Monsanto's transgenic soya by the heavily pro-biotech National Technical
Committee on Biosafety against the advice of the Brazilian Academy of
Science. This has pitched state governments against the federal
government, and different departments of the federal government find
themselves in opposition. The federal Environment Protection Agency has
formed a legal consortium with Greenpeace and another ngo, the
Consumer Defence Institute, and are locked in combat against the
partnership of Monsanto and the National Biosafety Committee. The federal
court has approved Monsanto's transgenic soya for commercial release, but
requires Monsanto to segregate and label the produce. However, Monsanto is
trying to overturn this requirement with the help of the National
Biosafety Committee. Feelings are running very high over this issue.
The State of Rio Grande do Sul led the revolt by banning the transgenic
soya. Just before the seminar, all 27 states of the Republic voted
unaimously for a moratorium until environmental impact studies have been
done. Paulo Affonso, President of the Brazilian Society of Environmental
Law challenged the federal government to prove that its action is not
harmful to the environment, stating in the strongest terms that the
government must abide by the decision of the states.
Biopiracy is another burning issue. Gurdial Nijar, legal adviser of the
Third World Network, pointed out that "indigenous knowledge has fed,
clothed and healed the world for millenia". The concept of patenting
and owning life is antithetical to all cultures in the Third World.
Furthermore, it denies the "cumulative innovative genius" of
farmers over the generations. Indian leader, Clovis Wapixana, confirmed
that it is the deep knowledge of indigenous plants and animals possessed
by the Amazonian Indians which alone can sustain natural biodiversity. One
big problem is the expropriation of land by the corporations. Predatory
fishing, logging and poisoning of rivers by prospectors happen on a daily
basis. Now to top the insult and injury, bioprospectors are expropriating
their knowledge.
A notorious case involves enthnobotanist Conrad Gorinsky of Oxford
University, who has taken and patented the extracts of two plants from the
North of Brazil, bibiru, used as contraceptive, and cunani,
used as anaesthetic and as fish poison. Even more scandalous is the fact
that a US company, Coryll Cell Repositories, is listing Amazonian Indian
blood cells in a DNA kit for sale, priced at $500, and openly advertised
on the internet. But biopiracy is not new. Adalberto Antonia, Judge of the
State of Amazonas, pointed out that 70 000 seeds were taken by Harry
Wickham on behalf of the Kew Gardens in Britain. Wickham was knighted for
his efforts, but the state of Amazonas was plunged into poverty for 50
years.
I met Dr. Mauro Carneiro, eminent molecular biologist and chief
coordinator of all the biotechnology research in the government research
institutes of South American countries. He is firmly opposed to the
patents on life and the commercialisation of science. The current
patenting of genes and cell lines is also denying the cumulative
innovative genius of generations of scientists who have contributed
selflessly to the intellectual commons for the public good.
Brazil is not alone in opposing gene technology and patents on life. I
was in India in March, where angry farmers are calling for an outright ban
on transgenic crops. Monsanto bought up an Indian seed company and began
to carry out field trials without telling the state Governments. Farmers
burnt the field trials in a "cremate Monsanto" campaign,
followed by the "Monsanto quit India" campaign.
In South Asia, a large coalition of ngos representing millions of
farmers, have launched a two-prong attack: a resistance campaign directed
against all genetic engineering transnational giants like Monsanto and a
seed-saving campaign to preserve traditional seeds, which alone can truly
feed the hungry people in the world. Similar resistance and seed-saving
campaigns are happening elsewhere. A coalition of Latin American ngos have
already declared they will not accept transgenic crops. Tewolde Egziabher
of Ethiopia, leading spokesperson of the African Region, rejects the
technology as "neither safe, environmentally friendly, nor
economically beneficial."
Corporate giants already control more than three-quarters of the world
trade in cereals. Now they are patenting genetically engineered seeds, the
patents being protected under the Trade Related Intellectual Property
Rights agreements of the WTO. Farmers have to pay royalties for the seeds,
which they are forbidden by law to save and resow. Currently 80% of crops
in the developing country are from saved seeds. The corporations are
moving swiftly into developing countries. In Brazil, Monsanto has spent
more than $1billion in buying 60% of all the seed companies in just two
years and plans a $550m factory to produce pesticide for its transgenic
soya. In India, not only has it bought major holdings in its largest seed
company, but has invested more than $20m in the country's leading science
institution. It has also paid more than $1bn for the international seed
operations of Cargill, the world's largest grain company.
All this is coming at a time when many farmers in the Third World have
gone back to cultivating and conserving indigenous varieties in all forms
of organic, sustainable agriculture, doubling and tripling their yields
and improving their livelihood, health and nutrition. They have been
reversing the socially and environmentally destructive trends of the
so-called high yielding monocultures of the Green revolution which have
brought financial ruin and suicides to many in India alone.
It is obvious that transgenic crops are not necessary for feeding the
world and cannot feed the world, quite the opposite is the case. According
to the UN food programme, there is enough food to feed everyone one and a
half times over. World cereal yields have consistently outstripped world
population growth since 1980 (2.2% a year compared with 1.7%). But one
billion are hungry. It is on account of transnational corporations like
Monsanto operating under the globalized economy that the poor are getting
poorer and hungrier. They operate through monopoly on food production and
distribution, and now on seeds. They buy where and when it is cheapest and
selling dear, or undercut farmers by subsidized dumping of surpluses. In
fact, the corporations are profiteering from hunger.
To protect their patents on seeds, Monsanto and Zeneca are both planning
different versions of the terminator technologies that either genetic
engineers harvested seeds not to germinate, or else they will germinate,
or express the transgenic trait only when a specific chemical sold by the
company is applied.
And that is not all, Monsanto is planning to launch a new water business
starting with India and Mexico. It sees new
business opportunity in the emerging water crisis estimated to hit 2.5
billion people in India, Mexico, China and the US by year 2010. Monsanto's
strategy paper states,
"The business logic of sustainable development is that population
growth and economic development will apply increasing pressure on natural
resource markets. These pressures and the worlds desire to prevent
the consequences of these pressures, if unabated, will create vast
economic opportunity - when we look at the world through the lens of
sustainability, we are in a position to see current and foresee
impending-resource market trends and imbalances that create market needs.
We have further focussed this lens on the resource market of water and
land. These are the markets that are most relevant to us as a life
sciences company committed to delivering food, health and hope to the
world.." It estimates that providing safe water is a several billion
dollar market, and intends to tap public financing by World Bank with the
help of ngos and local governments. The most frightening aspect of the
strategy paper is the unapologetic way it presents profiteering from
scarce resources which are life necessities, like food and water. It can
see nothing wrong with what most of us would regard as deeply unethical.
Why Genetically Engineered Food Does Not Feed the World
- Intensifies corporate feudalism
- - corporate control of seeds through patents
- - corporate control of agriculture through microcredit
schemes (small loans made to the poorest to get them to grow
transgenic crops)
- - corporate control of world food prices(through buying cheap
and selling dear, or undercutting farmers by subsidized dumping
of surpluses)
- - farmers become increasingly indebted and poor
- Undermines food security
- - obstructs implementation of sustainable agriculture
- - increase loss of agricultural biodiveristy on which food
security depends
- Reinforces social structures that create poverty
- - concentrates on cash crops for export
- - corporate control of world markets through WTO-TRIPs and other
free-trade and investment agreements
- Reinforces unsustainable practices that decrease yield and
destroy land
- - dams for irrigation
- - heavy input of agrochemicals
- - over-mechanisation
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A new Report released by Christian Aid concluded that the introduction
of GM crops to the world's poorest countries could lead to famine, and
they are not at all overstating the case. What we are up against is
corporate feudalism. The corporate empire is now taking possession of life
and our entire life-support system, to use as stakes in a final gamble
with a Frankenstein science and technology that may destroy all life on
earth. I am using Frankenstein in the sense that Mary Shelley used it: a
reductionist science that thinks it can improve on nature and does not
realize it has created monsters.
Warnings are now coming from across the scientific community. The UK
Government's Chief Scientific Advisor Bob May has added his voice to the
moratorium proposed by English Nature and the Royal Society for the
Protection of Birds. Last week's Nature reports high mortality in larvae
of the Monarch butterfly fed milk-weed leaves dusted with pollen from
transgenic maize engineered with the bt-toxin from a soil bacterium. The
same kind of transgenic maize has earlier been found to be toxic to
lacewings fed on corn-borers that have eaten the transgenic maize. The
impacts on biodiversity are potentially devastating from the current
transgenic crops planted. The Government's Chief Medical Officer Liam
Donaldson and the British Medical Association are both warning of hazards
to human health: the spread of antibiotic resistance, new food allergies
and the effects of transgenic DNA.
Current State of World Transgenic
Agriculture* |
Total acreage planted 65 million |
USA |
74% |
Argentina |
15% |
Canada |
10% |
Nature of transgenic crops |
a. Trait(s) |
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Herbicide tolerance |
71% |
Insect resistance |
28% |
Both |
1% |
b. Species made transgenic |
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Soya bean |
52% |
Corn |
30% |
Canola |
9% |
Cotton 9% |
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Source: Clive James, ISAAA Report, 1998 |
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*Excluding China |
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Resistance to transgenic agriculture is coming from all over the world.
Seven countries in Europe including the UK are operating bans or a
moratorium on commercial release of transgenic crops. Greece has called
for a Europe-wide moratorium. In the UK, resistance has been growing
exponentially within the past year and a half, and it came straight from
the grassroots. Local groups mushroomed overnight from the most remote
villages to the metropolises cutting across the social spectrum and
bridging all age gaps. They organised numerous debates, discussions,
demonstrations and other actions. And no one should underestimate the
power of the barrage of letters sent to Members of Parliament and local
supermarkets. Never before has civil society been so united. It is the
biggest, most inclusive civil rights movement of the century, if not the
millenium. And it is a civil rights movement against corporate feudalism
that is forcing GM foods on the world.
Impacts of Genetically Engineered Crops on Biodiversity
- Broad spectrum herbicides used with herbicide tolerant transgenic
crops
- - devastates wild plants, which are themselves habitats and food
for many animal species
- Increased use of herbicides and insecticides due to accelerated
evolution of
- - resistances will add to biodevastation
- Transgenic plants harm non-target species directly and indirectly
down the food chain
- - bt-cotton harms bees which are major pollinators
- - bt-maize harms lacewings fed on pests that have eaten bt-maize
- - bt-maize pollen harms larvae of Monarch butterflies
- - transgenic potatoes with snowdrop lectin harms ladybirds fed on
aphids that have eaten transgenic potato
- - transgenic potatoes with snowdrop lectin are toxic to rats
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A resounding chorus of "No to GMO!" has come from consumers,
retailers, wholesalers, food and wine writers and restaurateurs. The two
biggest food giants in the world, Nestle and Unilever, have joined in. A
record number of farmers are converting to organic as the demand for
organic produce is outstripping supply. According to the Soil Association,
which sets organic standards in the UK, the acreage dedicated to organic
farming increased 5 fold between Feb. 1998 and Feb. 1999. The
international market for GMO has collapsed. All agricultural produce in US
has been hit because Monsanto has convinced the Government not to require
segregation. Major suppliers in the US are sourcing non-GMO produce.
There are very brave people in the resistance movement who are facing
harassment and arrest for taking civil disobedience actions. I want to
mention in particular eighty-four year old author and organic farmer, John
Seymour, who was charged for destroying Monsanto's transgenic sugar beet
test site in Ireland. (This was similar to actions that have been taking
place all over the UK.) He compares the invasion of Ireland by "Monsantos
genetically mutilated crops" to the Norman invasion, and sees it his
duty to defend his country. He is prepared to go to prison for it, and
when he comes out, he says, "I will do it all over again."
Dr. Arpad Pusztai, scientist in the publically funded Rowett Institute,
was awarded 1.6 million pound to carry out proper safety testing of
transgenic food, which, up to then, has not been done. He found alarming
results, and being an honest, caring scientist, decided to inform the
public in a TV documentary released last August. A few days later, he was
removed from his job, and forbidden to speak until an international group
of scientists spoke up for him. He has been vilified by the scientists on
the Governments advisory committees on transgenic crops and foods,
many of whom are linked to the industry. But why has the Royal Society
joined in the condemnation?According to a reliable source, the Royal
Society is also dominated by the industry. And the UK Government is hoping
to make use of the condemnation of Pusztais results to reassure the
public. Pusztai himself has no regrets, he says the same as John Seymour,
"I will do it again!"
The Royal Society has lost a lot of credibility. The issue is not, as
they imply, whether sound science has to pass muster by being
peer-reviewed and published. After all, very little of the scientific data
coming from the industry have been peer-reviewed or published, and they
haven't complained about that. The issue is not even whether Pusztai's
work is flawed, I personally do not believe so. Scientific disagreement is
normal. Many papers that were peer-review and published in top Journals
have subsequently been shown to be wrong, or fraudulent. And many papers
that went on to win Nobel prizes have been rejected from Journals. Nature
rejected Hans Krebs' paper on the metabolic cycle that bears his name. The
real issue is the threat to sound and trustworthy science from the
commercialisation of science, and with that, a fundamental
misunderstanding of what science is.
Science is a system of concepts and methods for obtaining reliable
knowledge of nature in order that we may live sustainably with her. This
quality is shared by knowledge systems all over the world. It is imbued
with moral values at the start, and cannot be disentangled from it. The
idea that science is objective, neutral and value-free has misled
generations of scientists, and has allowed the most terrible crimes to be
committed against humanity. The atom bomb and the eugenicist genocide of
indigenous peoples and the Jews come to mind. But there is a more
pernicious, insidious way in which social reality is shaped by the
dominant scientific paradigm. I am speaking of the reductionist mindset
that sees the world as isolated atoms all jostling and competing against
one another, that has no concept the organic whole. It sees selfish genes
instead of organisms, and selfish individuals instead of societies,
ecosystems and communities of nations. Neo-Darwinian evolution theory and
neo-liberal laissez-faire economics are mutually reinforcing, both
stemming from the same roots in Victorian English high society. Together,
they glorify competition and exploitation, and are ultimately responsible
for the current dysfunctional global society with enormous and still
rapidly widening disparity between rich and poor. Monsanto's strategy, as
we have seen, is driven by this mindset. Nature, however, does not conform
to our illusion that things are separate. She is organically
interconnected and finite, and decades of wanton destruction and
exploitation spurred on by corporate capitalism has now brought the planet
to the brink of extinction. Reductionist science has already failed the
reality test.
Genetic engineering biotechnology is the latest offering from bad
science and big business, which is supposed to solve all the problems that
have been created. Unfortunately, the genetic determinist science that is
driving the technology and selling it to the public has not only failed
the reality test in the real world, but has been thoroughly discredited by
scientific findings at least 15 years ago. Genetic determinism is the idea
that genes determine the characteristics of organisms in simplistic ways,
so by manipulating and transferring genes you can create new organisms to
solve any problem. It is of course, also supposed that you can create and
clone super-humans and other such eugenic fantasies. Paradoxically,
genetic engineering is possible precisely because genetic determinism is
invalid, so most of the promises can never be fulfilled. It is all the
more urgent that we should preserve and promote alternative approaches and
in particular, indigenous knowledge systems that have been shown to work
sustainably for millenia and tens of millenia.
Genetic engineering is a new departure from conventional techniques and
introduces new hazards. Particularly so, because those keen on exploiting
the technology have not really caught up with the implications of the
scientific findings.
Genetic Determinism Drives the Technology
The genetic determinist mindset driving the technology offers a
misleadingly simplistic view of how genes function in organisms, which
is evident in the descriptions below, both taken from literature
supposed to promote public understanding of science.
"Research scientists can now precisely identify the individual
gene that governs a desired trait, extract it, copy it and insert the
copy into another organism. That organism (and its offspring) will
then have the desired trait"
Food for Our Future, Food and Biotechnology, Food and Drink
Federation, London, 1995, p.5
"The key to these new biotechnologies is the ability to
identify, isolate and manipulate the individual genes that govern
specific characteristics or traits in plants, animals and
microorganisms. We can alter genes and so adjust the characteristics
they code for, and we can move specific genes from one organism to
another in a very precise manner. As a result, specific
characteristics can be transferred from one individual to another with
a level of control not imaginable a few decades ago."
The new biotechnologies, opportunities and challenges, a
starting point for discussion, Biotechnology and Biological Science
Research Council 1996, p.1 |
The propronents of genetic engineering biotechnology still regard
organisms as though they were machines controlled by genes in a
simplistic, linear fashion - one gene giving one trait. It is a
lego-pieces view of the organism, which supposes that the pieces can be
taken apart and put together arbitrarily. It is also supposed that the
genes are not subject to environmental influences, that they remain
constant and fixed, so if a gene is transferred, you have a new organism
with the desired trait once and for all. At least, the promoters of the
technology want the public to believe that is the case. So, by
manipulating genes, all the problems of the world can be solved, as simple
as that.
This kind of reductionist thinking obviously has a tremendous hold on
the public imagination, and runs very deep within the collective psyche of
our society. For several years, the media have been full of reports on
genes for everything, from homosexuality, criminality, to alcoholism and
homelessness. These claims are socially irresponsible, and go counter to
all the scientific evidence accumulated within the past 20 years, which
gives us the new genetics. What is the new genetics of the present day
really like? I can't go into details. For that you have to read my book,
Genetic Engineering Dream or Nightmare?
Let me contrast the reality with the mindset here. The mindset is a
linear one-way flow of information, from the gene ultimately to the trait
of the organism, with each gene acting more or less independently of all
others. This is epitomised in the Central Dogma of Molecular Biology due
to Francis Crick, co-disoverer of the structure of the genetic material,
DNA. Genetic instruction or information is supposed to go strictly in one
direction, from DNA to RNA to protein, and by implication, the trait of
the organism. And no reverse information flow is allowed.
This reductionist, mechanistic scheme is to be contrasted with the
organic reality that indigenous knowledge systems all over the world are
all based upon, and which, contemporary western science is actually
recovering and reinstating. The new genetics is just the beginning. If you
want to know more about that, please read another book, The Rainbow and
The Worm the 2nd edition of which also came out last year.
The organic reality is radically ecological. The genes form a thoroughly
interonnected network, with influences and instructions going in both
directions at once from genes to the environment and environment back to
genes, and at many levels. The environment can influence not only where
and when certain genes function and how they function, but can also
instruct the genetic material to undergo small and large changes.
There is nothing fixed and constant about genes and genomes. The genome
is the totality of all the genetic material which is organised in very
precise ways. But the organisation is dynamic. The genetic material is so
dynamic and flexible that geneticists have invented the term, the
fluid genome more than 15 years ago. Numerous processes are involved
in chopping and changing genes, mutating genes, rearranging them,
multiplying or deleting them, correcting them, converting them, or move
them around, making them jump in and out of genomes.
The genetic material, furthermore, is not confined within organisms.
Genes can escape into the environment and directly infect other organisms.
This is called horizontal gene transfer, as opposed to vertical gene
transfer, which happens in normal reproduction, from parent to offspring.
Horizontal gene transfer is the process exploited by genetic engineers to
transfer genes in the laboratory between organisms that would never
interbreed in nature.
The new way to think about genes, therefore, is that they have a very
complicated ecology, which consists of all other genes in the genome, the
particular kind of cell in which the genes find themselves, whether it is
a liver cell, a brain cell or a kidney cell, the physiology of the whole
organism and the entire ecological environment. Genes are nothing if not
sensitive and responsive, ultimately to the whole ecology. The idea that
you can patent genes or pieces of genetic material for what it can do is
absurd. Because what it does depends on the cellular, physiological and
ecological contexts. Furthermore, it is infinitely mutable.
Most importantly, those fluid genome processes are in
reality a sophisticated regulatory system that carries out the very
precise natural genetic engineering which is necessary for
life; for it maintains the integrity and autonomy of the organism and of
the species within its ecological environment. These processes keep the
genetic material dynamically stable under balanced ecological conditions,
but at the same time, enables it to change promptly in response to
environmental challenges.
Ecosystems, which include the human beings, are not made up of
individuals in constant competition of one against all and all against
nature. Instead, ecosystems consisting of organisms of diverse species are
sustained as a whole by mutualistic, symbiotic relationships, by
reciprocal checks and balances. Species in an ecosystem also keep their
genes to themselves, only occasionally exchanging genes horizontally
between unrelated species. The fluid genome processes in each species
maintain the integrity of species and establish species barriers which
limit genetic exchange between species.
Genetic engineering done by human genetic engineers is targetting just
this exquisite regulatory system. But, it is anything but precise. It
makes crude, unnatural combinations of genes to break down the integrity
of the organism and to cross all species barriers. The dangers are
inherent to the hit or miss technology. New genes and gene combinations
are made that have never existed in nature. These are introduced directly
into plant cells by physical methods such as a gun that shoots gold
particles coated with the genetic material or the constructs are spliced
into artificial gene carriers or vectors, made up of bits of different
viruses and other genetic parasites that carry disease and antibiotic
resistance genes. While natural viruses and genetic parasites are limited
by species barriers, the artificial vectors and the gene-constructs are
designed to cross all species barriers and to overcome mechanisms that
breakdown, inactivate or inhibit foreign DNA.
The insertion of foreign genes into the genome is neither controlled by
the organism nor by the genetic engineer. It ends up being completely
random, giving rise to correspondingly random genetic effects, including
cancer in mammalian cells. Large failure rates are typical in transgenic
animals and many abnormalities are found, raising serious concerns about
animal welfare. For the same reasons, transgenic crops are often unstable,
do not breed true and do not perform consistently. Small and large
failures have occurred even in crops that have been approved for
commercial planting. One major cause of failure if gene-silencing -
mechanisms that inactivate or inhibit the expression of foreign genes. A
country's agricultural base could be completely ruined if transgenic crops
are widely introduced.
Transgenic Crops are Unsustainable
- Transgenic varieties are unstable, do not breed true, and do not
perform consistently
- Herbicide tolerant transgenic crops are incompatible with
sustainable agriculture dependent on mixed cropping and crop
rotation
- Broad-spectrum herbicides harm earthworms and microoragnisms that
maintain natural soil fertility in organic farming
- Transgenic plants with bt-toxin undermines pest control for
organic farming and are toxic to major pollinators and other
beneficial insects
- Transgenic lines are even more genetically uniform than
conventional mono-culture crops and may hence be more susceptible to
diseases and environmental exigencies
- Viral resistant transgenic plants can generate new, often
superinfectious viruses
- Terminator technologies destroy seed fertility
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Random gene insertion also means that the properties of the resulting
transgenic line will be totally unpredictable, and unintended changes
including toxins and allergens are likely, all the more so because of
interactions between introduced genes and host genes and because of the
unnatural gene combinations or gene constructs introduced. Typically, the
foreign gene is accompanied by a genetic signal called a promoter, which
is taken from a virus. The most common one is from the cauliflower mosaic
virus. This promoter makes the gene over-express continuously, at perhaps
10 to 1000 times the rate that any gene in the organism would normally be
expressed, effectively placing the foreign gene outside the control of the
host organism. The host organism is therefore under permanent metabolic
stress.
What Pusztai and his colleagues found is very relevant. His research
group was collaborating with two other laboratories, one in the Univ of
Durham which created two transgenic potato lines engineered with the
snowdrop lectin - a protein that binds to cell surface carbohydrates, and
the other, a pathology lab in the University of Aberdeen, which carries
out the histological studies on internal organs. The transgenic lines were
made exactly the same way with the same materials, but they were found to
be significantly different from each other and from the unmodified potato
line in the amount of protein as well as concentrations of various
antinutritionals, ie, substances considered not good for nutrition. Yet,
the transgenic potato lines were pronounced "substantially equivalent"
to the nontransgenic potato by an audit committee set up to discredit
Pusztai. According to all current regulatory systems which follow a 1996
joint FAO/WHO food safety report on biotechnology, "substantially
equivalent" means it is safe to eat. Pusztai found that the
transgenic potatoes were toxic to rats, affecting all major organs
including the brain. Furthermore, most of the toxic effects were
associated with the transgenic process. That is why people don't trust the
GM products that are on the market. They have been approved in the same
cavalier way and may be seriously toxic. Moreover, because there is no
segregation and labelling, it is impossible to trace those who have been
exposed. The public are being used as guinea pigs, without informed
consent, in a bad experiment from which no useful data can be collected.
This is surely against basic human rights. There are indeed fatal flaws in
the currently accepted biosafety regulatory systems, which most of the
countries in the world would want to address with their own national
legislations in addition to the International Biosafety Protocol.
When all these crops are released into the environment, the dangerous
genes and gene constructs will spread and poison other plants and animals.
Remember that they can spread not only by cross-pollination, but by
infection, or horizontal gene transfer. Horizontal gene transfer can occur
to all the species that the transgenic plants interact with: microbes,
nematodes, insects, earthworms and mammals, including human beings eating
the transgenic food. These are not theoretical possibilities. They are
backed up by experimental evidence. Yet, current regulation does not
recognize the reality of horizontal gene transfer.
Secondary horizontal transfer of genes incorporated into
transgenic plants, including antibiotic resistance marker genes, to soil
fungi and bacteria have been demonstrated in the laboratory.
The genetic material, DNA, released from dead and live cells, is
not readily broken down in the environment and can persist indefinitely.
All kinds of unnatural DNA are being produced by the biotech industry.
They are potentially the most dangerous new class of xenobiotics - meaning
substances foreign to organisms - to pollute our environment. They are
much more hazardous than toxic chemicals because they are infectious, and
can get into all cells, to multiply, mutate and recombine. The Norwegian
Government has commissioned independent virologist Terje Traavik to write
a report on the dangers of horizontal gene transfer from DNA released into
the environment in 1995. It has recently been updated and translated into
English under the title, Too Early may be Too Late; stressing the
importance of the precautionary approach.
DNA is not readily broken down in the gut. Viral and plasmid DNA
fed to mice not only got into the bacteria in the gut but also into the
gut cells, the blood cells, spleen and liver cells where they are
incorporated into the cell's genome. When fed to pregnant mice, the DNA
end up in the cells of the foetus and newborn.
Practically all the gene constructs in transgenic plants contain
the cauliflower mosaic viral promoter, including the widely grown
transgenic soya. CaMV is closely related to the human hepatitis B virus
and is also similar to retroviruses that are associated with AIDS and
cancer. Its promoter can drive the synthesis of the other viruses. Dormant
viruses which are in all genomes may be reactivated by the CaMV promoter
or it can recombine with endogenous viruses to generate new viruses. The
CaMV promoter is known to contain a recombination hot-spot, which means it
very frequently recombines. This has now been confirmed for transgenic
rice lines, the mechanisms for recombination being provided by the host
plant. Among the results reported by Pusztai's group are "signs of
viral infection" in the gut of rats fed transgenic potato for only 10
days.There is no definitive proof yet that the CaMV promoter has got into
the intestinal cells of these mice, but this possibility is being
considered.
I should mention that the potential of genetic engineering to generate
new viruses and bacteria that cause diseases was forseen by the pioneers
of genetic engineering in the 1970s. That was why a moratorium was
declared in Asilomar. However, it was shortlived. Commercial pressures led
to guidelines that were based largely on assumptions, everyone of which
has been invalidated by scientific findings since. Chief among these
assumptions was that DNA is rapidly broken down in all environments.
Genetically Engineered Food Poses Unacceptable Health Risks
- The hazards are inherent to the hit or miss technology
- Random gene insertions give random genetic abnormalities and
unexpected effects
- New genes, gene constructs and products from viruses, bacteria
and non-food species are introduced into our food for which no
safety tests exist
- Interaction between introduced gene and host genes increases
unexpected effects including toxins and allergens
- The technology enhances horizontal gene transfer and has the
potential to generate new viruses and bacteria that cause diseases
and spread drug and antibiotic resistance
- - horizontal gene transfer and recombination spread antibiotic
resistance genes and have created new pathogens in recent years
- - strains of four dangerous bacteria, including the one causing
tuberculosis, are resistant to all antibiotics and hence untreatable
- - at least 40 new viruses that cause disease in human beings have
emerged between 1988 and 1996
- - transgenic plants were found to transfer transgenes and
antibiotic resistant marker genes to soil microorganisms and fungi
- - DNA released from dead or live cells persists in all
environments and remain infectious
- - viral DNA is often more infectious than the intact virus
- - viral and plasmid DNA resist digestion in the gut of mice,
enter the blood stream and into white blood cells, spleen and liver
cells and incorporate into the mouse cell genome
- - naked DNA is so efficient in gaining access to mammalian cells
that it is now used in somatic gene therapy, administered orally,
through the skin or injected into the blood stream.
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Since then, the world has seen an accelerated resurgence of drug and
antibiotic resistant infectious diseases. There is overwhelming evidence
that horizontal gene transfer has been responsible for spreading drug and
antibiotic resistance genes and for creating new viruses and bacteria that
cause diseases. Moreover, many of the horizontal gene transfers have
occurred very recently, as indicated by identical or nearly identical
genes being found in unrelated species. Genetic engineering is designed to
break down species barriers and to enhance horizontal gene transfer. Has
commercial genetic engineering contributed to creating the drug and
antibiotic resistant pathogens? A number of scientists including myself
have produced a report on the possible links and demanding a public
enquiry.
Genetic engineering agriculture is surely an extremely dangerous
diversion. Far from feeding the world, it intensifies corporate control on
food which created poverty and hunger in the first place. It obstructs the
implementation of sustainable agriculture and erodes agricultural
biodiversity, which are now widely recognized to be just what we need to
guarantee long term food security and counteract malnutrition as many
studies are demonstrating.
Seventy scientists from all over the world are now calling for a global
moratorium on transgenic agriculture, a ban on patents of living
organisms, cells lines and genes, and an independent enquiry into the
future of agriculture and food security for all. Civil society must
recapture the agenda for the next millenium, to regenerate the earth with
the natural resilience and fruitfulness of life. Marina Silva, Senator of
Brazil and champion of indigenous peoples rights have made a plea to
western scientists to work together with indigenous scientists, and I
would like to endorse that wholeheartedly. It is time we recover the
Promethean ideal of sustainable, responsible science for the good of all.
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