“Show me the bodies are GM foods safe to eat?”
Alison Van Eenennaam
Animal Genomics and Biotechnology
Cooperative Extension Specialist
Department of Animal Science
University of California, Davis, CA
Ph: (530) 752-7942
alvaneenennaam@ucdavis.edu
Alison Van Eenennaam UC Davis
Animal Genomics and Biotechnology Education
‘‘We have designed our civilization
based on science and technology, and
at the same time arranged things so
that almost no-one understands
anything at all about science and
technology—this is a clear prescription
for disaster.’’
Carl Sagan
My basic question is this
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The first genetically engineered or modified (GM) crops came to
the market in 1986, since then 100 fold increase in plantings
17.3 million farmers grew GM varieties in 2012 on > 170 million
hectares, and of these > 90% (15 million) were small, resourcepoor farmers in developing countries.
During that time over three trillion meals containing GE
ingredients been eaten, and there has yet to be one substantiated
case of consumer harm.
Currently the products of GE are required to go through an
expensive and time consuming food safety evaluation and
regulatory process before coming to market. Is this level of
scrutiny aligned to science-based risk associated with this
technology, or is this overabundance of precaution making the
deployment of this valuable technology beyond the means of all
but the largest, multinational corporations, to the detriment of
food security globally?
Is it Time to Adjust the Current
Regulatory Risk Assessment for
GM Food and Feed?
In 1987, a National Academy of Science (USA) report
entitled Introduction of Recombinant DNA-Engineered
Organisms into the Environment had already stated that
“there is no evidence that unique hazards exist in
the use of recombinant DNA techniques or in the
transfer of genes between unrelated organisms” and
“that the risk[s]...are the same in kind as those
associated with...other genetic techniques.” In
addition, in 1989 and 1990, scientists (including 16
European Nobel Prize Laureates) had warned against a
legislation targeting the process (transgenesis) and not the
product itself (its traits).
http://www.isb.vt.edu/news/2012/Feb/kuntz-ricroch.pdf
Can the millions of dollars spent on
compositional studies with GM crops
still be justified in 2013?
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Over the past 20 years, the U.S. FDA found all of the 148 transgenic
events that they evaluated to be substantially equivalent to their
conventional counterparts, as have the Japanese regulators for 189
submissions, with the latter including combined-trait products. Over
80 peer-reviewed publications also conclude this same compositional
safety for GM crops.
These studies have spanned the crops of corn, soybean, cotton,
canola, wheat, potato, alfalfa, rice, papaya, tomato, cabbage, pepper,
raspberry, and a mushroom, and traits of herbicide tolerance, insect
resistance, virus resistance, drought tolerance, cold tolerance,
nutrient enhancement, and expression of protease inhibitors.
In addition, numerous studies have found that variation resulting
from traditional breeding and environmental factors dwarf any
changes observed in the composition due to introducing a trait
through transgenesis
DOI: 10.1021/jf400135r,
Publication Date (Web): February 15, 2013
“Compositional equivalence studies uniquely required for GM
may no longer be justified on the basis of scientific uncertainty”
Not all safety testing is
without merit
There is always the issue of novel proteins or compounds
with no history of safe use. These will always have to be
tested for toxicity and allergenicity – be they introduced
by GM or conventional breeding techniques.
The bulk of safety testing and expense is to detect
unintended changes that might be hazardous including
increased levels of endogenous allergens.
It is testing for unreliable, unpredictable ,
unknown, unintended effects that is
scientifically dubious if not totally without merit.
Unintended effects have
not materialized
“Is seems more scientifically defensible to
be able to state that certain likely effects
(e.g. novel allergens) have been searched
for and found absent, than to admit that
one did not know quite what to look for –
but found it absent nevertheless”
Allergy. 2013 Feb;68(2):142-51
Do endogenous allergen
tests protect consumers?
Allergenic foods only pose a risk of allergy for those
who are allergic. There are no data to demonstrate
that specific doses of allergens are responsible for
sensitization, while lower doses are tolerogenic.
Since allergic individuals must avoid consumption of
foods containing their allergenic source to avoid
adverse reactions, the relevance of testing to
determine changes in levels of endogenous allergens
is unclear
Allergy. 2013 Feb;68(2):142-51
What is the purpose of endogenous allergen testing?
There have been 100s of animal
feeding studies including long-term
and multigenerational studies
showing no health effects
A matter of risk perception
rather than demonstrated risk
Mandatory process-based regulations and
extensive food safety testing of GM products have
failed to convince GM opponents and consumers
that regulations are robust regarding GM food and
feed safety.
It may even have
convinced consumers that,
since the regulation is required,
it must mean that GM is
intrinsically risky.
So where does this
opposition come from?
There seems to be a widespread assumption
that modern technology equals more risk.
Actually there are many very natural and
organic ways to face illness and early death,
as the debacle with Germany’s organic
beansprouts proved in 2011.
This was a public health catastrophe, with the same number of
deaths and injuries as were caused by Chernobyl, because
E. coli infected organic beansprout seeds imported from Egypt.
In total 53 people died and 3,500 suffered serious kidney failure. And
why were these consumers choosing organic? Because they thought it
was safer and healthier, and they were more scared of entirely trivial
risks from highly-regulated chemical pesticides and fertilizers.
http://www.marklynas.org/2013/01/lecture-to-oxford-farming-conference-3-january-2013/
Mark Lynas, who spent the
1990s tearing up fields of GM
crops, was the first to point an
accusatory finger at Monsanto
“I apologise for having spent several
years ripping up GM crops. I'm also
sorry that I helped to start the anti-GM movement back in
the mid-1990s and that I thereby assisted in demonising
an important technological option which can be used to
benefit the environment. As an environmentalist, and
someone who believes that everyone in this world has a
right to a healthy and nutritious diet of their choosing, I
could not have chosen a more counter-productive path. I
now regret it completely."
Mark Lynas, Lecture to Oxford Farming Conference, 1/3/2013.
http://www.marklynas.org/2013/01/lecture-to-oxford-farming-conference-3-january-2013/
“So my message to the anti-GM lobby, from the
ranks of the British aristocrats and celebrity chefs to
the US foodies to the peasant groups of India is this.
You are entitled to your views. But you must know
by now that they are not supported by science.”
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I’d assumed that it would increase the use of chemicals. It turned out that pestresistant cotton and maize needed less insecticide.
I’d assumed that GM benefited only the big companies. It turned out that billions of
dollars of benefits were accruing to farmers needing fewer inputs.
I’d assumed that Terminator Technology was robbing farmers of the right to save
seed. It turned out that hybrids did that long ago, and that Terminator never
happened.
I’d assumed that no-one wanted GM. Actually what happened was that Bt cotton
was pirated into India and roundup ready soya into Brazil because farmers were so
eager to use them.
I’d assumed that GM was dangerous. It turned out that it was safer and more
precise than conventional breeding using mutagenesis for example; GM just moves a
couple of genes, whereas conventional breeding mucks about with the entire genome
in a trial and error way.
But what about mixing genes between unrelated species? Turns out viruses do
that all the time, as do plants and insects and even us – it’s called gene flow.
Mark Lynas, Lecture to Oxford Farming Conference, 1/3/2013.
http://www.marklynas.org/2013/01/lecture-to-oxford-farming-conference-3-january-2013/
There are arguments for and
against, as with any technology.
But most of the concerns we had
10 years ago about health and
environmental impacts were
clearly overblown.
“The GM debate is over. It is finished. We
no longer need to discuss whether or not
it is safe – over a decade and a half with
three trillion GM meals eaten there has
never been a single substantiated case of
harm. You are more likely to get hit by an
asteroid than to get hurt by GM food.”
Mark Lynas, Lecture to Oxford Farming Conference, 1/3/2013.
http://www.marklynas.org/2013/01/lecture-to-oxford-farming-conference-3-january-2013/
GMO OMG
“This report describes the first life-long rodent (rat) feeding study
investigating possible toxic effects rising from an Roundup-tolerant GM maize”
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0278691511006399
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18787312
N=50 in GM and non-GM groups
N=35 in CE-2 (commercial chow)
Study by a Japanese group financed using public funds from the Department of
Environmental Health and Toxicology, Tokyo Metropolitan Institute of Public Health
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18787312
Study by a Japanese group financed using public funds from the Department of
Environmental Health and Toxicology, Tokyo Metropolitan Institute of Public Health
“The most commonly observed neoplasms in these female control Harlan
Sprague–Dawley rats were mammary gland fibroadenoma (71%), tumors of
the pars distalis of the pituitary (41%) and thyroid gland C-cell tumors (30%).”
doi: 10.1080/01926230590961836
Toxicol Pathol June 2005 vol. 33 no. 4 477-483
It started with a press conference in which journalists
agreed not to engage in fact-checking in return for a
preview of new research indicating that both a widely-used
herbicide and a genetically modified variety of maize
resistant to that herbicide caused high tumor levels in rats.
Within hours, the news had been blogged and tweeted more
than 1.5 million times. Lurid photos of tumor-ridden rats
appeared on websites and in newspapers around the world,
while larger-than-life images of the rats were broadcast across
the USA on the popular television show Dr. Oz.
Activists destroyed a GM soybean consignment at the port of
Lorient, France, in order to denounce the presence in the food
chain of a product they considered to be toxic. The Russian
Federation and Kazakhstan banned imports of the maize variety
used in the study, Peru imposed a 10-year moratorium on GM
crops and Kenya banned all imports of GM food.
Arjó G, Portero M, Piñol C, Viñas J, Matias-Guiu X, Capell T, Bartholomaeus A, Parrott W, Christou P. 2013. Plurality
of opinion, scientific discourse and pseudoscience: an in depth analysis of the Séralini et al. study claiming that
Roundup™ Ready corn or the herbicide Roundup™ cause cancer in rats. Transgenic Res. 22:255-67.
The publication of the Seralini article undermines
the value of peer review, encouraging the plurality
of opinion and democracy in science and
promoting their influence on scientific policies.
“The Seralini paper, and its
associated media fanfare,
was a transparent attempt
to discredit regulatory agencies
around the world, and to get
the public to insist on different
standards of regulation for GM
crops.”
Arjó G, Portero M, Piñol C, Viñas J, Matias-Guiu X, Capell T, Bartholomaeus A, Parrott W, Christou P.
2013. Plurality of opinion, scientific discourse and pseudoscience: an in depth analysis of the Séralini
et al. study claiming that Roundup™ Ready corn or the herbicide Roundup™ cause cancer in rats.
Transgenic Res. 22:255-67.
More long term (2 yr) animal feeding studies
of GM, endogenous allergen studies, and
compositional fishing trips for unintended
effects can not be scientifically justified
Introduction of unnecessary new regulations,
the escalation of expenditure in the search
to ensure compliance, the unfair suppression
of promising technologies and unnecessary
alarmism affects the most vulnerable
members of our society.
Arjó G, Portero M, Piñol C, Viñas J, Matias-Guiu X, Capell T, Bartholomaeus A, Parrott W, Christou P.
2013. Plurality of opinion, scientific discourse and pseudoscience: an in depth analysis of the Séralini
et al. study claiming that Roundup™ Ready corn or the herbicide Roundup™ cause cancer in rats.
Transgenic Res. 22:255-67.
Politicized Junk Science has
Real Consequences
“Regulatory bodies exist to provide objective
assessments. They comprise experts on the topic
with the authority to establish regulations that
ensure society benefits from scientific discoveries,
rather than coming to harm. Therefore plurality of
opinion not supported by relevant data and propelled
by democracy in science undermines the very
institutions put in place to ensure the proper use of
science and technology for the benefit of society”
Arjó G, Portero M, Piñol C, Viñas J, Matias-Guiu X, Capell T, Bartholomaeus A, Parrott W, Christou P. 2013. Plurality of
opinion, scientific discourse and pseudoscience: an in depth analysis of the Séralini et al. study claiming that
Roundup™ Ready corn or the herbicide Roundup™ cause cancer in rats. Transgenic Res. 22:255-67.
Babes against biotech.org
Isn’t it time someone spoke
up for these “Babes”?
Vitamin A deficiency remains
endemic in large areas of the
world and continues to be a
major cause of visual
disability and mortality.
Estimates predict that more
than five million children
develop xerophthalmia
annually and that > quarter
million become blind from the
effects of vitamin A deficiency
Vitamin A requirements increase during
pregnancy and development, which is
why 30% of children in South Asia and
Africa suffer from the growth retardation
caused by Vitamin A deficiency
EyePathologist.com
“I now say that the world has the technology —
either available or well advanced in the research
pipeline — to feed on a sustainable basis a
population of 10 billion people. The more
pertinent question today is whether farmers and
ranchers will be permitted to use this new
technology? While the affluent nations can
certainly afford to adopt ultra low-risk positions,
and pay more for food produced by the so-called
‘organic’ methods, the one billion chronically
undernourished people of the low income, fooddeficit nations cannot.”
Norman Borlaug