ScienceWeek

1. INTRODUCTION

SYMPOSIUM: GENETIC MODIFICATION OF FOOD CROPS

THEY DON'T CARE

The following points are made by Holger Breithaupt (EMBO Reports 2001 2:1):

1) The birth of Adam Nash last year marked another triumph for biotechnology. He was conceived in vitro and selected from among numerous other embryos because his genetic make up makes him a perfect donor of bone marrow stem cells for his older sister Molly. Stem cells were taken from Adam's umbilical cord and injected into Molly, who suffered from a rare form of anemia. Apart from a few ethical objections in the European media, the response -- from scientists, the media and the public -- to this latest achievement in molecular biology has been positive.

2) At the same time, 350,000 children die and another 2 million go blind each year because of vitamin A deficiency, 150 million children are underweight and 30 million children are born with impaired growth or even more serious deformities due to malnutrition. There is a biotechnological solution for these problems. Ingo Potrykus of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, Switzerland and Peter Beyer of the University of Freiburg in Germany have genetically engineered a rice strain that produces beta-carotene, a precursor of vitamin A. This GM crop, coined "yellow rice" because of its color, could help the 124 million children worldwide who suffer from vitamin A deficiency. Other crops have been engineered to be salt-, drought- or pest-resistant and could be a blessing for farmers in the Third World who cannot afford pesticides or fertilizers. Molecular biology also has great potential for the development of cures for the major diseases that ravage the Third World --diseases such as malaria, leishmaniasis and AIDS.

3) As yet, the yellow rice is still sitting in a grenade-proof greenhouse in Zurich and is not expected to leave it soon. Not because of patent problems-- all of the biotech companies whose patents were involved have already agreed to forego royalties if the yellow rice is given to poor countries free of charge -- but because the testing of yellow rice has been delayed by the current European climate in which GM plants are seen as a threat to health and the environment. And even some interest groups in poor countries have joined this chorus -- Vandana Shiva, a prominent opponent of genetic engineering in India, has opted against yellow rice because she fears that it could be used to promote the use of GM food and crops in the Third World in general.

4) Environmental groups argue that GM crops -- including yellow rice -- are a menace to the environment because they threaten biodiversity. At the same time, farmers in South America, India, the pacific islands and Africa are hacking and burning down the rainforest to scrape a living from the soil. After a few years in one location, they move on, leaving in their wake a torched and depleted earth that is quickly eroded by wind and rain. As a consequence, numerous plant and animal species are threatened as their natural environment is rapidly disappearing. The Indian tiger and the African mountain gorilla are merely the more prominent representatives of species that are threatened by the dangers associated with human hunger, rather than by GM plants.

5) So does the North really not care about the fate of the majority of human beings who live in the Southern Hemisphere? Obviously, this is not the case. Whenever pictures of catastrophic famine in Africa flicker over our TV screens, we donate millions to help ease the suffering of the poor. The leaders of the industrialized countries decided last year to remit the debts of the poorest countries, giving them some financial room to develop their infrastructures. Western pharmaceutical companies have provided African countries with a drug for the treatment of river blindness free of charge. They are also investing millions of US dollars into the development of a malaria vaccine, although the returns for such a treatment are rather meager.

6) The most effective help for the poor countries, however, would be to provide them with the means to feed their people. And so it is baffling that environmental and consumer protection groups raise all kinds of objections in order to withhold GM crops from them. At the Genetics and the Future of Europe conference, their speakers asked for a "mature debate about how to use new technologies," as Susan Mayer from GeneWatch in the UK put it. An open debate on the use of GMOs is certainly necessary, but there is a problem. Nobody invites representatives of the poor to these debates. And for those of us living in the First World, the benefits of GM crops are not immediately visible, while the perceived threats are blown out of proportion. It seems that we have lost our focus on the problems that really matter for the majority of people on this planet.

7) The representatives of interest groups for the environment, patients and the disabled should ask an Indian farmer, who sees his children die or go blind, for his opinion on GM crops. Most probably, he will have one and will say loudly and clearly, "I want it now!" Then they should ask the farmer about risk assessment, risk/benefit analysis or the precautionary principle. His astonishment about such concerns would be the most eloquent response. We should try to see things from his perspective.

ON BIOTECHNOLOGY AND GENETICALLY MODIFIED PLANTS

Official protocols aimed at regulating gene technology were initiated in 1975. Over the years, review procedures have been refined and currently three federal agencies are involved in the review of genetically modified (GM) plants. These are the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The FDA regulates the manufacture of food, food additives, cosmetics, and drugs. It evaluates products but not the processes used to manufacture these products. Thus, the FDA concerns itself with the safety of GM plant-derived foods without considering the fact that the sources of these foods are genetically modified organisms.

The USDA has the responsibility of protecting agriculture and forestry and assesses the risks associated with the release of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) into the environment. Finally, the EPA has jurisdiction over activities that can potentially harm the environment. GMOs fall into that category and are thus also regulated by the EPA. For example, it was the EPA that developed new regulations covering the release of plants engineered to resist pests. One can see that there exists a certain redundancy between the activities of the USDA and those of the EPA. This can be a good thing, but redundancy also poses problems of coordination and increases the complexity of review procedures. Moreover, it is not clear at this point in time that the three agencies are prepared to face the imminent avalanche of applications for certification of new GM products. Undoubtedly, federal authorities must continue to review the reviewers, until a general consensus is reached that satisfies not only bureaucrats and scientists but also the public at large.

The core issue that federal agencies and scientists alike must address is that of risk assessment. Plants engineered for insect resistance may or may not harm other insects that are not pests for these plants. Concerns are also expressed about the potential spread of transgenes by sexual crossing between engineered crops and their weedy relatives. Further, some people think that GM plants might one day out-compete indigenous species, thereby deeply altering natural environments. These questions are difficult to address, but they are not intractable. For example, a threat to innocuous insects can be evaluated in the laboratory under realistic conditions. Similarly, the spread of transgenes can be measured in greenhouse experiments and small-scale plots. Further, the fitness of GM plants and their ability to outcompete other plants also can be measured under controlled conditions.

Finally, GM plants are not just about risk. There are also benefits associated with them, as in the case of golden rice and the use of GM plants to detoxify pollutants, for example. Therefore, a risk analysis must also be accompanied by a study of positive factors to assess an acceptable level of risk, that is, the trade-off between risk and benefit. Laboratory experiments can provide a quantitative evaluation of risk levels but cannot address the psychological and cultural impact of the way risk levels are perceived by the public. Only objective, dispassionate information-sharing can alleviate or confirm public fears. This is exactly what is lacking in the field of GM plants at the present time.

Paul F. Lurquin: High Tech Harvest: Understanding Genetically Modified Food Plants. Westview Press 2002. The author is Professor of Genetics at Washington State University, US. More information at: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0813339464/scienceweek

ON THE SAFETY OF GENETICALLY ENGINEERED FOODS

Are genetically engineered foods safe to eat? Do they harm the Earth's environment?

These questions, which dominate all current discussions of genetically engineered foods, masquerade as simple questions of fact. In truth, they are nothing of the sort... The questions are important, of course. But the really intriguing thing about these questions is the attitudes people bring to them that confound attempts to provide a satisfactory answer.

Take for example the question about the safety of genetically engineered food. If it were a question of fact, the answer would be straightforward. One can create genetically engineered plants that would be harmful to eat. Yet there is no credible evidence that genetically engineered foods currently on the market pose any greater risk to consumers than conventional food. The genetic alterations have introduced no substances that are known to be toxic to humans, nor have they increased the levels of toxic substances that already are present in those foods. On the face of it, these genetic alterations should be of no concern at all, compared to many other things that North Americans and Europeans already eat, from high levels of fats and sugar to small amounts of toxins from both natural and industrial sources.

Yet for vast numbers of consumers, that comparison isn't enough. They demand stronger proof that these foods are safe. In fact, they demand stronger assurances of safety than they do for many other foods or nutritional supplements. The truly interesting question is, why?

The question of possible environmental harm is similar. Genetically engineered crops can affect ecosystems. Some Monarch butterfly larvae have perished as a result of consuming milkweed leaves dusted with pollen from Bt corn. One could imagine other effects on the environment. Yet on balance the genetically engineered crops currently on the market probably have produced a net benefit to the environment rather than harm. I won't argue that the benefit is huge. It's not. Indeed, when one considers the enormous impact of conventional agriculture on the environment, the additional impact of genetic engineering, for good or ill, is tiny and hardly worth mentioning.

Why, then, do so many people regard genetically engineered crops as threatening apparitions in the countryside? By the same token, why do enthusiasts of biotechnology proclaim that genetic engineering represents a "revolution" in agriculture, and why do they sometimes talk as though this technology represents the last best hope for feeding the world's expanding population? These, too, are fascinating questions. The answers, I'm convinced, are not matters of fact and argument.

Daniel Charles: Lords of the Harvest: Biotech, Big Money, and the Future of Food. Perseus Publishing 2001. More information at: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0738202916/scienceweek

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