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ARE WE HUMAN GUINEA PIGS?
For 6 years genetically modified/engineered food as been put in the foods we eat without our knowing. The FDA did not require bio-companies to label foods from genetically modified/engineered foods. This has caused fear and anger in many of us. Below are excerpts from PBS - Nova's Harvest of Fear, along with other studies and articles.
EXCERPTS:
Nature takes millions of years to effect genetic change. What right do we have to make changes overnight, as it were? Nature also does not mix apples and oranges, much less flounder and strawberries. (Scientists placed an antifreeze gene from the fish into the fruit in a failed attempt to help strawberries withstand frost.) In short, do we have the wisdom to substitute human for natural selection? To play God?
Many argue we do not, and that such acts are immoral. For some, GM technology flies in the face of cherished principles about the relationship between humanity and nature. If you are vegetarian, how would you feel if you learned that a vegetable you just ate bore an animal gene? For others, such pursuits offend deeply held religious beliefs. If you are observing kosher dietary laws, how would you feel knowing the tomato you just enjoyed in your salad carried a pig gene? For some people, genetic manipulation is nothing short of sacreligious.
"While human beings may rightfully improve the world through many types of technologies, the enterprise to restructure the genetic blueprints of Earth's plants and animals is so unprecedented, so invasive of the realm of the Creator, and potentially so irreversible that it warrants the most careful consideration and reverential restraint. Human intelligence should not undertake such a venture without sincere acknowledgment of its own limitations and full appreciation of the complexity and majesty of God's design."
--Alliance for Bio-Integrity
GM seed firms invest heavily in research and development, and naturally, they want to recoup their investment. But in their rush to secure patents and reap profits, critics contend, big biotech firms are deliberately over-promoting the benefits of GM technology and underestimating possible health, socioeconomic, and environmental hazards. Detractors say these companies are also concentrating their efforts in high-volume crops, such as soybeans, corn, and cotton, and not in crops that might help feed the billions of people who live in poor countries. A World Bank report in 1997 found only four "coherent, coordinated" GM research programs on developing-world crops at the time.
Another potential hazard to human health is the possibility that bacteria in our guts could pick up antibiotic-resistance genes found in many GM foodstuffs. (Food geneticists often add such genes to GM plants as 'markers' to tell them which plants have taken up exotic genes.) If this transfer happens, in principle it could exacerbate the already worrisome spread of disease-causing bacteria that have proven able to withstand our antibiotics.
"Today the vast majority of foods in supermarkets contain genetically modified substances whose effects on our health are unknown. As a medical doctor, I can assure you that no one in the medical profession would attempt to perform experiments on human subjects without their consent. Such conduct is illegal and unethical. Yet manufacturers of genetically altered foods are exposing us to one of the largest uncontrolled experiments in modern history."
--Dr. Martha R. Herbert, pediatric neurologist
"Lots and lots of people -- virtually the entire population -- could be exposed to genetically engineered foods, and yet we have only a handful of studies in the peer-reviewed literature addressing their safety. The question is, do we assume the technology is safe based on an argument that it's just a minor extension of traditional breeding, or do we prove it? The scientist in me wants to prove it's safe."
--Dr. Margaret Mellon, director of the agricultural and biotechnology program, Union of Concerned Scientists
GM crops will also further our reliance on vast monocultures, objectors state. (Just 15 food crops today supply 90 percent of the world's food and energy intake.) Many small farmers in the developing world maintain a rich diversity of flora; in India alone, farmers raise some 50,000 plant varieties. These plants thrive under different climatic and environmental conditions, providing insurance against drought or disease or locust swarms. Lacking such insurance, farmers of monocultures are vulnerable to lethal attacks by disease and pests. In the 1970s, for example, corn blight devastated the U.S. corn crop; in 1975 Indonesian farmers lost half a million acres of rice to the rice hopper insect. GM monocultures will possess similar susceptibilities. If pests evolve tolerance to a crop's built-in insecticide, say, or if weeds develop immunity to weed killers sprayed over fields of herbicide-resistant GM plants, that crop -- and the people who count on it -- could suffer.
"Some researchers have shown that none of the genetically engineered seeds significantly increase the yield of crops. Indeed, in more than 8,200 field trials, the [genetically altered] Roundup seeds produced fewer bushels of soybeans than similar natural varieties, according to a study by Dr. Charles Benbrook, the former director of the Board of Agriculture at the National Academy of Sciences. Far from being a solution to the world's hunger problem, the rapid introduction of genetically engineered crops may actually threaten agriculture and food security."
--Dr. Peter Rosset, director of the Institute for Food and Development Policy and co-author of World Hunger: Twelve Myths (Grove Press, 1998)
"Centers of [plant] diversity are already eroding under pressure from loss of habitats and the tendency of modern agriculture to rely on a few elite varieties of important crops. Hundreds of thousands of varieties of crop relatives have been lost. The U.S. government, however, shows no inclination to assess risks posed in other parts of the world by crops engineered in the United States."
--Drs. Jane Rissler and Margaret Mellon, scientists at the Union of Concerned Scientists and authors of The Ecological Risks of Engineered Crops
Citing the case of mosquitoes that became tolerant of DDT, critics also shudder at the thought that insects will become 'superbugs' resistant to pesticides engineered into GM crops. By the same token, they also predict the evolution of 'superweeds' that become immune to a broad-spectrum weed killer after crossing with and assuming the herbicide-resistant gene from a closely related GM plant. GM crops themselves can become weeds, they note. Canadian farmers have reported that herbicide-resistant canola plants have invaded nearby wheat fields with the impunity of a feared superweed.
"Unrelated multiple side-effects of introduced genes cannot be predicted in advance and are not always visible or easily detected."
--Dr. Ricarda Steinbrecher, Women's Environmental Network, London, U.K.
"[Genes jumping to wild relatives, possibly leading to 'superweeds'] could be particularly significant in countries where crops have weedy relatives. In the USA, where many of the transgenic crops are being forged, there are no weedy relatives of soya beans, maize, wheat, or cotton. Weedy relatives of these crops, however, exist in other regions where the genetically modified crops are targeted, including Central America, Asia, and the Middle East."
--Topsy Jewell, Pesticide Action Network U.K. (formerly Pesticides Trust), London, U.K.
"Ecologists are unsure of the impacts of bypassing natural species boundaries. Consider, for example, the ambitious plans to engineer transgenic plants to serve as pharmaceutical factories for the production of chemicals and drugs. Foraging animals, seed-eating birds, and soil insects will be exposed to a range of genetically engineered drugs, vaccines, industrial enzymes, plastics, and hundreds of other foreign substances for the first time, with untold consequences."
--Jeremy Rifkin, author of The Biotech Century: Harnessing the Gene and Remaking the World
Anti-GM food activists have leveled much of their ire at the United States, which produces the bulk of the world's GM foods. (In 1998, American farmers raised 74 percent of all GM crops.) Biotech firms, detractors maintain, have been developing and deploying GM crops too quickly and too broadly, without adequate testing or public debate. And the three government bodies that oversee the industry -- the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the Department of Agriculture, and the Environmental Protection Agency -- are too lax in their scrutiny and regulation, they say.The FDA, for one, has long maintained that most GM foods are "substantially equivalent" to unmodified foods and are thus not subject to FDA regulations. Biotech companies are not required to consult with the FDA on new GM foods, and even those that voluntarily do so do not have to follow the FDA's recommendations. Even a new FDA plan announced in early 2001 to review new GM foods for safety falls far short of the current surveillance of food additives, critics say.
Labeling is another issue that raises the hackles of anti-GM food activists. In the U.S., producers do not have to label GM foods. The result, those who denounce the policy say, is that you as a consumer don't know what you're eating, you don't have the option of choosing not to buy foods with GM ingredients, and if you get sick from a GM food, no one will be able to trace your illness back to its source.
"Industry has decided to silently invade food market shelves by denying any visible identifiers of genetic engineering....The net effect is to subvert the normal process of consumer choice by suppressing the knowledge needed to freely choose. The cornerstore of such a privilege is labeling."
--Marc Lappé and Britt Bailey, authors of Against the Grain: The Genetic Transformation of Global Agriculture
by Dr. Ricarda Steinbrecher
BREEDING is the natural process of sexual reproduction within the same species. The hereditary information of both parents is combined and passed on to the offspring. In this process the same sections of DNA can be exchanged between the same chromosomes, but genes will always remain at their very own and precise position and order on the chromosomes. A gene will thus always be surrounded by the same DNA unless mutations or accidents occur. Species that are closely related might be able to interbreed, like a donkey and a horse, but their offspring will usually be infertile (e.g. mule). This is a natural safety devise, preventing the mixing of genes that might not be compatible and to secure the survival of the species.
GENETIC ENGINEERING
Genetic engineering (GE) is used to take genes and segments of DNA from one species, e.g. fish, and put them into another species, e.g. tomato. To do so, GE provides a set of techniques to cut DNA either randomly or at a number of specific sites. Once isolated one can study the different segments of DNA, multiply them up and splice them (stick them) next to any other DNA of another cell or organism. GE makes it possible to break through the species barrier and to shuffle information between completely unrelated species; for example, to splice the anti-freeze gene from flounder into tomatoes or strawberries, an insect-killing toxin gene from bacteria into maize, cotton or rape seed, or genes from humans into pig.
Yet there is a problem - a fish gene will not work in tomato unless I give it a promoter with a "flag" the tomato cells will recognise. Such a control sequence should either be a tomato sequence or something similar. Most companies and scientists do a shortcut here and don't even bother to look for an appropriate tomato promoter as it would take years to understand how the cell's internal communication and regulation works. In order to avoid long testing and adjusting, most genetic engineering of plants is done with viral promoters. Viruses - as you will be aware - are very active. Nothing, or almost nothing, will stop them once they have found a new victim or rather host. They integrate their genetic information into the DNA of a host cell (such as one of your own), multiply, infect the next cells and multiply. This is possible because viruses have evolved very powerful promoters which command the host cell to constantly read the viral genes and produce viral proteins. Simply by taking a control element (promoter) from a plant virus and sticking it in front of the information block of the fish gene, you can get this combined virus/fish gene (known as a "construct') to work wherever and whenever you want in a plant.
This might sound great, the drawback though is that it can't be stopped either, it can't be switched off. The plant no longer has a say in the expression of the new gene, even when the constant involuntary production of the "new" product is weakening the plant's defences or growth. And furthermore, the theory doesn't hold up with reality. Often, for no apparent reason, the new gene only works for a limited amount of time and then "falls silent". But there is no way to know in advance if this will happen.
Though often hailed as a precise method, the final stage of placing the new gene into a receiving higher organism is rather crude, seriously lacking both precision and predictability. The "new" gene can end up anywhere, next to any gene or even within another gene, disturbing its function or regulation. If the "new" gene gets into the "quiet" non-expressed areas of the cell's DNA, it is likely to interfere with the regulation of gene expression of the whole region. It could potentially cause genes in the "quiet" DNA to become active.
Often genetic engineering will not only use the information of one gene and put it behind the promoter of another gene, but will also take bits and pieces from other genes and other species. Although this is aimed to benefit the expression and function of the "new" gene it also causes more interference and enhances the risks of unpredictable effects.
What's wrong with Genetic Engineering ?
Genetic Engineering is a test tube science and is prematurely applied in food production. A gene studied in a test tube can only tell what this gene does and how it behaves in that particular test tube. It cannot tell us what its role and behaviour are in the organism it came from or what it might do if we place it into a completely different species. Genes for the colour red placed into petunia flowers not only changed the colour of the petals but also decreased fertility and altered the growth of the roots and leaves. Salmon genetically engineered with a growth hormone gene not only grew too big too fast but also turned green. These are unpredictable side effects, scientifically termed pleiotropic effects.
We also know very little about what a gene (or for that matter any of its DNA sequence) might trigger or interrupt depending on where it got inserted into the new host (plant or animal). These are open questions around positional effects. And what about gene silencing and gene instability? How do we know that a genetically engineered food plant will not produce new toxins and allergenic substances or increase the level of dormant toxins and allergens? How about the nutritional value? And what are the effects on the environment and on wild life? All these questions are important questions yet they remain unanswered. Until we have an answer to all of these, genetic engineering should be kept to the test tubes. Biotechnology married to corporations tends to ignore the precautionary principle but it also igpores some basic scientific principles.
What you can do:
1. Avoid genetically engineered (GE) food, currently in products containing soya and maize.
2. Buy organic products - look for the Soil Association label.
3. Tell your MP and the Minister of the Environment you object to GE crops being released on test sites in your area -or any area you care about. Ask your MP or the Department of Environment, Transport and the Regions (DETR) for details from the Public Register of GMOs (genetically modified organisms). DETR phone: 0171-890 5275.
4. Copy this briefing and give it to a neighbour /friend.
5. Contact your local paper; write a letter to the editor.
6. Demand clear choice and non-GE products from your supermarket (addresses of head offices and sample letter available from WEN).
7. Read up on the issue. Get WEN's Campaign Pack on Genetic Engineering (out in August, L2).
8. Join a local environmental group and campaign against GE crops and GE food.