by Dave Abbott

Dave Abbott has a B.Sc. in Psychology (University of London) and a Grad. Dip. in Public Health (University of Adelaide). He is currently on secondment from the University of Tasmania to the Tasmanian government’s Health Advancement Division. He has worked in social and public health research for about 20 years. He is Branch President of the Public Health Association of Australia (PHAA), and is a member of the Association’s Environmental Health Special Interest Group.

“Yossarian, try eating the rest of this chocolate-covered cotton for me. Maybe it will taste delicious now.”

Yossarian pushed his hand away. “Give up, Milo. People can’t eat cotton.”

Milo’s face narrowed cunningly. “It isn’t really cotton,” he coaxed. “I was joking. It’s really cotton candy, delicious cotton candy. Try it and see.........This stuff is better than cotton candy, really it is. It’s made out of real cotton. Yossarian, you’ve got to help me make the men eat it. Egyptian cotton is the finest cotton in the world.”

“But it’s indigestible,” Yossarian emphasised. “It will make them sick, don’t you understand? Why don’t you try living on it yourself if you don’t believe me?” “I did try,” admitted Milo gloomily. “And it made me sick.” (Joseph Heller, Catch-22, p.259)

There is a rich menu of concerns associated with genetically engineered (GE) foods. A little study reveals a lot that’s really very scary about the idea. This is not to mean scary in the sense that proponents and their consultant mates are fond of suggesting - a Tolkienesque irrational dread of Murkwood and things unknown, lurking in opponents who are frankly not quite the full quid when it comes to millennial vision - but scary in the sense of intellectual and ethical dismay at the seeming impossibility of the greedier variety of humans learning from copious past technological mistakes.

There is also an astonishing weight and quality of opposition. Anyone who even casually surfs the Web for genetic engineering topics quickly finds one of the most prolific explosions of cyberinfo in the history of that cute technology (the Web, that is, not GE). Lest anyone think the NO’s (whether absolute or precautionary) are just the cartoon Greens so loved by (hell, invented by) the lesser media, consider that the opposition includes (names limited by space) the British Medical Association [1], Public Health Association of Australia [2], Consumer Association [3], Union of Concerned Scientists [4], U.K. Institute of Science in Society [5], Genethics Network [6], Physicians and Scientists for Responsible Application of Science and Technology [7], the U.K. Soil Association, along with individuals like Prince Charles, Ralph Nader, David Suzuki, Amory Lovins, Sir Gustav Nossal, Rosemary Stanton, the U.K.’s Junior Minister for Education (recently arrested tearing up GE crops!), and vast sections of the literate general public of most of the world’s countries, who are deserting GE foods in droves, particularly in Europe. Recently 327 scientists from 38 countries signed an Open Letter to all Governments demanding a moratorium on GM crops for safety reasons [8]. Polls in Australia have shown overwhelming opposition to GE foods, and almost total support for comprehensive labelling of GE products [9].

Part of this opposition may admittedly be explained by the sheer strangeness of things genetic. Another, and related, part is almost certainly explicable in terms of the presumptive speed with which the technology has entered our lives, with little opportunity for any meaningful discussion.

In the very few years since genetically engineered foods or foods with genetically engineered ingredients were first quietly introduced into the marketplace, with little or no publicity, there has been a bigger groundswell of rejection than to virtually any other modern piece of applied science (the exception perhaps being nuclear power in general, and weaponry in particular).

Note that the opposition is principally about food, not about all applications of genetic science. Polls show that even general public opinion distinguishes both the difference in cost(risk)/benefit and the significantly greater quality of assessment associated with the application of gene science to medical problems. It also understands the difference in the necessity for the two applications. Genetic manipulation of organic life in highly controlled experimental settings to fix disease and add quality to particular and deserving lives is generally accepted as okay, because it’s fixing something that’s broke; toughening beans to withstand greater drenching with chemicals is not.

Genetic engineering of food

This article assumes a basic understanding of what GE food technology involves. Briefly, however, changing the nature of a biological organism by direct genetic manipulation involves chopping out a desired bit of one organism’s genome, and sneaking or bashing it through the protective wall of another organism’s cells by plasmid/virus vectoring, cell-wall poration, injection or micro-shotguns. The desired bit of the genome is chosen for its ‘expression’ of some characteristic of use to the manipulator - lengthened shelf-life, increase in natural pesticides, etc., with tolerance of chemical herbicides being the major innovation actually out there to date [10]. Obviously this is not a natural process, and the technique is anything but precise - many more cells fail to incorporate the desired gene than take it up - necessitating secondary technologies of promotion and marking which produce their own problems. Successful transformations are reproduced by conventional laboratory techniques and seed cropping.

So what’s on the smorgasbord of concerns? Space allows only a few examples of each.

Ecological concerns

Horizontal gene transfer (transgenic transfer)

A recent report from Germany reveals that modified genes in GM pollen have transferred to the bacteria and yeasts in the gut of baby bees [11]. This has also happened in the field - GM material in sugar beet persisted in the soil after harvest for at least two years and was taken up by soil bacteria [12]. In the UK, the government has recently decided to change the buffer zone around their own GE crop sites from 50 metres to possibly 6 miles (sic), in light of two reports that cross pollination with surrounding organic crops is highly likely [13].

Gene promiscuity

Promoter genes are promiscuous, and can recombine with unintended material. The promoter gene (cauliflower mosaic virus or CaMV) in ‘golden rice’ recombines promiscuously [14]. A similar result has occurred for wild mustard plants [15].

Health concerns

Allergenic transfer

Allergic reactions to one food can occur to another if the allergens are unintentionally transferred as part of the gene transfer. This has occurred already in attempting to transfer the gene for the expression of methionine, a protein lacking in soybeans, but present in brazil nuts. It was found that people who have an allergic reaction to brazil nuts had the same reaction to the engineered soybeans.

Antibiotic resistance

To check which few of the target organism’s cells have incorporated the desired genome snippet, a ‘marker’ gene is attached to the gene of interest, the marker gene being for something which is easy to detect. Genes for antibiotic resistance are often used. If an antibiotic is introduced, the unsuccessful transfers will show up by dying. The risk is that the antibiotic resistance will be transferred to bacteria living in the mammalian gut, which could seriously reduce the effectiveness of antibiotic treatments (which are of course already compromised by overuse of antibiotics in medical treatment and animal feed).

Pesticide residues

The main application of GE food technology so far has been the production of crops (e.g. soybeans and canola) which can tolerate elevated levels of pesticide - particularly Monsanto’s Roundup. The logic is that an increased dosage of pesticide early in the cropping cycle will kill the competing weeds, meaning easier crop management and possibly greater yields. The downside is the possibility of elevated pesticide residues in the food produced. (On both yields and pesticide levels there’s evidence both ways, by the way). Certainly Monsanto has applied for permission to increase permitted levels of residues in soybeans in Australia and New Zealand, a move strangely at odds with their rhetoric that GE modification of soya and other crops will substantially decrease pesticide use.

rBST

Since the mid-90s, cows in the USA have been injected with recombinant Bovine Somatotropin (rBST), which stimulates production of an Insulin-Like Growth Factor (IGF-1), which in turn increases milk yields (note there’s a glut of milk in the USA anyway). Unfortunately for the cows, it also produces mastitis (inflammation of the udder), infertility, lameness, and reduced life expectancy. Unfortunately for humans, IGF-1 can be absorbed, and has been associated with breast, prostate and colon cancers [16].

Production of novel toxins

In 1989 Showa Denko used GE bacteria to boost yields of L-Tryptophan, food supplement produced using bacterial fermentation (unfortunately they didn’t label the batches thus produced). This produced a blood disorder called Eosinophilia Myalgia Syndrome, which produces a variety of painful symptoms. Officially 37 people died and 1500 left with permanent disabilities, though there have been estimates of far greater numbers being affected [17].

Labelling and consumer choice

Australian State Health Ministers will meet in the very near future to decide on the detail of a system of mandatory labelling. While welcome, this apparently enlightened move should be read in the context of the post-hoc rationalisation of existing market penetration by the Australian and New Zealand Food Authority, whereby food not assessed by any Australian regulatory authority could still be sold, and without labelling [18]. The Federal government is also pushing hard for a threshold labelling system, which would allow much of the GE content in food to remain unlabelled.

Ethical and political issues

Ethical and political issues raised by GE food technology deserves proper treatment, impossible in the space available here. Examples can only be really briefly stated: Corporate behaviour - Monsanto stood over a TV station in the USA to prevent a well-researched story about rBST (outlined above) [19].

Patent rights - With some notable and welcome exceptions - recently and thankfully Indian farmers successfully fought a bid by an American company to patent the neem tree, used by generations for its medicinal and other properties - multinational corporations have successfully gained exclusive patent and sale rights to slightly varied examples of living organisms. The Convention on Biological Diversity has generally caused a massive loss of genetic resources from the South to the North. The Human Genome Project is of course the latest and most spectacular aspect of such genetic colonialism.

Globalisation and the World Trade Organisation (WTO) - ‘free trade’ rhetoric and the threat of WTO sanctions have been used to pressure the EU and Australia to accommodate the wishes of applicant companies. This is likely to increase as resistance and consumer rejection builds.

Assessment and regulation

Given the above concerns, it might be expected that regulatory agencies would insist on the most rigorous independent system of assessment of environmental and health risks before licensing the production, distribution, importation or retail of GE foods. Instead, pressure from the major producers in the USA and Canada has ensured that regulation is often bland and partial. The great majority of the money assigned by the federal government in Australia to the development of biotechnology will be spent on the ‘education’ of the consuming public on the large benefits and small risks, with a small percentage only to be spent on research or the development of assessment procedures.

In the USA, where most GE food is produced, assessment relies heavily on data supplied by companies investing massively in the technology, with little independent testing, and a ‘revolving door’, as it has been described, between employment with the regulatory agencies and the major companies applying for licensing.

For the most part, risk assessments are done by scientists and policymakers in the relevant agencies (USDA or EPA) with information provided by the companies seeking the approvals. The public often has a brief opportunity to review and comment on the risk assessments.’ [20]

In Australia, food standards are the responsibility of the Australia New Zealand Food Authority (ANZFA), which has very recently moved to reassure the public that all is well [21]. Closer examination reveals that ANZFA’s source for most of the evidence informing the GE Food standard (A18) is again applicant company data. More alarming still is the fact that of the 33 ‘Key references’ given in Appendix 4 of their safety assessment paper, 21 - almost two-thirds - were published in 1996 or earlier. A great deal of evidence on the subject has been amassed since 1996, much of it questioning earlier ‘positive’ findings. This apparent selectivity of evidence is concerning.

Most worryingly, the Australian federal government has very recently announced that it will not sign the Biosafety Protocol, an international agreement on GE food regulation signed even by the U.S.

Meanwhile, regulation has not prevented several ‘accidents’, including the dumping of a GE canola crop on a tip in Mount Gambier, the ‘accidental’ mixing of GE canola seed by Advanta in the U.K., and the ‘accidental’ mixing by Monsanto of GE cotton with conventional cotton in Queensland. Further, the location of ‘trial’ crops underway or planned for sites in Australia is not known to even local councils, under commercial-in-confidence provisions [22].

Lastly, there is the issue of liability and compensation, should the beatific promises of GE proponents fail to materialise, or worse, should something go drastically or even moderately wrong. The Swiss re-insurance company Swiss Re has assessed genetic engineering as “a particularly exposed long-term risk”. Given the fashionable imposition of private-enterprise liability on the taxpaying public, it is vital that liability and compensation issues are sorted out in good time. As a start, there is an increasing call for a compensation fund supported by levies on GE producers.

Science, Risk and the Anti-Precautionary Principle

Despite all the above, perhaps the scariest part of the whole thing - about 9 out of 10 on the scary scale - is the whole paradigm shift, in the wrong direction, that GE food technology represents. This has three related aspects: quality of science, conception of risk, and burden of proof.

Quality of the science

Gene biotechnology has been called “Old Genetics”. Old genetics assumes that genes behave in predictable, linear, unidirectional ways, passed on unchanging from generation to generation. In fact, genes do not behave like that even in their original organism, instead mutating and adapting to environmental influences (e.g. assaults by too many antibiotics).

Conception of Risk

Apologists for GE technology are fond of a simple conception of risk which equates with probability alone. In fact, of course, risk - in any meaningful sense which relates to the practical avoidance of harm - is a product of probability and consequence. To quote the Society for Risk Analysis:

[Risk is] the potential for realisation of unwanted, adverse consequences to human life, health, property or the environment; estimation of risk is usually based on the expected value of the conditional probability of the event occurring times the consequence of the event given that it has occurred.

In the case of GE technology, the possible consequence of the event is huge - disruption of our very food supply, threats to the integrity of living systems [23]. Even if the probability is low, the risk is great. If it turns out that the probability is higher than low, we’re facing a real problem.

Given that the estimation of risk also relies on what is known as the ‘familiarity principle’ - estimating the chance of harm on the basis of past experience - when past experience is limited or non-existent, as with GE foods, different principles are supposed to operate.

Burden of Proof

Which should bring us to a resounding reaffirmation of the Precautionary Principle. This is a very simple principle, around since Pascal, to guide decision-making in conditions of uncertainty. This principle would have us understand the risks involved in any technology before we exploit and profit from it, particularly where the consequences of an error of judgement are great. It is a simple, powerful and fundamentally good principle. It guides the burden of proof arguments in legal trials, the assessment of drugs, and some new technologies.

Instead what we have with GE food technology is the anti-precautionary principle. Instead of insistence on a program of extensive evidence, in enclosed controlled environments, assessed independently and proceeding cautiously, proponents are allowed to proceed and objectors are asked to provide evidence that there is a problem. This is the official position adopted by ANZFA earlier this year. The whole burden of proof has been insidiously reversed.

And if that’s still not scary, ponder the following list of technological marvels, and the value (as we now know) of a healthy dose of Precautionary Principle - Thalidomide, DDT, asbestos, Agent Orange, PCBs, PVC, nuclear power, mobile phones, Mad Cow Disease and so on.

And Finally....

Finally, the question implied in this article’s title - what on Earth is broken about our food anyway? If the question’s about world hunger, others have eloquently addressed the politics of food production and distribution, the real reason for mass starvation. If it is something to do with present food quality, well frankly, a lot of people just don’t get it.

References and Notes

1. British Medical Association (1999). The Impact of Genetic Modification on Agriculture, Food and Health: An Interim Statement. London: BMA Print and Design Unit.

2. Public Health Association of Australia (1999). Genetically Modified Foods: Policy Statement. http://www.phaa.net.au/ policy/GMfoods.HTM.

3. Australia Consumers’ Association: http://www.choice.com.au/ articles.

4. Union of Concerned Scientists (1998). http://www.ucsusa.org/Gene/w98.risk.html.

5. Institute of Science in Society (2000). Submission to US Advisory Committee on International Economic Policy (ACIEP) Biotech, Working Group. Department of Biological Sciences, Open University, Milton Keynes, U.K.

6. Australian Gene Ethics Network. http://www.geneethics.org/

7. Physicians and Scientists for Responsible Application of Science and Technology (2000). http://www.psrast.org/defknfood.htm.

8. Open Letter from World Scientists to All Governments calling for a moratorium on GMOs. http://www.i-sis.org.

9. Mark Ragg, ‘Modified food must be labelled, say 93%’, The Sydney Morning Herald, Tuesday 3 August 1999. A survey in April 2000 for Good Business Sense magazine showed 71% of people surveyed were unwilling to buy GE food. Geoff Strong, ‘ Two thirds say no to GM foods’, The Age, Monday July 24 2000.

10. ANZFA (June 2000). Occasional Paper Series No.1.

11. Barnett, A. (200). GM genes ‘jump species barrier’. The Observer, May 28 2000.

12. Gebhard, F. and Smalla, K. (1999). Monitoring field releases of genetically modified sugar beets for persistence of transgenic plant DNA and horizontal gene transfer. FEMS Microbiology Ecology 28, 261-272.

13. Victoria Fletcher, ‘GM crops face destruction in trials blunder’. UK Sunday Express18 June 2000.

14. Kohli, A., Griffiths, S., Palacios, N.Twyman, R.M., Vain, P., Laurie, D.A. and Christou, P. (1999). Molecular characterisation of transforming plasmid rearrangements in transgenic rice reveals a recombination hotspot in the CaMV 35S promoter and confirms the predominance of microhomology mediated recombination. Plant J. 17, 591-601.

15. Bergelson, T. et al. (1998). Promiscuity in transgenic plants. Nature, 395:25, September 3.

16. see, for example, Holly, J. (1998). Insulin-like growth factor-1 and new opportunities for cancer prevention. The Lancet, Vol. 351, No. 9113, pp.1373-5.

17. Mayeno, A.N. and Gleich, G.J. (1994). Eosinophilia-myalgia syndrome and tryptophan production: a cautionary tale. TIBTECH, 12, 346-352. 19. J. Batz, ‘Hormonal Rage: Monsanto spikes a Florida TV story about its bovine growth hormone’. http://www.geocities.com/ Athens/1527/rBGH/foxBgh.htm.

20. Union of Concerned Scientists (2000). http://www.ucsusa.org/ agriculture/gen.risks.html.

21. ANZFA (June 2000). Op. cit.

22. Some commentators suggest that the ‘trial’ crops proliferating in Australia, South America and elsewhere have more to do with year-round guarantee of seed supply across north and south hemisphere seasons, than with research values.

23. To quote Prof. Erwin Chargaff (Professor Emeritus of biochemistry atColumbia University), concerning GMOs: ‘”you cannot recall a new form of life...it will survive you and your children and your children’s children. An irreversible attack on the biosphere is something so unheard of, so unthinkable to previous generations, that I can only wish that mine had not been guilty of it.”

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