Genetic Maize - Navigating the maze of GMOs

Biopharma is such a strange word. To me it sounds sort of sci-fi, evoking images from the 1950s of a future where everything will be high-tech but beautiful and simple at the same time. Of course, not everyone has such positive thoughts about this potentially dangerous yet potentially lifesaving application of technology.

“Scientists Worry Over GM Drug Crops“, posted on Environmental Graffiti, briefly covers the news that crops engineered to express pharmaceutical proteins will be field tested this growing season, concentrating on the Union of Concerned Scientists’ reaction. Apparently UCS is taking their typical anti-tech stance, asking the USDA to require all such crops to be grown in greenhouses or underground. I was not able to find any record of UCS’s recent comments.

I’d like to defend myself, as a scientist. I refuse to beleive that any scientist or biotech company would purposefully release a dangerous plant into the food supply. Even if you think scientists and biotech companies are unethical, they certainly aren’t stupid. The first company to sell a biotech plant that’s actually dangerous would likely be burnt to the ground by activists before they had time to go bankrupt. While debates over biotech crops continue, no one has ever gotten sick from a GM plant, or any GMO. What I’ve read about proposed biopharma and industrial crops haven’t indicated that this will change.

For example, consider the Amflora potato, developed by BASF. This humble potato will be used to produce starch for industrial applications. Two types of starch are produced in plants naturally: amylose and amylopectin. Amylopectin is the starch that can be used in all sorts of industrial and food applications. Amylose is useful for other purposes, but hinders some of amylopectin’s properties. It must be removed in a process that takes energy, water, and money.

The BASF scientists simply stopped production of the enzyme that makes amylose with an antisense copy of the enzyme’s mRNA. This is the same method used in the tear-free onion. Basically, the antisense copy of the mRNA binds to the natural mRNA for the targeted gene before it can be translated into a protein. It’s very clever becasue no actual transgenes are needed. More details can be found at BASF and BioPro.

So, what’s the fuss? Pollen spread isn’t an issue because potatoes don’t reproduce by seed, and there are no native potato relatives in Europe for Amflora to “contaminate” anyway. Even if a tuber makes it into the food supply, Amflora potatoes are completely safe to eat, although probably shouldn’t be eaten as a primary food source becasue they don’t have amylose, thus might not be a nutritionally complete carbohydrate. I don’t know of any type of wildlife that exclusively eats potatoes.

Amflora has been ready for years, but still faces regulatory roadblocks in Europe. The European Food Safety Authority declared Amflora potatoes to be safe back in 2005, but the European Commission is just now considering approving it for use, along with four of Monsanto’s insect and herbicide resistant maize varieties. According to Farmers Guardian, “Public health watchdogs and environmental NGOs have voiced concerns, in particular relating to the BASF ‘Amflora’ potato, which contains antibiotic-resistant marker genes. They fear that parts of the potato would be used to feed livestock, ultimately entering the human food chain and subsequently conferring resistance to antibiotics.”

There is absolutely zero evidence that horizontal gene transfer can happen between plants and bacteria in nature. It happens between different bacteria species all the time, but I think we all know that plants are very different from bacteria. It is possible for bacteria to acquire plant genes via horizontal transfer - but only under specially optimized laboratory conditions and when particular genetic “tricks” are used (comment if you’d like more information on the “tricks”). GMO Compass has an excellent article on the safety of antibiotic resistance markers. They explain that two of the most common genes are for resistance to kanamycin and ampicillin. Natural bacteria in the environment already have genes for resistance to these antibiotics in much higher proportions than would ever be expected with horizontal gene transfer from transgenic plants. Regardless, “kanamycin is now rarely prescribed in human medicine. Ampicillin is still used to treat certain infections, but since resistance is so widespread, treatment is usually combined with substances (beta-lactamase inhibitors), which take away the effect of the resistance genes.”

The particular antibiotic resistance gene in Amflora is to kanamycin. I wasn’t able to find statistics on rates of kanamycin proscriptin, but according to a 2007 transcript on the House of Commons website, “there are no licensed products containing kanamycin in the United Kingdom and there are no records of kanamycin having been prescribed in the national health service in the last five years.” Despite all of these facts, Greenpeace and FoE insisit that the resistance genes are dangerous. It seems that they would rather have water and energy wasted to extract starch from regular potatoes than back down from their false agenda.

I will present biopharma safflower in an upcoming post.

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A mid-January press release tells of rice from China rejected by Europe because it was “contaminated” with rice modified to express a version of the Bacillus thuringiensis toxin: Bt63. The offending rice had been made into such products as noodles and distributed across Europe before the Bt63 was noticed. To me, there is one important question here: is this rice dangerous, or is it simply being held up in regulation unnecessarily? According to the UK Food Standards Agency (FSA), it is not dangerous. The organization said it is “not aware of any health implications for consumers who eat rice products containing Bt63″. [food navigator, original emphasis].

Various versions of the Bt toxin are used in multiple crop types all over the world. The safety of Bt in general is complete because of its unique nature. It is called a toxin, but it is actually only toxic to arthropods. The varieties come from different populations of natural Bt bacteria. For more information on Bt, please see the excellent article by the Virginia Cooperative Extension. Feeding studies have shown there there is no toxic effect of Bt on rats. For a summary of a recent study on one type of Bt, see “EFSA stands by its opinion: No concerns.” It is possible (although chemically unlikely) that untested versions of the Bt toxin could be toxic to animals other than arthropods. This is why each new type is tested extensively for safety before being released into the food supply. I wasn’t able to find any information on Bt63 feeding studies, but there are two very good reasons why I could not find it. 1st the studies are likely in Chinese, and 2nd I do not have to time to wade through the pages of anti-GMO propaganda that appear when I search for “Bt63 feeding study.”

According to an article on GMO Compass (an information website funded by the EU), the Chinese have been field testing Bt63 rice since 2001. “Despite several announcements of intention, Chinese authorities have yet to approve Bt63 rice for cultivation. However, during the field trials, farmers apparently reserved supplies of Bt63 seeds and sowed these in the following years: due to the properties of Bt63, significantly smaller quantities of insecticides may be used in its cultivation.”

In other words, farmers in China saved seed so they could avoid using large amounts of insecticide on their rice. Europeans want to punish these farmers for trying to safeguard their own health and the health of the environment.

This story is a bit old, but I felt that it needed to be dissected. Please forgive me for being busy!

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Opponents of biofuels say that using corn as ethanol is causing grain prices to rise. That’s true, but there is another side to this issue that is completely ignored. Meat consumption has been rising in developed and developing countries, increasing demand for corn and soy animal feed. Now that ethanol and biodiesel claim more and more of the corn and soy harvests, the price of meat is going up. Is the solution to stop research on biofuels? Perhaps not. If every person consumed less meat, then more grain would be available for biofuels (because it takes less land and fewer resources to produce an equivalent amount of vegetable protein). It just makes sense. Why is it that so few people can make that connection?

The image-rich January 2008 NY Times article “Rethinking the Meat Guzzler” covers such issues as the problems of supplying livestock with grain and of disposing of animal waste. Basically, those who are concerned about the environment should consider their “meat footprint”. This article is one of the few (aside from those on vegetarian websites) that emphasizes the link between meat consumption and environmental impact. The FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations) study “Livestock’s Long Shadow” from 2006 was all but ignored, despite the frightening statistics.

So, why do I bring this up now? I recently bought Good, the magazine “for people who give a damn”. I purchased “the food issue” because I’m very interested in why people choose the foods that they eat. Unfortunately, much of the magazine was cheerleading for meat. Apparently, they haven’t read “Livestock’s Long Shadow”. While it’s true that pasture-raised beef is better for the environment (and the animals) than factory-farmed, the writers didn’t bother to state that feeding the world on pasture-raised beef is impossible, given current per-capita meat eating. There just isn’t enough land. They also imply that vegetarianism is not healthy, and that vegetarians should just eat meat already. They have a 4 page spread on “America’s Tastiest Streets” that includes a whopping zero vegetarian items (unless you include fried cheese). It seems like Good might be for “people who give a damn” about justifying their bad-for-the-environment meat-eating habits.

Then, the writers have the audacity to say that “little fish” are going to be the next sushi because they are “ethically preferable”. Tuna, dolphins, and other carnivores of the sea eat those little fish. If tuna are to avoid extinction, they are going to need food. A far better way to sate a desire to eat fish is vat-farmed tilapia.

In their favor, the March/April issue of Good does have an article on Tofurky. I can’t get it in Iowa, but it’s said to be a fine meat substitute. Additional kudos for naming bibimbap as one of the next food crazes (I learned to love it while stationed in Korea). However, offal was also on the list for “The Next Sushi”. Plus, they don’t mention any vegetarian MREs, incorrectly state that all MREs come with Tabasco (sadly, they don’t anymore), and condemn raw food diets in their “What We Eat” article. I’ll keep an eye on their website, but I’ll certainly think twice before buying Good next time I’m in Borders.

I’ll conclude with a quote from Mark Bittman, author of “Rethinking the Meat Guzzler” and the wonderful cookbook “How to Cook Everything Vegetarian” that encourages people to eat less (but not necessarily zero) meat:

If price spikes don’t change eating habits, perhaps the combination of deforestation, pollution, climate change, starvation, heart disease and animal cruelty will gradually encourage the simple daily act of eating more plants and fewer animals.

Ok, that wasn’t really about GMOs at all. I’ll get off my soapbox now. I really need to set up a secondary blog for my non-biotech ramblings.

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Reason’s science correspondent Ronald Bailey has written an amusing retort to the Friends of the Earth report “Who benefits from biotech crops?” As expected, the FoE twist the facts and call scientists liars, in their attempts to sweep the ISAAA report under the rug. They may be friends of the earth, but they certainly aren’t friends of poor farmers in developing nations. Bailey himself is an interesting character, with at least one book that I don’t really agree with (twisting science and politics in what might not be an entirely wholesome way), but his article is amusing and pointed. In “Are Farmers Stupid, Deluded, or Both“, Bailey uses information from a variety of sources to refute the FoE (admittedly with much more style than I can muster, but he is a professional).

Even the title calls to mind the greatest challenge to biotech detractors. If GMOs are so bad, then why do farmers keep buying them? Obviously they work, or the farmers must be deluded, stupid, or both. We can’t count first time plantings because the farmers might have been influenced by overzealous salesmen. But when farmers plant the new and old varieties side-by-side and choose the biotech version - who can argue with them?

The article is certainly worth a read, but here’s a quick summary:

1. Biotech has increased farm incomes (up $27 billion since 1996) and decreased pesticide use (down 7% since 1996, or 493 million pounds less).
2. Glycophosphate is a far lesser evil than most pesticides. An added benefit is that RoundUp Ready crops have increased use of low- or no-tillage farming, which improves soil fertility (and happens to sequester carbon, as well).
3. Weeds would become resistant to herbicides eventually, regardless of biotech use. That’s evolution for you.

Then, there are the big two: arguments against biotech that are false because they were actually caused by anti-biotech activists. I’m very glad to see that I’m not the only one who believes this to be true.

If few new biotech crops have yet to make it to the tables of consumers, FOE can take a good bit of the credit. FOE and other ideological environmentalists have campaigned tirelessly to block the development and spread of new beneficial biotech crop traits. FOE does its best to stop biotech in its tracks and then turns around to assert that researchers have developed nothing new.

And finally, FOE complains that biotech seeds are monopolized by a few large companies. Again, FOE activists should look in the mirror to find the culprits behind this industry consolidation. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the number of startup and well-established seed companies that aimed to develop agricultural biotech exploded. But, as we’ve seen, crop biotech ran into a buzz saw of environmentalist opposition, especially in Europe. Consequently, …small crop biotech companies withered and the industry consolidated into fairly large companies.

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The AP story “Developing Countries Grew More Biotech Crops in ’07″ appeared in various outlets, including the NY Times. The study was conducted by International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications (ISAAA), a non-profit that is working to get biotech to the people who need it most. All farmers, especially the poor, can use biotech crops to decrease inputs and increase yields. According to the ISAAA executive summary, “for the twelfth consecutive year, the global area of biotech crops continued to soar.” There was an increase of 12% from 2006 to 2007, resulting in a total of 282.4 million acres of biotech crops. Most interestingly, the increase in biotech hasn’t been solely in developed countries by big agribusiness.

Biotech crops achieved a very important milestone in 2007 with humanitarian implications – the number of small and resource-poor farmers benefiting from biotech crops in developing countries exceeded 10 million for the first time. Of the global total of 12 million beneficiary biotech farmers in 2007…, over 90% or 11 million were small and resource-poor farmers from developing countries; the balance of 1 million were large farmers from both industrial countries such as Canada and developing countries such as Argentina.

ISAAA goes on to explain the benefits individual countries have received from biotech crops, eliminating many misconceptions (below the cut, all monetary values reported in US dollars). The report also discusses the future of biotech crops, which I will cover in another post.

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