Show Me the Bodies…Are GM Foods Safe to Eat

Transcript Show Me the Bodies…Are GM Foods Safe to Eat

“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 [email protected]

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, resource poor 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?

   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/

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“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.”

I’d assumed that it would increase the use of chemicals. It turned out that pest resistant 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.

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, food deficit nations cannot .” Norman Borlaug