Today in AgBioView from* AgBioWorld, Dec. 5, 2007 |
* Plants tolerate high boron levels
* Farm management and E. coli
* Biotech Forestry
* What's next for GM crops?
* Authorisation procedure in the EU
* They're trying to scare you
* Antitechnology, Antibusiness Zealots
* Archbishop dismisses fears of GM food
* EU Threatens Poland Over GMO Ban
* Future Stock
* Panel to regulate GM food import
* NABC 2008 World Congress
* Obituary: Brent Zehr
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Plants tolerant of high boron levels
- The American Association for the Advancement of Science via CheckBiotech, Nov. 30, 2007
http://www.checkbiotech.org/green_News_Genetics.aspx?infoId=16301
Reduced crop productivity due to soils containing toxic levels of boron (B) is a worldwide problem in food production. It is estimated that up to 17% of the barley yield losses in southern Australia are caused by B toxicity. We found that the expression of AtBOR4, an Arabidopsis paralog of BOR1, the first identified boron transporter gene, generates plants that are tolerant of high B levels.
BOR4 is a polarly localized borate exporter that enhances B efflux from roots. The present study is a foundation for the improvement of crop productivity in soils containing excess B, which are distributed in arid areas of the world.
Boron (B) is an essential nutrient for plants and animals, but in high concentrations it is toxic. Living organisms, including plants, must control the B distribution to maintain adequate levels of B in their cells. Reduced crop quality and yields in soils containing toxic levels of B are a worldwide problem in food production, especially in arid areas. By manipulating B transport, we have generated plants that are tolerant of high levels of B.
B accumulation occurs both naturally and through artificial means such as irrigation. About five million ha of soils containing greater than 15 mg kg-1 B, above the threshold for normal plant growth, exist in southern Australia, corresponding to 30% of the region. Up to 17% of the barley yield loss in this area was estimated to be caused by B toxicity. B-tolerant cultivars with reduced B uptake are known for barley, but breeding programs have not yet produced a practical solution for B tolerance.
Arabidopsis thaliana BOR1, an efflux-type borate transporter, was the first B transporter identified in a biological system. BOR1 is required for the transport of B from roots to shoots under conditions of low B supply. BOR1 is capable of conferring high B tolerance to yeast by pumping boric acid out of the cell. However, in plants under high B conditions, BOR1 is degraded via endocytosis, and overexpression of BOR1 does not improve plant growth in the presence of toxic levels of B.
We focused on AtBOR4 (The Arabidopsis Information Resource code At1g15460 and GenBank code NM_101415), one of the six BOR1 paralogs present in the A. thaliana genome. B transport activities of BOR4 and BOR4-green fluorescent protein (GFP) fusion were confirmed in yeast. We generated seven independent transgenic A. thaliana lines producing the BOR4-GFP fusion under the control of cauliflower mosaic virus 35S RNA promoter.
Immunoblot analysis of a generated transgenic line showed that BOR4 accumulated in the presence of a high B supply, suggesting that BOR4 is exempt from the posttranslational BOR1 degradation system.The supply of 10 mM boric acid was substantially lethal to wild-type plants, but much more vigorous root and shoot growth with varying degrees was observed in all the homozygous Pro35S-BOR4-GFP transgenic lines grown on solid medium containing 10 mM boric acid. Accumulation of BOR4-GFP and tolerance of B were positively correlated. The B concentrations in the roots and shoots of these transgenic plant lines were lower than that in the wild type in the presence of 3 mM boric acid. Overall tracer B uptake was also reduced in the transgenic line 4. These results suggest that the overproduction of BOR4-GFP improved growth under conditions of B toxicity through B efflux.
Furthermore, GFP fluorescence derived from BOR4-GFP was strongly detected in the plasma membranes of the distal sides of epidermal cells in the elongation zone of roots of the transgenic lines carrying ProBOR4- BOR4-GFP. The distal localization of BOR4 is likely important for the directional export of B from the roots to the soil to prevent the accumulation of B in the xylem and growing cells. This enhanced B efflux from the roots of crop plants is expected to result in improved crop productivity in the B-toxic soils found in a number of regions of the world.
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Association of farm management practices with risk of Escherichia coli contamination in pre-harvest produce grown in Minnesota and Wisconsin
- Avik Mukherjee, Dorinda Speh and Francisco Diez-Gonzalez, International Journal of Food Microbiology (Vol. 120 no. 3, pp. 296-302, doi:10.1016/j.ijfoodmicro.2007.09.007), Dec. 15, 2007
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6T7K-4PTW4G8-1&_user=10&_coverDate=12%2F15%2F2007&_rdoc=11&_fmt=summary&_orig=browse&_srch=doc-info(%23toc%235061%232007%23998799996%23675069%23FLA%23display%23Volume)&_cdi=5061&_sort=d&_docanchor=&_ct=14&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=73223d85565bf37188ce6679af96dc0c
Abstract
Microbiological analyses of fruits and vegetables produced by farms in Minnesota and Wisconsin were conducted to determine the prevalence of Escherichia coli in pre-harvest fruits and vegetables. During the 2003 and 2004 harvest seasons, 14 organic (certified by accredited organic agencies), 30 semi-organic (used organic practices but not certified) and 19 conventional farms were sampled to analyze 2029 pre-harvest produce samples (473 organic, 911 semi-organic, 645 conventional). Before each harvest season, a farmer survey was conducted to collect relevant information on farm management practices that might affect the risk of E. coli contamination in fresh produce. The use of animal wastes for fertilization of produce plants increased the risk of E. coli contamination in organic (OR = 13.2, 95% CI = 2.2-61.2, P-value < 0.0001) and semi-organic (OR = 12.9, 95% CI = 2.9-56.3, P-value < 0.0001) produce significantly. Improper ageing of untreated animal manure significantly increased this risk in organic produce (OR = 4.2 95% CI = 1.7-12.3, P-value = 0.005) grown using such manure as a fertilizer. Organic growers who used cattle manure for fertilization of their crops showed significantly greater risk of contamination with the E. coli (OR = 7.4, 95% CI = 1.6-36.8, P-value = 0.003), compared to those who used other types of manure-based fertilizer. In Minnesota, organic and semi-organic produce collected from the southeastern (SE) part of the state were at a significantly greater risk of E. coli contamination (OR = 3.45, 95% CI = 1.8-35.2, P = 0.008), compared to those collected from farms located in the southern (S) regions of the state. In Wisconsin, organic and semi-organic produce collected from the southern (S) cluster of farms were at approximately 3-times greater risk of E. coli contamination (OR = 2.67, 95% CI = 1.3-9.4, P = 0.004), compared to those grown in the northern (N) cluster of farms.
View full paper online at
http://www.botanischergarten.ch/Organic/Mukherjee-Associatioin-Escherichia-2007.pdf
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Biotech Forestry Suggests Genetically Engineered Trees
- Islam Online, Dec. 1, 2007
http://www.islamonline.com/news/newsfull.php?newid=63168
MANILA -- Whether we like it or not, genetically modified forestry will come to the Philippines.
Abraham Manalo, executive sdecretary of Biotechnology Coalition of the Philippines (BCP), made this prediction in a seminar on forestry biotechnology held at the Bureau of Plant Industry in Quezon City on Wednesday.
He urged the country to be ready for such an eventuality. The need for genetically engineered trees is forthcoming because the present forest condition is in bad shape. This is a quick response to mitigate climate change, secure water reserve, develop livelihood for Filipinos, conserve biodiversity and produce biofuels, among others, he said.
In a paper presented in the forum, Dr. Saturnina Halos, BCP director for research, debunked the present fears on GMOs saying that forest modification is safe based on experiments that have been conducted. Some countries, notably, the United States, Papua New Guinea and Australia are already into genetic engineering of trees.
Scientists choose the traits that are beneficial such as insect- and disease-resistance of trees. Examples of popular trees mostly planted under experimental conditions are the falcata, gubas, narra and gemelina.
Halos likewise said that possible adverse consequences of modified forestry can be controlled. Negative consequences only happen during hybridizing of trees and where genes spread in natural selection.
"People's fear of new species of trees thriving and other trees dying as a result can be resolved if the forester will not use native species," she stressed.
Likewise, fear that the use of Bt resistant trees may promote the development of resistant insects after sometime is baseless, Halos noted. She compared this with the use of Bt pesticides that have been in use for 40 years now. After rampant use of Bt pesticide, a new species of pesticide-resistant insects developed.
Bt crops such as corn have been planted in the Philippines for 10 years now. But no insect resistant strain has been developed yet.
"We have not seen it in Bt crops. It means that the strategy is working," Halos explained.
Foresters in the forum reported how the local military encamped in Quezon and Laguna cut trees in the forest for logs and sell them. They said that if one sees the top view of the mountains, one discovers that the remaining trees are only those that can be seen along the highways to cover up rampant logging in the area. It is already denuded.
Forester Jesus Javier, chief of the Reforestation Division of the Forest Management Bureau of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), said his agency will look into the report and said that genetically engineered trees will provide livelihood to 26 percent of 86 million Filipinos who live in upland areas.
"Mas madaling magbilang ng puno kaysa sa magbilang ng patay na tao," (It is better to count trees than count dead bodies) he said.
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What's next for GM crops?
- Matt Cawood, Queensland Country Live, Dec. 5, 2007
http://qcl.farmonline.com.au/news.asp?editorial_id=71352
In research facilities around the country, a suite of real and conceptual genetically-modified plant products are waiting for the final legislative barriers to fall before they make their appearance in a paddock near you.
Research is already well underway on pasture plants, wheat, barley and sugar, with commercial release projections ranging from as little as two years away to a decade.
Glenn Tong, CEO of the Molecular Plant Breeding Cooperative Research Centre (CRC) in Victoria, said the range of genetically-modified crop species was limited because of the cost of putting a designer plant through Australia's regulatory hoops - in some cases, up to $130 million.
"Companies can really only afford to do it with a few high-volume broadacre crops, or high-value pharmaceutical crops," Dr Tong said.
However, he forecasts "a whole bunch of stuff" coming out in the next 5-7 years if the regulatory environment is conducive to release.
The CRC partners - the Victorian AgriBiosciences Centre and University of Adelaide - are well advanced with a virus-resistant white clover aimed at the dairy and grazing industries.
Commercial release may be as close as 2-3 years away.
A drought and fungus-resistant wheat is now at the proof-of-concept stage.
Dr Tong said under conditions of water stress, the drought-tolerant wheat promised a 10-15pc increase in yield performance against conventional wheats, with another yield boost of the same magnitude from the anti-fungus component.
A triply-modified ryegrass is also on track for commercialisation in 7-9 years time.
The ryegrass carries modifications not only to increase its digestibility in the rumen and its energy content, Dr Tong said, but also a trait that lowers production of allergenic pollens - something to be welcomed by the 20pc of Australians that suffer hay-fever.
Tropical producers aren't being left out. In October, Brisbane-based technology company Farmacule announced a joint venture with Syngenta and the Queensland University of Technology to develop biotechnology for biofuel production from sugar cane.
Farmacule director, David Hudson, said the company had developed a molecular switch which, inserted into cane, allows the plant to use its own internal processes to kickstart the breakdown of the plant into key components required to produce ethanol.
The result should be "cheaper and more efficient production of ethanol and other biofuels", but remains 7-9 years from commercialisation.
CSIRO's Food Futures Flagship research program has made several announcements on ongoing plant genetic research.
The Advanced Genetics team has successfully silenced two genes in wheat to boost the proportion of "resistant starch", a component of wheat that delivers the short-chain fatty acids important for bowel health.
The program is now exploring ways of getting the same result without direct genetic manipulation.
CSIRO researchers are also working on oilseed varieties with high levels of Omega-3 oils. Omega-3 oils have been traditionally obtained from fish sources, but fish stocks are in critical decline across the p***t.
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Debate on the authorisation procedure for GM crops in the EU
Less politics, more science
- GMO Safety, web accessed November 30, 2007
http://www.gmo-safety.eu/en/news/599.docu.html
The German minister of agriculture, Horst Seehofer, has proposed a fundamental change to the authorisation procedure for genetically modified plants in the EU. His idea is that in future, decisions should be taken on a purely scientific basis. Political votes, such as those currently held in the Council of Ministers and in the European Commission, should cease. Seehofer proposes that until a new procedure is agreed on and established, no new authorisations should be granted.
On the fringes of the meeting of the EU agriculture ministers in Brussels, Seehofer said that the procedure followed until now was "questionable" because it did not take sufficient account of public reservations. "We should stop it for the moment and see if the procedure is okay like this," Seehofer told the AFP news agency.
Seehofer spoke out in favour of having GM plants authorised on a purely scientific basis by a specialist authority. There should no longer be any political voting among the member states or in the European Commission. Their job, he claims, is to set framework conditions for the use of GM plants, such as rules to guarantee coexistence between GM and non-GM crops, and labelling requirements. Seehofer called for the authorisation of GM plants to be dealt with in the same way as pharmaceutical products, where a competent scientific authority takes decisions without any political involvement.
Authorisation decisions concerning GM plants and food and feed products produced from them are already taken based on a scientific safety assessment carried out by the European Food Standards Authority (EFSA ). Their opinion is taken into account in the proposed decision drawn up by the European Commission. During the required vote in the Council of Ministers, the member states that disagree fundamentally on this issue then block each other. The necessary qualified majority of member states has not yet been achieved in a single case. In these cases the EU treaties state that the authorisation decision should be taken by the European Commission, which is bound by the scientific opinion of EFSA.
Another reason behind Seehofer's proposals are the current controversies within the European Commission regarding authorisation for the cultivation of two GM maize lines, Bt11 and 1507. EU Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas had publicly declared that he would not be granting the authorisation, thereby overriding the expert scientific opinion of EFSA. Unlike the EFSA experts, Dimas has doubts about the environmental compatibility of the two GM maize lines. However, the majority of the European Commissioners do not intend to follow Dimas's lead. Now they are to negotiate a common course within the Commission. "One Commissioner says it's okay; the other doesn't. It is not acceptable that we politicians decide according to majorities and current moods. This is no way to proceed," Seehofer told the Reuters news agency.
Authorisation moratorium: Fischer Boel fears a rise in meat prices
So far there are no detailed proposals for a new authorisation procedure. While the French minister of agriculture, Barnier, supports Seehofer, EU Agriculture Commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel is warning against a new moratorium on authorisations. She criticises the length of time that the authorisation processes take in the EU and is calling for them to be speeded up considerably.
Fischer Boel fears shortages and a significant rise in the price of feed products in Europe if countries like the USA, Argentina and Brazil, from which Europe imports its feed products, were to approve GM crops in quick succession. Without an authorisation in the EU, no trace of these GM plants will be allowed in agricultural imports. Preventing adventitious contamination is, Fischer Boel claims, technically very complex and expensive. Europe obtains 85 per cent of its soya imports and 45 per cent of its maize imports from these three countries, according to Fischer Boel. Meat production in Europe is dependent on massive feed imports.
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They're trying to scare you
- Andrew Bolt, The Herald-Sun (Melbourne), Nov. 30, 2007
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,22844154-5000117,00.html
November 30, 2007 12:00am
THE campaigners warning us we might end up with two heads after eating GM foods are ignoring the science that says it's good for you.
Let me prove how dead to reason are the state politicians now screaming that genetically modified crops could kill us.
These Greens and soy-milk Labor panic-merchants actually got their scientific advice from Jeffrey Smith.
Now there's a laugh -- or would be if it didn't confirm we're losing our minds. Unreason rules.
Smith, an activist and author of Seeds of Deception, was brought out from the United States to convince us Premier John Brumby was toying with our lives by deciding now to lift at last Victoria's ban on GM canola.
And how glad our greens, anti-capitalists and conspiracy-theorists were to hear him. In fact, he got the kind of reception we normally reserve for that other Profit of Doom, Al Gore.
The ABC gave him lots of air time, without expressing the slightest doubt about his evidence or credentials. Same story with The Age, which ran a typical Smith polemic.
"There is irrefutable evidence that GM foods are unsafe to eat", Smith roared. "Working with more than 30 scientists worldwide, I documented 65 health risks of GM foods. There are thousands of toxic or allergic-type reactions in humans . . ."
In fact, GM corn had a gene that "if transferred from corn snacks, for example, it could turn our intestinal flora into living pesticide factories".
Gosh. Your guts turned into poison factories. Think of that.
Think also how useful to a professional alarmist like Smith are words like "if" and "could" -- especially when none of the millions of people who have snacked on GM food have found their stomachs actually converted into Mortein plants.
And think, too, what it says about Smith that he fails to add that the Food and Agricultural Organisation says the rat study he relies on "is unlikely to present a public health concern".
Yet the most astonishing part of Smith's visit was that he walked into Parliament House on Tuesday last week as the guest of anti-GM politicians who wanted a briefing on the science behind his scares.
What was so astonishing about that, you may ask? Astonishing is that Smith walked in, rather than floated.
You see, Scientific Smith not only thinks GM foods are dangerous, he thinks also he can fly.
Smith has been for years a follower of the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi (guru to the Beatles) and, like the Yogi, has preached the virtues of yogic flying.
Working on the Senate campaign of the Maharishi's Natural Law Party in 1996, he publicly claimed there were 500 studies proving that yogic flying and transcendental meditation cut crime and increased IQ. He even demonstrated some flying himself, although he did little more than bump up and down on his undercarriage.
I wonder why no journalist who feted Smith on his trip felt that needed reporting, or why no politician asked even whether a man who thought he could fly was likely to have a firm grasp of scientific principles.
Maybe the answer is that the opposition to GM crops is led largely by people who don't care about the science -- not really -- and are likely to be up for a little levitation themselves.
If reason counted, they might actually concede that GM crops are now grown in 22 countries, in some cases for more than a decade, and no one yet has yet reeled away from the dinner table, clutching their new second head or the smoking patch where their genitals used to be.
Indeed, look as hard as they can, scientists just haven't found proof that these crops do anything but good.
That's why our federal Gene Technology Regulator gave the green light to GM canola six years ago.
That's why Australia's chief scientist, Dr Jim Peacock, says GM food crops are not only safe, but essential to the future.
That's why Food Standards Australia New Zealand has approved the GM foods on our shelves, which Australians have munched through happily without exploding.
And that's why the World Health Organisation summed up: "GM foods currently available on the international market have passed risk assessments and are not likely to present risks for human health.
"In addition, no effects on human health have been shown as a result of the consumption of such foods by the general population in the countries where they have been approved."
Indeed, it wasn't science but pure fear that prompted the Labor Government to ban GM crops four years ago.
Not fear of the crops -- but of the rage of superstitious green believers who read wild books like Smith's and consult their prejudices against science, business and modernity to conclude the scientists are all wrong. That there's a conspiracy to poison us. (Er, but why? Why kill your clients? And isn't it time for your pills?)
How that dumb ban on GM crops has hurt us. A panel appointed by Brumby and led by scientist Sir Gustav Nossal has found it would soon be costing us $29 million a year. Worse, it had already driven away researchers and forced farmers to use many tonnes more of herbicide than they'd need for GM canola. This green policy is actually poisoning the earth.
So Brumby -- a rationalist -- said the ban on GM canola would go. The NSW Government announced ditto.
And now these brave politicians must withstand the fear campaign whipped up by the most superstitious of their colleagues, fed by eco-profiteers like Smith.
Yes, Smith does profit from the panic he helps to sow, and not just by selling his books.
He is also a vice-president of Genetic ID, a laboratory that specialises in testing for traces of GM crops, which it does for many activist groups.
And what is Genetic ID? A lab long run by John Fagan, a professor at the Maharishi University of Medicine and author of Genetic Engineering: The Hazards, Vedic Engineering: The Solutions. Yes, a Maharishi follower.
The lab's religious objections to GM crops are clear from the blurb of Fagan's book, which claims genetic engineering offers only short-term partial fixes with damaging side-effects, while Maharishi's vedic engineering offers comprehensive, life-supporting solutions.
Sure, a scientist may be a religious crank, yet also know his GM onions.
Except it seems that Smith, for one, peddles a string of scary claims that don't stack up, including one repeated by an Adelaide academic on the ABC's 7.30 Report on Wednesday.
That was the allegation that a Russian scientist, Irina Ermakova, fed GM soybeans to rats, only to find they gave birth to pups that were runts and often infertile.
More than 500 activist groups -- and our own anti-GM politicians -- have seized on this study as the proof they've long needed. Yet no other reputable study had found anything of this kind, and Ermakova never put up her study for peer review.
So the Nature Biotechnology journal recently sent Ermekova questions on her study and got several scientists to review her answers.
Those reviewers concluded, among other things, that Ermakova seemed not to have fed or housed her starving rats very well at all, which was probably why so many died and so many others were malnourished.
Moreover, she'd been unclear on how much GM food she'd used, hadn't given evidence for her findings and even had doubts in her own mind about her results, which "depart so dramatically from previously reported findings as to be remarkable".
Ermekova's study was proof? Only to someone who'd take a science lesson from a human hovercraft. But so mad are our times that plenty now do, including even our own politicians.
So mad are these times, in fact, that . . . well, global warming. Say no more.
Join Andrew on blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt
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Antitechnology, Antibusiness Zealots Threaten to Strip Away Individual Choice from All of US
- Henry I. Miller, M.D., Genetic Engineering News (Vol. 27, No. 21) Dec. 1, 2007
http://www.genengnews.com/articles/chitem.aspx?aid=2296
Activism can be a good thing. Libertarians and civil rights advocates lobby for constraints on undue government intrusion into our lives, and professional associations further the interests of its members. We all benefit from getting to shop in the marketplace of ideas.
However, all is not good-faith constructive activism, and some of the goods in the marketplace are shoddy.
A good example is Jeremy Rifkin's relentless, decades-old antagonism toward the new biotechnology, or gene-splicing, applied to the production of innovative new drugs, gene therapy for life-threatening diseases, agriculture, or anything else.
Thirty years ago, he and his followers disrupted a public meeting, chanting, "We shall not be cloned." That was hardly radical by the standards of the 1970s. Rifkin's statements about biotechnology threatening "a form of annihilation every bit as deadly as a nuclear holocaust," however, are extreme and baseless traits that seem to increasingly characterize radical activism.
A broad scientific consensus has long held that the newest techniques of biotechnology are no more than an extension or refinement of earlier ones applied for centuries - and that gene transfer or modification by gene-splicing techniques does not, per se, confer risk.
Rifkin's assertions about biotechnology ignore the seamless continuum that exists between old and new biotechnology and the monumental contributions that both have made to medicine, agriculture, and innumerable scientific disciplines.
The late Harvard evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould, by his own admission, tried to be sympathetic to Rifkin's views but was overwhelmed by his "extremism" and "lack of integrity," and by his showing "no understanding of the norms and procedures of science."
Professor Gould characterized Rifkin's antibiotechnology book, Algeny, as "a cleverly constructed tract of anti-intellectual propaganda masquerading as scholarship," concluding that he had not "ever read a shoddier work." But Professor Gould had not read Rifkin's later literary efforts on a variety of topics, which are at least as bad. Greenpeace International
And then there is Greenpeace. During a House of Lords Select Committee hearing in 1999, Lord Melchett, then director of Greenpeace, was asked "Your opposition to the release of [gene-spliced plants], that is an absolute and definite opposition? It is not one that is dependent on further scientific research?" He replied: "It is a permanent and definite and complete opposition."
Greenpeace International may have attained the nadir of antibiotechnology activism with several of its antics. In 1995 the organization announced that it had "intercepted a package containing rice seed genetically manipulated to produce a toxic insecticide, as it was being exported...[and] swapped the genetically manipulated seed with normal rice."
The rice seeds "intercepted" by Greenpeace had been genetically improved for insect resistance and were en route to the International Rice Research Institute in the Philippines from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich. The modified seeds were to be tested to confirm that they would grow and produce high yields of rice with less chemical pesticide.
In the Philippines and many developing countries in Asia where rice is a staple food, disease-resistant and insect-resistant rice are desperately needed. In the Philippines, Greenpeace also reportedly told villagers that gene-spliced crops cause homosexuality, impotence, and baldness.
In Africa, they have promulgated the myth that these improved crops cause impotence and increase the spread of HIV/AIDS. Doreen Stabinsky, a "science advisor" to Greenpeace International, has claimed that cotton fiber (as in underwear), animal feed, and cotton-seed oil from Bt-cotton plants can lead to an increase in the occurrence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria including those that cause tuberculosis and gonorrhea (Times of India, November 2, 2001). There is no evidence whatever for such claims. More Biotech Critics
Jeffrey Smith is as bizarre as any of the biotech critics and was, unfortunately, permitted to publish a commentary in this publication on November 1. His article consisted almost entirely of misstatements, misrepresentations, and outright falsehoods.
The piece cites a litany of wholly imaginary problems of toxicity, allergy, harm to animals and ecosystems, etc., allegedly caused by gene-spliced plants and foods. It ignores agbiotech's manifest successes including higher yields, less use of chemical pesticides, and more environment-friendly cultivation practices to say nothing of the potential for drought-resistant plants and plant-derived pharmaceuticals. Smith's creed is a vile parody of serious commentary. He seems ignorant of the entire history of agriculture, both pre- and post-gene-splicing, but exhibits an idée fixe about biotech.
Then, there are the supposedly more moderate groups, such as the Pew Initiative on Food and Biotechnology (now defunct) and the Center for Science in the Public Interest, that pose as open-minded skeptics rather than antagonists. They are subtler, and therefore more insidious, than the antibiotech players who show their colors unambiguously.
Beneath the rhetoric, their arguments and actions, which consistently ignore the context necessary to understand the potential risks and benefits of the new biotechnology, lead us to the same place as biotech's declared enemies. They too attempt to create a groundswell of anxiety and to elicit unnecessary, hugely burdensome government regulation that will make biotech product testing and commercialization untenable. Hoodwinking the Public
Because the public's understanding of science is meager, it isn't difficult to hoodwink many consumers into believing all or part of The Big Lie - that biotech applied to agriculture and food production is unproven, unsafe, untested, unregulated, and unwanted. A study by the U.S. National Science Foundation found that fewer than one in four people know what a molecule is, and only about half understand that the earth circles the sun once a year.
The public's muddled view of biotechnology, in particular, was reflected in the results of a survey of 1,200 Americans, released in October 2003 by the Food Policy Institute at Rutgers University.
In an 11-item true/false quiz that was part of the survey, more than half of the subjects received a failing grade (defined as less than 70% correct answers). Only 57% recognized as false the statement, "ordinary tomatoes do not contain genes, while genetically modified tomatoes do." Perhaps most shocking of all, only two-thirds knew that eating genetically modified fruit would not alter their own genes. One wonders whether the one-third who got this question wrong think that if they eat rabbit stew, they will begin to hop.
Activists' constant repetition of The Big Lie takes advantage of public ignorance about key facts: 1) with the exception of wild berries, wild mushrooms, wild game, fish, and shellfish, virtually all the organisms - plants, animals, microorganisms - in our food supply have been modified by one genetic technique or another; 2) because the techniques of the new biotech are more precise and predictable than their predecessors, biotech foods are likely to be even much safer than other foods; 3) food producers are already legally responsible for assuring the safety of their products, and the FDA does not normally perform safety determinations, but primarily conducts surveillance of marketed foods and takes action if any are found to be adulterated or mislabeled; and 4) unwarranted, excessive regulation including unnecessary labeling requirements discourages innovation and imposes costs that are passed along to the consumer, and are a disproportionate burden on the poor.
In both flagrant and subtle ways, Jeremy Rifkin, Andew Kimbrell, Margaret Mellon, Mae-Wan Ho, Jeffrey Smith, and other antibiotechnology zealots continue to perpetuate various elements of The Big Lie, ignoring our vast experience and the scientific consensus that gene-splicing is an extension or refinement, of less precise, less predictable techniques. To say nothing of the fact that North Americans have consumed more than a trillion servings of foods that contain gene-spliced ingredients, with not a single documented untoward reaction.
Exposing False Claims
What makes false alarms about biotech - or any new technology - hard to expose is the virtual impossibility of demonstrating the absolute safety of any activity or product. There is always the possibility that we haven't yet gotten to the nth hypothetical risk or to the nth dose or the nth year of exposure when the risk will finally be demonstrated. It is logically impossible to prove a negative, and all activities pose some nonzero risk of adverse effects.
Unconstructive, antisocial activism comes, not only from NGOs, but also from the mainstream media. Culprits here include former New York Times environmental reporter Keith Schneider and Andrew Pollack, who currently covers biotech for both the business and science sections of the Times.
Pollack's "Biotech's Sparse Harvest" on February 14, 2006, was no valentine to agbiotech. His thesis, "At the dawn of the era of genetically engineered crops, scientists were envisioning all sorts of healthier and tastier foods, including cancer-fighting tomatoes, rot-resistant fruits, potatoes that would produce healthier French fries, and even beans that would not cause flatulence...Resistance to genetically modified foods, technical difficulties, legal and business obstacles, and the ability to develop improved foods without genetic engineering have winnowed the pipeline."
While Pollack missed many of the nuances about biotechnology applied to agriculture and food production, he devoted ample ink to the antibiotech crowd, including the Pew Initiative on Food and Biotechnology and the radical Friends of the Earth.
Memo to Pollack: All points of view on scientific and technological issues are not created equal. Good journalism is not served by creating a kind of moral equivalence between those who hold ideological, antibiotech views and those with supportable, legitimate viewpoints; that is like equating creation theory with Darwinian theory. Ignorance of Biotech
In fact, the use of gene-splicing to craft small, precise genetic changes that enhance or introduce desirable traits into plants has been a stunning technological success - but excessive and unscientific regulation and the intractable opposition of activists have slowed its translation into consumer-friendly foods.
How ironic that the same activists who have opposed agbiotech relentlessly for 20 years now decry the "hype" and "over-selling" of its benefits - rather like the teenager convicted of murdering his parents who pleads for mercy from the courts because he's an orphan.
Pollack's statement, "Developing non-allergenic products and other healthful crops has also proved to be difficult technically," is simply untrue. A vast spectrum of such plants (the prototype of which is vitamin A-enhanced golden rice) has been crafted by laboratory scientists, but they cannot afford the gratuitously inflated regulatory costs to test the plants in the field.
Excessive and unwise regulation is a major reason that products in the development pipeline "do not include many of the products once envisioned," in Pollack's phrase. Unscientific and discriminatory EPA and USDA regulatory policies make field trials with gene-spliced plants 10-20 times more expensive than a similar plant engineered with less precise, less predictable conventional genetic techniques.
Unlike pharmaceutical development, agricultural R&D is a low-budget enterprise, and such counter-intuitive, unscientific regulation and gratuitous regulatory costs make the development of many promising and even important food products uneconomical.
Finally, Pollack's disparaging assertion that industry "has been peddling the same two advantages - herbicide tolerance and insect resistance - for 10 years," is puzzling. These traits have been of monumental importance - not only to farmers' bottom line, but to occupational health and the natural environment.
Enhanced pest resistance in plants has obviated the need for hundreds of millions of pounds of chemical pesticides (and thereby reduced environmental and occupational exposures), and herbicide tolerance has made possible a shift to more benign herbicides and to environment-friendly no-till farming (less runoff of chemicals, less carbon dioxide production).
Antitechnology, antibusiness activists fear a world in which exploitative, multinational corporations conspire to strip away individual choice from the world's farmers and consumers. Yet it is they who are guilty of the mendacity and manipulation they imagine they see in others; they who are guilty of stripping away the freedom of researchers to research, doctors to doctor, and consumers to consume vaccines and drugs that can be life-saving.
Like cheap knock-offs of designer goods, some of the offerings in the marketplace of ideas may be attractive at first glance but do not stand up to scrutiny. Only if we learn to distinguish the genuine from the fake will we be able to protect ourselves - and our supply of new plants and other products - from the tyranny of the of the activists.
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Polish archbishop dismisses fears of genetically modified food
- Catholic World News, Dec. 4, 2007
http://www.cwnews.com/news/viewstory.cfm?recnum=55125
Lublin - Archbishop Jozef Zycinski of Lublin, Poland has encouraged the faithful to ignore the concerns raised by environmental activists, and "not be afraid of genetically modified food," the Rzeczpospolita newspaper reports.
"Science has no evidence that GMOs [genetically modified organisms] are a threat," observed Archbishop Zycinski, "How many times have I participated in discussion on GMOs at the apostolic palace and never did I hear evidence that GMOs are a threat to human life."
The archbishop recalled that rice has been genetically modified to contain vitamin A, which helps children in Third World countries combat illnesses that can take their sight-- an example of what he saw as an enhancement of food products.
Archbishop Zycinski commented that in the 19th century, people feared losing their sight when riding trains traveling more than 20 miles per hour. He said, "A certain amount of courage is necessary so that society can exist and function normally."
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EU Threatens Poland With Lawsuits, Fines Over GMO Ban
- Vittorio Hernandez, All Headline News, Dec. 3, 1007
http://www.allheadlinenews.com/articles/7009345636
Warsaw, Poland (AHN) - Poland continues to defy the European Commission's law on genetically modified products by banning the entry of GMO goods into the country. It has only 20 days to respond to EC's accusation that the country's laws violate EC regulations.
The continued ban may result in fines of as much as $381,407 (260,000 euro) a day. A ruling by the EU court that Poland violated the law will also expose Warsaw to lawsuits GMO trading firms may file against the Polish government.
The previous Polish Environment Ministers banned GMO items because surveys showed almost 80 percent of the country isn't willing to buy GMO goods. Michal Milewski, acting spokesperson of the Environment Ministry, said, "There is no final opinion from the new minister yet. As a general rule, we do not want to admit genetically modified crops in Poland, as they threaten biodiversity."
The EC is not against banning certain GMO crops if is is scientifically justified and crop-specific. EU Agricultural Commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel explained, "We might have to consider excluding an individual GM product from a given area if, for scientific reasons, it genuinely could not co-exist with non-GM crops in that area."
Boel added, "But... we cannot simply ban all GM crops from an entire region because of hostility to GM products per se. Where a product has been shown not to be harmful, in principle the rules of the free internal EU market apply."
Previously the EU's Court of First Instance had ruled against Austria which proposed a regional GMO ban, and warned Italy of legal consequences for passing a law banning GMO crops until all regions have come up with legislation how farmers should separate GMO crops from organic and traditional plants.
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Future Stock
- Bill Horan, Truth About Trade & Technology, Nov. 30, 2007
http://www.truthabouttrade.org/article.asp?id=8568
The new movie starring Will Smith, I Am Legend, looks like a Christmastime blockbuster, with its A-list actor, big-budget thrills, and monster attacks. When it opens in two weeks, it will pack theaters.
Ironically, its story involves a city unpacked: The entire population of New York, and possibly everywhere else, is dead or mutated by a nasty virus. The only survivor seems to be Smith's character, who clings to life in a strange world of terror.
It sounds like an entertaining film. Post-apocalyptic movies often are: The Terminator, The Road Warrior, P***t of the Apes, and so on. They're fun because they're fantasies.
The reality, of course, would be anything but a two-hour diversion. During the Cold War, civil-defense specialists drew up plans for the United States to cope with the aftermath of a nuclear holocaust. Thinking about the unthinkable may be a grim task, but it's good that some people devote their lives to it. Better to have them and not need them than to need them and not have them.
The same might be said of the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, which is trying to collect seeds from about 2 million different kinds of food plants and bury them in the frozen ground of Spitsbergen, a remote Norwegian island that's a lot closer to the North Pole than to Oslo. The idea is to bank the seeds in the agricultural equivalent of a safety deposit box in case a global scourge wipes out a staple crop.
It's an excellent idea, even as we hope that we'll never need to make a withdrawal. Yet the so-called doomsday vault may be omitting an important piece of the world's seed legacy and promise: This bank refuses to accept deposits of GM seeds.
The admirable motive behind the vault was recently outlined in a fascinating New Yorker article by John Seabrook: "We tend to imagine apocalypse coming in the form of a bomb, an asteroid, or a tsunami, but should a catastrophe strike one of the world's major crops ... seed bankers may be all that stand between us and widespread starvation."
Backers of the vault include the Gates Foundation, which has committed $30 million to the project. So this is an international effort. National governments are involved as well: Norway is putting up most of the $5 million needed for the construction of a complex with blast-proof doors and meter-thick walls.
Yet Norway's involvement presents a conundrum. Spitsbergen may be an ideal location for the vault because of its permafrost soil and lack of earthquakes. But it also falls under Norwegian legal authority--and so it succumbs to European paranoia about biotechnology. At present, the vault doesn't meet Norway's "contained use" standards for GMOs, and therefore it forbids the types of corn, cotton, soybean and canola seeds favored by farmers in the United States and many other countries.
This is unfortunate. The vault proposes to gather just about every kind of seed imaginable--except some of the very best that have ever been bred, apparently because of regulations that are not science-based.
Biotechnology is something to applaud rather than fear. Biotech seeds are actually like miniature versions of the seed bank itself because they contain traits that protect crops from the diseases that theoretically could morph into the very calamities that the Svalbard Global Seed Vault means to defy.
A new book, Blindside, suggests that political leaders don't do enough to prepare for disaster. Edited by Francis Fukuyama and published by the Brookings Institution, it looks at how public officials prepare for unwelcome surprises--or, perhaps more accurately, how they fail to prepare for them. "Anticipating and dealing with what were thought to have been very low-probability events have clearly become central challenges for policymakers," writes Fukuyama.
The Svalbard Global Seed Vault is a noble effort to address a very specific low-probability threat. It has and deserves our support. What a shame if anti-scientific attitudes were to render it less comprehensive and effective than it ought to be.
Talk about getting blindsided.
Bill Horan, a Board Member for Truth About Trade and Technology, grows corn, soybeans and grains in Northwest Iowa. This fourth generation family farm has been involved in specialty crop production and identity preservation for over twenty years.
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New panel being set up to regulate GM food import
- Gulf Times (Qatar), Dec. 4, 2007
http://www.gulf-times.com/site/topics/article.asp?cu_no=2&item_no=188231&version=1&template_id=36&parent_id=16
HH the Heir Apparent Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani has issued a decree setting up a committee on Biosafety Protocol. The committee, headed by the secretary-general of the Supreme Council for Environment and Natural Reserves (SCENR), will formulate rules and regulations on the import and use of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and GM food in the country. Ghanem Abdullah Mohamed, director of Wildlife Conservation Department at SCENR, said yesterday that the new committee would be assisted by a scientific panel.
The Biosafety Protocol committee will have members from Standards and Metrology Department, Ministries of Commerce and Agriculture, National Health Authority (NHA), Ports and Customs Authority and Central Municipal Council. The committee will have the Convention of Biological Diversity as its focal point.
The scientific committee would consist of GMO scholars, representing Qatar University, Qatar Foundation and the NHA, Ghanem said. The Biosafety Committee has been mandated to put in place the laws to "protect the country and its people from goods and products from the possible harmful effects which GMOs might cause".
The official explained that the country was not seeking a total ban on the import or use of GM foods because it had not been established that they were harmful to human beings. Nor had it been proved scientifically that they were safe for human consumption.
So, it should be left to the consumer to decide whether he/she wanted to buy such foods. "The customer should have an informed choice".
All GM products should be labelled as such, the official argued. Currently, there are several products in the country's supermarkets which are genetically modified. They are mostly corn, soya, wheat and rice byproducts. They come from the developed countries. They are not labelled to indicate that they had been genetically manipulated, Ghanem said. The official pointed out that Qatar had ratified the Cartagena Protocol, an international convention on the regulation of biotechnology, in June this year.
So far, 143 countries had ratified the Cartagena Protocol, which seeks to protect biological diversity from the potential risks posed by living modified organisms resulting from modern biotechnology. It establishes an advance informed agreement (AIA) procedure for ensuring that countries are provided with the information necessary to make informed decisions before agreeing to the import of such organisms into their territory.
The Protocol contains reference to a precautionary approach and reaffirms the precaution language in Principle 15 of the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development.
The Biosafety Committee would not only formulate the required rules but would also monitor all the products entering the country, Ghanem said. Qatar is the third country in the Gulf to have ratified the Protocol. Oman joined the treaty in 2003 and Saudi Arabia last month.
The official did not say when the rules could be expected.
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NABC 2008 World Congress - Call for papers, panels, and posters
http://origin.ih.constantcontact.com/fs075/1101457264386/img/1.jpg?a=1101896022114
The World Congress on Industrial Biotechnology & Bioprocessing is the premiere global gathering of thought leaders, investors, researchers and business executives in industrial biotechnology, bioenergy, and bioprocessing.
The World Congress on Industrial Biotechnology and Bioprocessing will feature technical sessions for business, academic and research-related presentations on topics such as biotechnology in manufacturing and synthesis, industrial biotech in pharmaceuticals, personal care products, foods, flavorings, bioprocessing of agricultural feedstocks, next generation bioenergy production, issues surrounding the application of biotechnology to next generation biofuels, pharmaceuticals. Industrial sustainability, renewable chemical platforms, enzymes for a host of applications, bioplastics, pulp and paper processing, national defense applications, nano-biotech, animal feed ingredients, marine biotech, bioethanol production and extensive focus on biotechnology and climate change will also be featured.
Once again I would like to remind you that the call for papers, panels, and posters is now open. The deadline is December 12, 2007, so I encourage you to make your submission as soon as possible. Don't miss your chance to be part of this exciting program. Please visit www.bio.org/worldcongress2008/speak/index.asp for instructions and further information.
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Obituary: Brent Zehr
Dear Friends:
I have just learnt that Brent Zehr of Mahyco (India) passed away on November 17. He was the head of R&D of this company that produced Bt cotton in India, and was the husband of Dr. Usha Bharwale. He was earlier on faculty at Purdue University, and got his Ph.D. from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He maintained a blog detailing his struggles with a rare cancer; the finaly entry by his father of this untimely death is at:
http://brentjourney.blogspot.com/2007/11/brents-journey-has-ended.html
You can also find a very poignant video of Brent's family pictures in India and USA set to Indian music at
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2154689191696447376
Brent provided tremendous leadership to agbiotech research in India. He will be missed.
R.I.P.
- Prakash
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*by Andrew Apel, guest editor, andrewapel+at+wildblue.net
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