BIOTECH IN TROUBLE--PART 2

We saw last week that the genetically-engineered-food industry may be spiraling downward. Last July, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Dan Glickman -- a big supporter of genetically engineered foods -- began comparing agricultural biotechnology to nuclear power, a severely-wounded industry.[1] (Medical biotechnology is a different industry and a different story because it is intentionally contained whereas agricultural biotech products are intentionally released into the natural environment.)

In Europe, genetically engineered food has to be labeled and few are buying it. As the NEW YORK TIMES reported two months ago, "In Europe, the public sentiment against genetically engineered [GE] food reached a ground swell so great that the cultivation and sale of such food there has all but stopped."[2] The Japanese government also requires GE foods to be labeled. Americans in overwhelming numbers (80% to 90% or more) have indicated they want GE foods labeled but the GE firms consider a label tantamount to a skull and crossbones and the Clinton/Gore administration has sided with the biotech corporations against the people. To be fair, there are no indications that a Republican president would take a different approach. The biotech firms have invested heavily in U.S. elections and the resulting government represents their interests at home just as it does abroad. On this issue, to an astonishing degree, the biotech firms ARE the government.

Since the early 1980s, biotech corporations have been planting their own people inside government agencies, which then created a regulatory structure so lax and permissive that biotech firms have been able to introduce new genetically modified foods into the nation's grocery stores at will. Then these same "regulators" have left government and taken highly-paid jobs with the biotech firms. It represents an extreme case of the "revolving door" syndrome.

The U.S. regulatory system for GE foods, which was created in 1986, is voluntary.[3,pg.143] The U.S. Department of Agriculture regulates genetically engineered plants and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulates foods made from those plants. If any of the plants are, themselves, pesticidal then U.S. Environmental Protection Agency gets involved. But in no case has any long-term safety testing been done. As the NEW YORK TIMES reported last July, "Mr. Glickman [U.S. Secretary of Agriculture] acknowledged that none of the agencies responsible for the safety of genetically modified foods -- the Agriculture Department, the F.D.A., and the Environmental Protection Agency -- had enough staff or resources to conduct such testing."[1] At the time Mr. Glickman made his statement, 70 million acres in the U.S. had already been planted with genetically modified crops and 2/3rds of the food in U.S. grocery stores contained genetically modified plant materials.[3,pg.33]

The importance of safety testing was emphasized by the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) in its latest (April 2000) report on biotech foods. The NAS [pg. 63] said safety problems might include these:

** New allergens may be introduced into foods.

** New toxins may be introduced into foods. The NAS said, "...there is reason to expect that organisms in US agroecosystems and humans could be exposed to new toxins when they associate with or eat these plants." [pg. 129]

** Existing toxins in foods may reach new levels, or may be moved into edible portions of plants. ("Overall increases in the concentrations of secondary plant chemicals in the total plant might cause toxic chemicals that are normally present only in trace amounts in edible parts to be increased to the point where they pose a toxic hazard," NAS said on pg. 72.)

** New allergens may be introduced into pollen, then spread into the environment. [The NAS remains silent on the human-health implications of new allergens spread via pollen. If the biotech firms have their way, we will learn about this by trial and error. Unfortunately, trial and error has a serious drawback in this instance: once new genetic materials are released into the environment, they cannot be retrieved. Unlike chemical contamination, biotech contamination is irreversible.]

** Previously unknown protein combinations now being produced in plants might have unforseen effects when new genes are introduced into the plants;

** Nutritional content of a plant may be diminished. [pg. 140]

The mechanism for creating unexpected proteins or unexpected toxins or allergens would be pleiotropy, the NAS explained [pg. 134]. Pleiotropy is the creation of multiple effects within an organism by adding a single new gene. In other words, putting a new gene into a tomato, intending to make the tomato more resistant to cold weather, might by chance, and quite unexpectedly, make some people allergic to the new tomato. "Such pleiotropic effects are sometimes difficult to predict," the NAS said. [pg. 134] The NAS said that FDA, USDA and EPA all need to pay attention to such "unintended compositional changes" of genetically modified foods.

Unfortunately, as the NAS pointed out, current tests are not adequate for determining all the problems that might occur because of pleiotropic effects. For example if a new protein is created that has not previously been found in the food supply, then there is no reliable basis for predicting whether it may cause allergic reactions. Allergic reactions are not a trivial matter, the NAS pointed out: "...food allergy is relatively common and can have numerous clinical manifestations, some of which are serious and life-threatening." [pg. 67]

New tests should be developed to test for allergenicity of genetically modified foods, the NAS said several times (see, for example, pg. 8, where the NAS called such new tests "highly desirable"). Specifically, the NAS recommended that tests be developed that actually measure reactions of the human immune system, which is the human system in which allergic reactions develop. The genetically modified foods on the market today have not undergone controlled experiments on real human immune systems. (Putting such foods into grocery stores is an uncontrolled experiment of sorts, but with no one collecting the data.)

In addition to human health problems, the NAS report discussed some of the agricultural and environmental problems that might occur from genetically modified (GM) plants:

** New chemicals in GM plants might kill predators and parasites of insect pests, thus leading to the loss of nature's own biological controls on certain pests. [pg. 74]

** Plants themselves might become toxic to animals. [pg. 75]

** Fallen leaves from GM plants might change the biological composition of the soil, leading to changes in nutrient uptake into plants or even toxicity to creatures living in the soil. [pg. 75]

** Genes from genetically-engineered plants will escape and enter into wild species. This is called gene flow and the NAS says, "[T]otal containment of crop genes is not considered to be feasible when seeds are distributed and grown on a commercial scale." [pg. 92] In other words, gene flow is going to occur. Wild plants are going to receive genes from genetically modified organisms. The biotech firms are re-engineering nature without understanding the means or the ends.

** When a plant is genetically engineered so that the plant itself becomes pesticidal (for example, Bt-containing corn, potatoes and other crops now planted on tens of millions of acres in the U.S.), there may be effects on non-target organisms. In other words, pesticidal crops may affect creatures besides the specific pest they were intended to kill. The NAS says, "Nontarget effects are often unknown or difficult to predict." [pg. 136]

In sum, agricultural biotechnology has raced ahead at lightning speed (going from zero acres planted with GE crops in 1994 to 70 million acres planted in 1999) without any long-term testing, and with minimal understanding of the consequences. The NAS refers to these politely as "uncertainties" and it acknowledges that these uncertainties "often force agencies to base their decisions on minimal data sets." [pg. 139]

So 2/3rds of the food in U.S. grocery stores contains plant materials that were genetically engineered. If they were subjected to government approval at all, it was on a strictly voluntary basis, and the government "often" approved new plants and new foods based on "minimal data sets," according to the National Academy of Sciences. Some of the most important aspects of these new foods had to be ignored because there is no way at present to test for them.

In sum, the biotech industry and its acolytes in government are flying blind and we are all unwitting passengers in their rickety plane. This is not a historical record that inspires confidence. No wonder the Clinton/Gore administration and the biotech corporations do not want anyone to know which foods have been genetically engineered. None of the biotech firms are even CLAIMING that there are taste or nutritional benefits in the biotech foods being sold today, so, to put it bluntly, consumers would have to be out of their minds to eat this stuff or serve it to their children.

Given the serious problems that the NAS said may occur as thousands of new genetically modified foods are introduced into the U.S. food supply without labels, naturally one wonders about liability insurance for the biotech industry. You will not find liability insurance discussed on the biotech industry's web site, www.whybiotech.com, so it is probably one of the industry's most serious problems.

Recently the Swiss company, Swiss Re, issued a report on GE foods.[4] Swiss Re is a re-insurance company -- it insures insurance companies against catastrophic loss. Swiss Re said genetic engineering "represents a particularly exposed long-term risk" and "genetic engineering losses are the kind which have not yet, or only rarely, occurred and whose consequences are extremely difficult to predict."

Swiss Re then asked (and answered) the question, "...so how can genetic engineering risks be insured?" Here is Swiss Re's answer:

"It is currently not possible to give a direct answer to this question. A lot depends on whether consensus can be reached on the relevant loss scenarios in a dialogue involving the genetic engineering industry, society, and the insurance industry. This will make genetic engineering risks more calculable and more interesting to traditional insurance models. From the point of view of the insurance industry, WE ARE AT PRESENT A LONG WAY OFF. [Emphasis added.]

"Today we must assume that the one-sided acceptance of incalculable risks means that any participants in this insurance market run the risk not only of suffering heavy losses, but also of losing control over their exposure."

Without intending to do so, the Swiss Re report brings to mind an agenda for citizens who oppose the expansion of ag biotech:

(a) On the principle that the polluter shall pay, biotech firms should be held strictly liable for any harms they may cause, not requiring proof of negligence;

(b) Ag biotech corporations should not be allowed to self-insure; as we know from the asbestos industry, self-insurance can lead to bankruptcy and hundreds of thousands of legitimate claims never being paid;

(c) Law suits should seek damages for gene flow, pollen drift, inadequate testing for allergenicity, crop failures, and so on. A series of lawsuits against private firms or government agencies would get the insurance industry's attention.

(d) Stockholders in ag biotech firms should express concern (to the board of directors, and to the Securities and Exchange Commission) about the failure to disclose incalculable risks. Stockholders in insurance companies should express concern about the potential for "heavy losses" and "losing control over their exposure" if coverage is extended to ag biotech firms.

Source: http://www.rachel.org/bulletin/bulletin.cfm?Issue_ID=1763

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[1] Marian Burros, "U.S. Plans Long-Term Studies on Safety of Genetically Altered Foods," NEW YORK TIMES July 14, 1999, pg. A18.

[2] Carey Goldberg, "1,500 March in Boston to Protest Biotech Food," NEW YORK TIMES March 27, 2000, pg. A14.

[3] National Research Council, GENETICALLY MODIFIED PEST-PROTECTED PLANTS: SCIENCE AND REGULATION (Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press, 2000). ISBN 0309069300. Pre-publication copy available at http://www.nap.edu/html/gmpp/.

[4] Swiss Re, GENETIC ENGINEERING AND LIABILITY INSURANCE; THE POWER OF PUBLIC PERCEPTION (UNDATED). Available from http://www.swissre.com/e/publications/publications/flyers1/- genetic.html (omit the hyphen).

Published here with the permission of Rachel's Environment & Health Weekly