The Showa Denko Tryptophan disasterNew evidence indicates that genetic engineering |
Brief summaryA poisonous substance in a food supplement killed 37 persons and 1500 contracted a chronic severely painful and incapacitating disease. This disaster started in the late 1989 and ceased when the cause was discovered.
This disaster demonstrates that genetic engineering may give rise to very dangerous unexpected substances, difficult to detect. Unfortunately, the present safety assessment procedure for genetically engineered (GE) foods is far too insensitive to detect such unexpected dangerous poisons that may appear through genetic engineering.
ADDITION May 2010: The present campaign by the US government to forbid labelling of GE foods globally may pave the way for a world-wide disaster because the connection with a harmful GE-food will not be discovered in time. |
Executive summary[Definition: GE foods = genetically engineered foods = GMO foods] In 1989, a disastrous epidemic broke out in the US that caused 37 deaths and disabled 1.500 permanently in a disease called the "Eosinophilia-Myalgia-Syndrome" (EMS). It was caused by a highly poisonous substance in the food supplement tryptophan, which had been produced by genetically engineered bacteria at the Japanese company Showa Denko. The biotech industry maintained that the disaster was not caused by genetic engineering but by an "impurity" due to reduced filtering of the product. But recently it has been discovered that hundreds of cases contracted EMS before the filtering was decreased. We have made a careful analysis of the facts to find out if there was any plausible other reason for the appearance of the deadly poison than genetic engineering. Bacterial fermentation, the method used for producing tryptophan, had an excellent safety record since over 60 years before genetically manipulated bacteria were used. Therefore it is extremely unlikely that the fermentation process produced the poisonous by-product. On the other hand, molecular biologists predicted decades ago that genetic engineering may cause changes that induce the appearance of unexpected and potentially harmful substances. This prediction has been confirmed in a number of cases. Moreover, not one gene had been inserted, as commonly is the case, but four different genes. Increasing the number of inserted genes increases the risk for unpredictable consequences.
This deadly supplement would have passed as a safe product if the established procedure for approval of GE foods had been used. It is based on a safety assessment method that is is not designed to reveal unexpected poisons.
If not withdrawn, it is no doubt a matter of time only before another GE food disaster occurs. Showa Denko was the Harrisburg of gene technology. Must we have a Chernobyl before the use of GM foods is stopped? ADDITION May 2010: The present campaign by the US government to forbid labelling of GE foods globally may pave the way for a world-wide "Chernobyl" because, without labeling and with the insufficient pre-release safety assessment, the connection between the harmful GE food and disease symptoms will not be discovered in time. |
37 persons died and 1.500 were permanently disabled in a disease called Eosinophilia-Myalgia-syndrome (EMS) caused by some extremely poisonous substance present in a tryptophan food supplement, which was produced by genetically engineered bacteria at the Japanese firm Showa Denko (1).
The poison (or poisons - it has not been possible to find out if one or a combination of poisons caused the disease) was very aggressive, damaging several organ systems including, among others, heart, lungs, muscles, joints, liver, skin and the nervous system. It caused death from severe muscle damage, severe nerve damage (polyneuropathy) heart damage or lung damage. It caused chronic suffering from severe muscular and joint pain, muscle cramps, severe fatigue and troublesome skin and neurological disorders in survivors. No cure for the chronic sufferers has been found although 20 year has passed since the disaster.
The incidence of EMS in the United States diminished abruptly following the withdrawal of L-tryptophan containing products.
The disorder has been blamed on impurities due appearing because the produced reduced the filtration of the product. However, this explanation is no more tenable.
The American attorney William Crist has made a very thorough investigation discovering new evidence that has helped bring increased clarity to the question whether genetic engineering was the cause of the appearance of this deadly toxin (2). He found that hundreds of patients had fallen ill before the producer decreased filtration. The report of William Crist was published in the book "Seeds of Deception" by Jeremy Smith (2).
Therefore, as all other elements in the production method have been cleared beyond reasonable doubt, we can conclude with great certainty that the bacteria themselves caused the emergence of the poison and not some fancied other source in the production process as implied by the biotech corporations.
Considering the above points, it can be concluded beyond reasonable doubt that the only plausible explanation is that the poisonus impurities that caused EMS were generated inside the bacteria due to abnormal metabolism caused by genetic engineering.
No other scientifically tenable reason for the appearance of the deadly poison has been found, and the probability for a metabolic disturbance to occur due to genetic engineering was considerable, considering that four different genes had been inserted, causing an especially great degree of instability in the cellular regulation of the production of tryptophan resulting in disturbed metabolism which means that abnormal substances can appear. Most importantly, one of the poisonous substances "EBT" was an abnormal substance similar to tryptophan.
Furthermore unexpected poisonous substances have been reported also in some other cases of genetic engineering. On the other hand, when natural bacteria have been used for producing tryptophan and many other substances at a massive scale, no harmful substance has appeared.
Therefore, we find it justified to conclude, beyond reasonable doubt, that a metabolic disturbance, caused by genetic engineering, was the reason for the appearance of the deadly poison in the tryptophan-producing bacteria of Showa Denko.
Therefore, it is only a matter of time before another unexpected toxin appears in GE food, which in the worst case might harm millions of people before the connection is discovered, especially if, as is the case in the US and Canada, the GE foods are not labeled.
It is absolutely necessary that all GE foods are withdrawn from the market before another disaster occurs.
If, for some ethically unacceptable reason, this is not immediately done (resistance from the producers can be expected), at least the GE-foods must be immediately labelled so people have a chance to avoid them. Presently the only way to do so in countries, including the US, where they are not labeled, is to eat only certified organically grown food.
ADDITION May 2010: The present campaign by the US government to make the international body for food policy, Codex Alimentarius, forbid labelling of GE foods globally, if successful, may have very dangerous consequences. If a GE food, containing a harmful substance, undetected by the superficial and highly insufficinet safety assessment procedure is released on the world market, it may pave the way for a world-wide disaster because, barring labelling, it may take months before the connection to the harmful GE food is discovered.
It will take several decades to develop sufficent knowledge about genetic engineering so as to know how it works (see "Incomplete knowledge about DNA"). Already now there exists enough knowledge about the effects of GE to be able to conclude that GE, because of its unpredictable nature, can never become safe enough for developing any kind of food or for any other purposes. Therefore the only reasonable and sound scientific conclusion is that it is a dangerous method, not to be used, if at all, other than under strictly contained laboratory conditions.
It is no doubt a matter of time only before genetic engineering will be forbidden, and mankind will be amazed how governments and international organs, including the FAO, Codex Alimentarius and EFSA (of the European Union), could allow such a potentially disastrous method to be deployed in spite of very incomplete knowledge of DNA and the effects of gene manipulation on the cell as well as its health and environmental consequences.
The commercialization of genetically engineered foods and other GMOs, in spite of insufficient testing, is nothing less than a great scandal made possible by political suppression of serious warning signals and disinformation from corrupt or incompetent scientists, sponsored by irresponsible multinational corporations. Moreover, scientists who have published results indicating harmful effects of GE foods have been persecuted by governmental or international agencies, or colleagues, including Arpad Pusztai, Irina Ermakova (research, persecution) and Gilles Seralini (he is being attacked especially violently because he is a leading scientist). This persecution frightens scientists critical to genetic engineering from raising their voices, see for example "Dysfunctional Science" and "Corporate Monopoly of Science".
It is not a question whether, but when the next disaster occurs. considering the serious incompleteness of knowledge and the highly insufficient safety assessment metods.
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Showa Denko was the "Harrisburg" of Genetic Engineering. We should not need a "Chernobyl" before it is banned, especially as no GE food and no other GE product provides any such benefit that it is justified to take any risk at all by using it.
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1. For more about the catastrophe, see "Tryptophan summary"
2. The report of William Crist regarding the Showa Denko catastrophe as presented in the book "Seeds of deception" by Jeffrey Smith. It is an excellent presenation of the GE food issue reveailing the governmental corruption and the deceptive behavior of biotch corporations in the process of establishing commercial approval of GE foods.
3. a)Tobacco plants were genetically engineered to produce the Gamma-linoleic acid, a popular food supplement. In stead the plant unexpectedly mainly produced the toxic octadecatetraenic acid. This substance does not exist in the natural tobacco plant. (Reddy SA, Thomas TL. Nature Biotechnology, vol 14, sid 639-642, May 1996)
b) When a yeast was manipulated for increased fermentation there was an unexpected production of a metabolite (methyl-glyoxal) in toxic and mutagenic concentrations. (Inose, T. Murata, K. Int. J. Food Science Tech. 30: 141-146, 1995).
4. FDA lawsuit
5. Excerpt from our Open Letter: "We, the undersigned scientists and physicians, demand that all genetically engineered (GE) foods be withdrawn from the market unless they have undergone rigorous safety assessment including long term testing on animals and humans." No GE food sold as human food has presently undergone such testing.
6. Inadequate safety assessment of GE foods.
7. An example of fatal substantial equivalence. Applying the Showa Denko case, we demonstrate how useless and insufficient the present safety assessment procedure is.
8. Professor Gilles-Eric Seralini pointed out serious weaknesses in the safety analysis of a GE Maize variety that was approved as harmless on the basis of substantial equivalence. More.
9. Unfortunately, genetic engineering is almost entirely sponsored by commercial interests that earn billions from genetic engineering. Therefore, it is highly probable that, if poisons have been generated and detected in the experimentation with GE, they have been kept strictly secret. Because the technology brings about uncontrollable disturbances of the metabolism, that according to molecular biologists may generate unwanted substances, we find it justified to posit that poisonous substances have appeared in perhaps several GMO cases, buried as "business secrets" in the case they were discovered. However, because of the insensitive test methods used, poisons may also have passed unrevealed in the experiments and possibly ended up in GE food due to insufficient testing.
10. a) Kurihara Nobutaka, a, Yanagisawa Hiroyukia, Jin Zhuyua and Wada Osamua. "Production of polyclonal antibodies against 1,1'-ethyliden bis[l-tryptophan] (EBT), a potential contaminant causing eosinophilia-myalgia syndrome (EMS)". Toxicology Letters 66: 231-236 (1993)
b) William C. Buss; Julie Stepanek; Arthur D. Bankhurst; Arthur N. Mayeno; Andrzej Pastuszyn ;David Peabody. "EBT, A Tryptophan Contaminant Associated with Eosinophilia Myalgia Syndrome, is Incorporated into Proteins during Translation as an Amino Acid Analog " Autoimmunity, Volume 25, Issue 1 September 1996 , pages 33 - 45
c) H Barth, R Klein, P A Berg. L-tryptophan contaminant 'peak E' induces the release of IL-5 and IL-10 by peripheral blood mononuclear cells from patients with functional somatic syndromes. Exp Immunol. 126:187-92 (2001)
d) Richard M. Silver, * Anna Ludwicka, * Marta Hampton,Takashi Ohba, * Sarah A. Bingel,' Timothy Smith, Russell A. Harley, John Maize, Melvyn P. Heyesil."; A Murine Model of the Eosinophilia-Myalgia Syndrome Induced by 1,1 '-Ethylidenebis.." The Journal of Clinical Investigation, Inc. 93: 1473-1480; (1994).
11. B Müller, C Pacholski, T Simat, H Steinhart. "Synthesis and formation of an EMS correlated contaminant in biotechnologically manufactured L-tryptophan. "Adv Exp Med Biol. 467:481-6 (1999)
The "Harrisburg accident" occurred 1979 in a nuclear reactor in Harrisburg, PA, US, that came close to meltdown (also called the "Three mile Island accident"). It sparked the discussion of the safety of nuclear energy. But not until the Chernobyl catastrophe occured in 1986, the further usage of nuclear energy in the US and other countries was either stopped or plans were made to replace it with other solutions as soon as possible.
Before Harrisburg, experts sponsored by the US and other governments, fervently denied that the technology was unsafe. Still several independent experts had warned that nuclear energy reactors are unsafe. This situation is very similar to the denial today of GE risks by biotech sponsored scientists and the refusal of governements to listen to the well underpinned warnings of impartial experts including PSRAST.
This shows that it is unacceptable and dangerous that governmental bodies interfere with, and override technology assessments made by impartial scientists. They evidently don't have the competence, foresight, intelligence and sense of responsibility to be able to handle complex technological issues. Unfortunately corruption of government officials and politicians has contributed to suppression of truth.
This danger is especially great now that science has reached a level where it is capable of generating very powerful technologies that can destroy the Earth.
We have suggested the establishment of national and international councils of truly independent experts that have the ultimate, unrestricted power to decide for the country, or for the world, in issues regarding responsible and safe application of new technologies, see "A suggested procedure...". History has very clearly shown that there are very strong reasons to create such bodies whose decisions are imperative and cannot be overrun by any political or corporate influence.
(This text is based on and partly quoted from professor John Fagans article "Tryptophan summary")
EBT, the most prominent of the poisonous substances in the tryptophan supplement, was identified as a dimerization product of tryptophan (a dimer is a molecule consisting of two identical parts - joined in this case by an ethylidene bridge). It comprised less than 0.1% of the total weight of the product, yet that was enough to kill people (1).
Based on fundamental chemical and biochemical principles, scientists have deduced that this compound was probably generated when the concentration of tryptophan within the bacteria reached such high levels that tryptophan molecules or their precursors began to react with each other (5).
Thus, it appears that genetic manipulations led to increased tryptophan biosynthesis which led to increased cellular levels of tryptophan and precursors. At these high levels, these compounds reacted with themselves, generating a deadly toxin.
Being chemically quite similar to tryptophan, this toxin was not easily separated from tryptophan, and contaminated the final commercial product at levels that were highly toxic to consumers.
The purpose of the genetic manipulation was to increase the tryptophan production in the bacteria, and this apparently was successful, however with disastrous consequences.
This accident raises a serious warning flag regarding other cases of genetic engineering where the purpose likewise is to increase the productivity of the GMO.
Especially worrisome is that the products of the disturbed metabolism were very harmful in spite of being present in extremely small amounts, that could easily be overlooked in the same way as they were in the tryptophan case.
Physicians and Scientists for Responsible