The Showa Denko Tryptophan disaster

New evidence indicates that genetic engineering was the most probable cause

The disaster

The tryptophan disaster in the end of the 1980-ies and beginning of 1990-ies killed 37 and permanently disabled 1.500 people in the US in a disease called eosonophil myalgia syndrome (EMS). It was caused by one or more extremely poisonous substances present in a tryptophan food supplement, which was produced by genetically engineered bacteria at the Japanese firm Showa Denko (1).

The american attorney William Crist has recently made a very thorough investigation which has helped bring increased clarity to the question whether genetic engineering was the cause of the appearance of this deadly toxin.

Our analysis, based on the new evidence

1. Was the poison created by the bacteria?

• The insufficient filtration hypothesis disproven
  
  The biotech corporations maintained that EMS appeared after Showa Denko reduced the effectiveness of a carbon filter (reduced carbon content) in december 1988. They maintained that this probably had reduced the protection against chemical impurities appearing in the production process (without any explanation how they could appear). The filter story was distributed to the press worldwide as the cause of the epidemic.
  
  This argument is totally untenable, because it has been discovered that hundreds of cases of EMS occurred before reduced filtration was introduced (2). This discovery was the result of a careful investigation of all known cases by the attorney William Crist.



• Tryptophan fermentation using normal bacteria never created any poison
  
  Tryptophan has been produced in very large quantities for many years by a several other producers through the same bacterial fermentation method as Showa Denko, using bacteria that are not genetically engineered. No similar complication has occurred in any case. Bacterial fermentation is the standard method for this kind of production.



• Bacterial fermentation has produced tonnes of many other substances without any problem
  
  Not only tryptophan but tens of thousands of similar manufacturing units have been producing millions of tons of various medical substances through fermentation, including other amino acids, enzymes, nucleotides, vitamins, various antibiotics (penicillin being the most famous).
  
  Such manufacture has been going on at a large scale since more than fifty years without the appearance of any unexpected highly poisonous chemical impurity. The biotech proponents have downplayed the fact that the cause of EMS was an extremely poisonous substance. Therefore, if it had been an impurity caused by some weakness in the fermentation method, it would no doubt have been discovered in other cases, whatever the filtration efficiency was.

Conclusion

• It has been established that reduced filtration was not the cause of EMS.
• Non-GE tryptophan bacteria have never generated any dangerous toxin. This is especially convincing as such production has occurred at several sites since decades and the amounts produced are large.
• The method of production, bacterial fermentation has an impeccable safety record having been used for many organic substances since over 5 decades at a large scale without any similar complication

Therefore, as all other elements in the production method thus are cleared beyond the shadow of a doubt, we can conclude with great certainty that the bacteria themselves caused the emergence of the poison.

2. What caused the appearance of the poison in the bacteria?

• There exists no scientifically plausible reason why an extremely poisonous and unusual substance would appear "spontaneously" in the bacteria. This is strongly supported by the fact, that in the same fermentation procedure, normal bacteria have never caused the emergence of unexpected powerful toxins in spite of very extensive usage for many years.
• The diametrically opposite situation is the case with genetic engineering, as unexpected appearance of poisons due to genetic engineering has been predicted by molecular biologists because of the way gene manipulation can disturb cellular functioning.
• Moreover, this prediction has been experimentally confirmed. That is, unexpected appearance of poisons has occurred in reality due to genetic engineering (3).
• In the case of the Showa Denko bacteria, they had undergone an unusual extent of genetic manipulation as not one, as usually is the case in GE, but four different foreign genes had been introduced.
The risk for unexpected complications is greater, the larger number of genes are inserted because it brings about a greater instability in the genetic control of metabolic processes.
• The risk was especially great for a disturbance of the metabolic processes and the consequent appearance of unexpected substances, because all the artificially inserted genes were directed at influencing the same cellular "production line" (for producing tryptophan).
• The most suspect impurity, "EBT" was closely similar to tryptophan. It is the kind of substance that could appear due to disturbed regulation of the metabolism.

  When EBT was found in the investigation of the disaster, scientists began to express great concerns about genetic engineering.

  Soon after the report saying that the poison in the tryptophan pills was similar to the amino acid tryptophan, a very confusing report appeared. This new report indicated, that even tryptophan itself could produce EMS-like symptoms. There are strong reasons to suspect that this report was "fabricated evidence".

  This is because no other study has reported that tryptophan is harmful. Tryptophan is a natural substance, an amino acid that is part of the normal biochemistry of the body and such. Therefore, if tryptophan itself had been poisonous, EMS would have been a major disease of mankind. Actually, the US food and drug agency, FDA, now allows tryptophan to be used even in baby food.

  Still, at that time, the "toxic tryptopan" report was taken by FDA as a reason to consider other reasons than GE for the toxicity.

  The Biotech corporations had every reason to suppress and distort the evidence

  Just at the time of the accident, the Biotech corporations were about to launch GE foods. If EBT were proven to be the cause of EMS, it would be probable that GE was the reason for the disaster. They realized that this would make it psychologically impossible to sell GE foods on the market without very expensive (billion dollar) safety testing which would wreck the whole GE food project that just was about to be launched.

  Facing this threat, it is very likely that the corporations "encouraged" the fabrication of "advocacy" research reports that confused the issue (this would not have been the first time science was misused to promote corporate interests). The report that natural tryptophan caused EMS-like symptoms in rats was an ideal and effective "confuser".

  FDA heavily biassed

  As FDA is the authority responsible for food safety, they should have done everything possible to find out if GE caused the accident, considering that GE foods were about to be launched for commercial production. They should have initated a careful investigation of the suspect itself, the Showa Denko bacteria. This would have made it possible to find out for sure whether the poison was made by the bacteria and whether genetic engineering was the cause. But this was not done (the bacteria were avaialable at the time of the investigation but were destroyed later by Showa Denko).

  In stead, the absurd report about natural tryptophan causing EMS-like symptoms was taken very seriously by FDA as an important reason for concluding that it was not clear that genetic engineering was the cause.

  This may sound amazing, but it is a well established fact that FDA was heavily biassed in favor of GE foods, to the extent that, when the GE foods were about to be launched, it ignored severe warnings from its own scientists about using GE foods, and suppressed evidence indicating harmful effects of genetically engineered food. This was found out in an investigation of FDA protocols made by the lawyer Steve Druker in a lawsuit against FDA (4).

  This explains why FDA, in spite of compelling reasons to suspect that genetic engineering caused the disaster, apparently was completely uninterested in finding out the real truth, and accepted very weak and unlikely evidence as an excuse to drop the case.

Conclusion

Considering the impeccable safety record from over 50 years of non-GE bacterial fermentation, there is no reason to believe that a mechanism other than GE generated the poison. Moreove, it was predicted, on theoretical grounds, before the accident, that GE could produce unexpected poisons and considering that this prediction has been experimentally confirmed. For these reasons, it can be concluded with very great certainty that genetic engineering caused the appearance of the poison.

Overall conclusion

No other scientifically tenable reason for the appearance of the deadly poison has been found, and the probability for a metabolic disturbance to occur that could produce it was considerable, considering that four different genes had been inserted, causing an especially great degree of instability in the cellular regulation of metabolism.

This is furthermore supported by the fact that unexpected poisonous substances have been reported also in some other cases of genetic engineering. And when natural bacteria have been used for producing tryptophan and many other substances in a massive scale, no harmful substance has appeared.

Therefore, it is highly likely that a metabolic disturbance caused by genetic engineering was the reason for the appearance of the deadly EMS poison in the tryptophan-producing bacteria of Showa Denko.

Another disaster may occur - present testing requirements are highly insufficient

As this is not the only case where an unexpected poison has appeared due to genetic engineering, and as the present safety testing methods are too superficial for detecting unexpected harmful substances (4, 5), 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, the GE foods are not labeled.

Therefore, all GE foods must be withdrawn from the market.

If, for some ethically unacceptable reason, this is not immediately done, 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.

Concerned? What You can do.