Independent Scientists Demand A Ban on GM Food & Feed wh
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Genetically modified crops have been an "economic disaster" in America, costing £8 billion in lost profits and higher subsidies since 1999, according to a report published yesterday.
The study by the Soil Association raises questions over the future of GM crops in Britain, currently undergoing their final round of farm-scale trials before the Government consults on their introduction.
According to the report, called Seeds of Doubt, almost every benefit claimed for GM crops did not stand up to examination. Farmers reported lower yields, continued dependency on chemical sprays and widespread GM contamination of non-GM and organic crops, which in turn damaged exports.
Based on interviews with academics, advisers, farmers and industry analysts in North America, it said that GM crops had delivered few, if any, of the economic benefits promised to farmers.
Growing GM herbicide-resistant soya and insect-resistant maize was found to be less profitable than growing natural varieties because of the higher costs of GM seed and the lower market prices for GM crops.
About £400 million a year has been wasted after almost the entire North American exports of maize and rape to the European Union were lost following the introduction of GM varieties, the report said.
About £6.5 billion had been handed out in farm subsidies over the past three years in America for maize and soya because of low prices caused by loss of trade due to GM crops, the report estimated. Contamination had also cost an estimated £1 billion in lost foreign trade, while one particular product recall left a bill of about £600 million.
Three quarters of the world's GM crops are grown in America and Canada. But following problems with GM soya and maize, more than 200 groups representing farmers and the organic sector in the two countries are calling for a moratorium on the introduction of GM wheat, the next proposed crop.
Peter Melchett, policy director for the Soil Association, said the report should act as a warning to the Government, which will make a decision next year whether to allow GM crops to be grown commercially in Britain.
"With agriculture still suffering a deep economic crisis, the temptation to seize a new technology is great," he said. "Growing GM crops in the UK will undermine the competitiveness of British agriculture."
An EU report leaked earlier this year found that the costs of keeping GM and non-GM crops separate would often be too high to make commercial planting of GM crops economically feasible. On Monday, the National Centre for Food and Agricultural Policy, an American group funded by the biotechnology industry and the American government, painted a different picture of GM crops in America, saying that in 2001, GM crops of soya-bean, maize, cotton, papaya, squash, and oilseed rape produced an extra 1.8 million tons of food and fibre on the same acreage.
The report said GM crops had improved farm income by £973 million and reduced pesticide use by 21,000 tons. A spokesman for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said: "If GM crops are approved it can be assumed that farmers will not grow them unless they see some benefit to themselves, and unless there is a market for what they are producing.
"The Government recognises that consideration needs to be given to the terms on which GM crops might co-exist with conventional and organic production; this is another issue that we expect to be considered as part of the GM debate."
May Saturday 20th 2006 (10h07) :
GMO : Independent Scientists Demand A Ban on GM Food & Feed while All GM Crops Are Tested
Immune Reactions to Transgenic Protein Serious
Independent Scientists Demand A Ban on GM Food & Feed while All GM Crops Are Tested
The following memo and report were sent to international and national regulators on behalf of the Independent Science Panel.
Please circulate widely, forward to your regulators and policy makers, and the press.
From: Dr. Mae-Wan Ho, member of Independent Science Panel (www.indsp.org), Director, Institute of Science in Society (www.i-sis.org.uk)
To: (see list at the end)
I am writing on behalf of the Independent Science Panel (ISP)* to draw your attention to new research findings on the safety of transgenic proteins that need to be urgently addressed.
Specifically, immunological assessments carried out for the first time on a transgenic protein revealed that post-translational processing subsequent to gene transfer into an alien species introduced new antigenicities that turned a previously harmless protein into a strong immunogen. In addition, the transgenic protein promoted immune reactions against multiple other proteins in the diet. The detailed findings are reviewed in the report below.
As practically all the transgenic proteins involve cross-species gene transfer, they will be subjected to different post-translational processing, and hence they too, will have the potential to become immunogenic. And yet, none of the transgenic proteins that have been commercially approved has been tested. This omission is a most serious public health issue.
We call on you to impose an immediate ban on all GM food and feed until proper assessment on the immunogenicity of all the transgenic proteins has been carried out.
*The ISP, launched 10 May 2003 at a public conference in London, UK, consists of dozens of prominent scientists from 11 countries spanning the disciplines of agroecology, agronomy, biomathematics, botany, chemical medicine, ecology, epidemiology, histopathology, microbial ecology, molecular genetics, nutritional biochemistry, physiology, toxicology and virology (http://www.indsp. org/ISPMembers.php)
Transgenic Pea that Made Mice Ill
Raises serious safety concerns on transgenic proteins in general that must be addressed while a ban on all GM food and feed is imposed. Dr. Mae-Wan Ho
Ten-year project down the drain but are the right lessons learned?
A ten- year project at CSIRO (Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization) in Canberra Australia bit the dust when peas modified to resist insects caused inflammation in the lungs of mice [1]. The GM peas will be destroyed, said Gene Technology Regulator Sue Meeks.
The gene coding for the protein, a-amylase inhibitor-1 (aA1) in the common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L. cv. Tendergreen), was inserted into pea (Pisum sativum L.) to make the pea-plants resistant to attack from weevils.
Dr. T.J. Higgins, deputy chief of CSIRO Plant Industry and co-author of the scientific paper reporting the results remarked it is only the second time in the world that a GM project has been abandoned after a gene transfer from one crop to another, and that it demonstrated the effectiveness of strict regulations on research into GM crops.
Greenpeace campaigner Jeremy Tager said: “It just shows the failure of the science in relation to this gene product.”
Director of GeneEthics Network Bob Phelps referred to the project as a “waste of public money” and highlights the growing concern worldwide about the health impacts of all GM foods.
There are indeed important lessons to be learned from the scientific findings [2], which raise serious safety concerns over transgenic proteins in general.
Different processing of transgenic protein
The researchers found that the transgenic protein was processed differently and provoked immune reactions not exhibited by the native protein (see later).
Transgenic aA1 protein was compared with the non-transgenic protein on Western blot, a technique that separates different forms of the protein arising from post-translational processing. Previous studies showed that the native polypeptide in bean is cleaved into two chains, a and b, both of which are glycosylated (carbohydrate chains added), and with one or more amino acids removed from the tail end. This results in major forms of the a- and b-chains with molecular masses 11 646 Da and 17 319 Da respectively, together with minor forms containing alternative carbohydrate chains. The transgene in pea yielded a- and b-chains with molecular masses in the11 000 - 18 000 Da region, but with a banding pattern different from the native protein. More detailed comparisons on mass spectroscopy showed that the transgenic a-chain was less heavily glycosylated; and a form with two fewer mannose residues (11 322 Da) was the dominant in transgenic pea, but the least abundant in bean. The b-chain in the transgenic protein also showed a number of other bands besides the major and minor forms present in the native protein.
Immune reactions to transgenic protein
Mice were given about 25mg of seed meal in suspension, containing transgenic pea, nontransgenic pea, or bean, twice a week for 4 weeks. Seven days after the final feeding, the mice were subcutaneously injected in the footpad with the purified protein antigens: native or transgenic aA1, and the swelling induced in the footpad assessed 24 h later.
In a second experiment, the mice were fed seed meal suspensions as before, and seven and nine days after the final meal, purified transgenic aA1 or buffered saline was introduced into the trachea, and inflammation response was measured in the lungs 24 h later.
The results showed that mice fed on non-transgenic pea or bean showed no inflammation response in the footpad or in the lungs, indicating normal immune tolerance to common food.
Mice fed with transgenic pea, however, showed aA1-specific IgG antibodies at two weeks, rising to significant levels after 4 weeks. There was significant swelling of the footpad, or delayed type hypersensitive (DTH) response, when purified aA1 was injected. Similarly, introducing the antigens into the trachea gave an inflammation response in the lungs.
As a control for the general effect of genetic modification, the footpad challenge experiment was repeated with material from two other GM plants, lupin expressing sunflower seed albumin (SSA) and chickpeas expressing aA1. In contrast to transgenic pea, mice fed transgenic lupin or transgenic chickpea did not give DTH response. This shows that the response to transgenic pea was specific.
The peribronchial lymph nodes of the mice were tested for their response to transgenic aA1. Only the lymph nodes of mice fed transgenic peas responded by producing the inflammation cytokines (cell signalling factors) when challenged with transgenic aA1.
Transgenic protein promotes reactions to other proteins
In order to test if the transgenic protein promotes immune reactions to other proteins in the diet, mice were fed purified transgenic or native aA1, or transgenic aA1 with or without ovalbumin three times a week for 2 weeks. One week following feeding, purified ovalbumin or buffered saline were introduced into the trachea of the mice, and inflammation response in the lungs was assessed as before.
Neither ovalbumin alone, nor ovalbumin in combination with native aA1 caused any inflammation response in the footpad or lungs when the mice were challenged with ovalbumin. However, consumption of transgenic aA1 and ovalbumin together promoted a strong ovalbumin-specific antibody response and predisposed the mice to inflammation when challenged with ovalbumin in both the footpad and the trachea. This suggests that transgenic aA1 did promote reactions to other proteins. In confirmation of that, levels of antigen-specific IgG against other proteins such as pea globulins, lectin, and vicilin-4 were also significantly higher in the serum of mice fed transgenic pea than mice fed non-transgenic pea.
Wider implications on the safety of transgenic proteins that must be addressed
The transgenic pea involved gene transfer between plant species, and is generally thought to be much safer compared with the cross-kingdom gene transfer - bacteria to plant - involved in the GM food crops that now cover tens of millions of hectares worldwide.
A harmless bean protein expressed in transgenic pea caused inflammation in mice, and research showed that the most likely reason is because the protein is processed differently in peas. Such post- translational processing of proteins is well known to be species-specific, and as genetic modification almost invariably involves cross-species transfer of proteins, one must expect transgenic proteins to differ structurally from the native proteins as a matter of course. Are they also likely to provoke immune reactions as a result?
It would not happen in every case, as the researchers have found that neither transgenic lupin sunflower seed albumin, nor transgenic chickpea aA1 gave the same results as transgenic pea aA1. But how frequently could it happen?
“Currently, we do not know the frequency at which alterations in structure and immunogenicity of transgenically expressed proteins occur or whether this is unique to transgenically expressed aA1.” The researchers admitted.
Furthermore, when consumed with other proteins, the transgenic pea protein promoted immunological ‘cross-priming’ against those proteins, so that the mice developed specific immunological reactions to them as well. In other words, the transgenic protein can provoke generalised immune response to multiple proteins in the diet, whether transgenic or not.
The previous instance of a GM project being abandoned was the transfer of a Brazil nut allergen into soya [3], and it involved a known allergen. The present case involves a protein that has all the appearance of being harmless.
As yet, no other GM crop, especially those already out there in the fields and in our food and feed, has been tested in this way. This must now be done. Meanwhile, there must be a ban imposed on all GM food and feed.
References 1 1. “GM crops scrapped as mice made ill”, Selina Mitchell and Leigh Dayton, The Australian, 18 November 2005. http://www.theaustralian. news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,17283002%255E2702,00.ht ml 2 Prescott VE, Campbell PM, Moore A, Mattes J, Rothenberg ME, Foster PS, Higgins TJV and Hogan SP. Transgenic expression of bean a-amylase inhibitor in peas results in altered structure and immunogenicity. J Agricultural and Food Chemistry 2005, 53, 9023-30. 3 Nordlee JA, Taylor SL, Townsend JA, Thomas LA & Bush RK. Identification of a brazil-nut allergen in transgenic soybeans. The New England Journal of Medicine 1996, March14, 688-728.
Sent to:
Mr. Hamdallah Zedan, Executive Secretary, Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity, secretariat@biodiv.org< /A>
Cc: Mr. David Cooper, Senior Programme Officer - Interagency and Program (UK and Northern Ireland), david.cooper@biodiv.or g
Mr. Geoffrey Podger, Executive Director, European Food Safety Authority Geoffrey.podger@ef sa.eu.int
Cc: Mr. Herman.Koeter, Director of Science, European Food Safety Authority, Herman.koeter@efsa.e u.int
Cc:Hon Andrew Mitchell, Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food and Minister of State (Federal Economic Development Initiative for Northern Ontario), Mitchell.A@parl.gc.ca
Mr. Mike Johanns, Secretary of Agriculture, USDA, United States Mike.Johanns@usda.gov
Cc: Dr. Ron DeHaven, Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service Ron.DeHaven@usda.gov< /P>
Joined: 22 Feb 2006 Posts: 8187 Location: Fingerlakes - NY usa
Suppressed report shows cancer link to GM potatoes
Quote:
By Colin Brown, Deputy Political Editor
Published: 17 February 2007
Campaigners against genetically modified crops in Britain last are calling for trials of GM potatoes this spring to be halted after releasing more evidence of links with cancers in laboratory rats.
UK Greenpeace activists said the findings, obtained from Russian trials after an eight-year court battle with the biotech industry, vindicated research by Dr Arpad Pusztai, whose work was criticised by the Royal Society and the Netherlands State Institute for Quality Control.
The disclosure last night of the Russian study on the GM Watch website led to calls for David Miliband, the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, to withdraw permission for new trials on GM potatoes to go ahead at secret sites in the UK this spring. Alan Simpson, a Labour MP and green campaigner, said: "These trials should be stopped. The research backs up the work of Arpad Pusztai and it shows that he was the victim of a smear campaign by the biotech industry. There has been a cover-up over these findings and the Government should not be a party to that."
Mr Simpson said the findings, which showed that lab rats developed tumours, were released by anti-GM campaigners in Wales. Dr Pusztai and a colleague used potatoes that had been genetically modified to produce a protein, lectin. They found cell damage in the rats' stomachs, and in parts of their intestines.
Joined: 22 Feb 2006 Posts: 8187 Location: Fingerlakes - NY usa
GM mosquito bred to destroy malaria
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The fight against malaria could eventually be transformed by releasing into disease-ridden areas genetically modified mosquitoes that cannot transmit the infection.
Scientists in America have engineered a species of mosquito which is resistant to the malaria infection. Its ability to block the infection suggests that it could come to dominate mosquito populations if released into the wild.
The findings offer the strongest suggestion yet that engineering mosquitoes to resist the parasite could help to control a disease that takes up to 2.7 million lives each year, chiefly in Africa. Malaria infects between 300 million and 500 million people each year. Only HIV/ Aids causes more deaths from infectious disease.
Large numbers of GM mosquitoes would be released in areas where malaria is common, where they would interbreed with wild ones. Over several generations, resistance should spread through the mosquito population, so that fewer insects carry malaria. However, this approach would prove controversial with environmental groups, as it would involve supplanting a naturally occurring species with a genetically engineered variant.
Critics have argued that it is difficult to be certain of the effects of introducing new genes. Even the scientists involved accept that further research is needed before any GM insects could be introduced into the wild.
Though the first GM mosquitoes were created seven years ago, they proved to be less fit than their wild counterparts. This would mean that they would quickly die out, and have no effect on malaria transmission.
But a new study, led by Mauro Marrelli, of Johns Hopkins University in Maryland, reversed this position. The GM mosquitoes express a protein called SM1 that blocks malaria infection, and a gene that makes their eyes glow red or green, allowing them to be easily distinguished from wild insects.
The scientists found that while these modified mosquitoes have no advantage when feeding on uninfected blood, they are much better adapted when blood carries the malaria parasite. Infection with the Plasmodium organism does not kill normal mosquitoes, but it does reduce breeding efficiency.
The GM mosquitoes did not suffer from this and over nine generations (several months) they grew in number to make up 70 per cent of a laboratory population, compared with 50 per cent at the outset.
“When fed on Plasmodium-infected blood, the transgenic malaria-resistant mosquitoes had a significant fitness advantage over wild-type,” the scientists wrote in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
However, the species of both mosquito and malaria parasite used in the experiment are not those that are most harmful to humans. The mosquito was the Anopheles stephensi species, the main Asian vector, but the Anopheles gambiae species is more likely to infect humans, particularly in Africa where the malaria burden is worst.
The experimental parasite was Plasmodium berghei, which does not infect humans but is considered a very good laboratory model for Plasmodium falciparum, the most dangerous of the four strains that do.
A further problem is that only a very small proportion of wild mosquitoes are exposed to malaria, and the transgenic insects did not have a competitive advantage when the parasite was not present. This would slow the rate at which they might have an impact on malaria transmission.
A different approach has been adopted by a British team, led by Andrea Cristiani, of Imperial College, London. His team has developed a GM mosquito in which the males have fluorescent testicles, allowing them to be easily identified and sterilised. The goal is to introduce large numbers of sterile males, which would mate with normal females, reducing the number of eggs laid, and thus of malaria mosquitoes. As the mosquitoes are sterile, they would not transmit transferred genes into wild populations.
The deadly bite
— The most severe form of malaria is caused by the Plasmodium falciparum parasite, transmitted by the bite of the Anopheles genus, particularly Anopheles gambiae. It is spread by pregnant females
— Malaria killed people in the Fens until the 19th century
— It has been predicted that global warming may result in malaria returning to Britain
— Malaria infects between 300 million and 500 million people a year, mainly in Africa
— In sub-Saharan Africa, malaria affects mostly young children, with almost 3,000 dying every day
— Symptoms include neck stiffness, convulsions, abnormal breathing and fever of up to 40C (104F)
— Distribution of the tropical disease mainly affects developing countries. About 90 per cent of cases are in Africa
— It costs £6.8 billion a year in Africa in lost GDP. Death and disability lead to the loss of 45 million years of productive life each year
— Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan, Oliver Cromwell, Caravaggio and David Livingstone are thought to have died of it
---Those who had it but recovered include Lord Nelson, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Gandhi and Hemingway
-Save them from Malaria to kill them with poison, bombs, DU, etc. We interfere with nature to save lives, and interfere again in the name of secretive population control.
Wed Mar 21, 2007 10:11 am
imamonstertruck VIP
Joined: 26 Feb 2007 Posts: 519 Location: Louisville KY
Monsanto's GM corn MON863 shows kidney, liver toxicity in animal studies
by David Gutierrez
Originally published April 10 2007
A variety of genetically modified corn that was approved for human consumption in 2006 caused signs of liver and kidney toxicity as well as hormonal changes in rats in a study performed by researchers from the independent Committee for Independent Research and Genetic Engineering at the University of Caen in France.
What you need to know - Conventional View
• The corn in question, MON863, is made by the Monsanto Company and approved for use in Australia, Canada, China, the European Union, Japan, Mexico, the Philippines, and the United States. It has had a gene inserted from the bacteria Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt), which causes the plant's cells to produce a pesticide.
• Researchers fed rats either unmodified corn or diets containing 11 or 30 percent MON863 for 90 days. The rats who ate modified corn were found to exhibit signs of liver and kidney toxicity, as well as signs of hormonal changes.
• Male rats lost an average of 3.3 percent of their body weight, and their excretion of phosphorus and sodium decreased. Female rats gained an average of 3.7 percent of their body weight, while their triglyceride levels increased by 24 to 40 percent.
• The mechanism that causes the toxicity is not yet known, but the researchers say there is evidence that the Bt toxin may cause the perforation of blood cells. They expressed concern that the methods used by Monsanto in initial tests of the corn were statistically flawed and called their own tests "the best mammalian toxicity tests available."
• Greenpeace responded to the study by calling for an immediate recall of all MON863 corn and the reassessment of all genetically modified foods currently approved for the market.
• Quote: "Our counter-evaluation shows that there are signs of toxicity, and nobody can say scientifically and seriously the consumption of the transgenic maize MON863 is safe and good for health." - Lead Author Gilles Eric Seralini
What you need to know - Alternative View
Statements and opinions by Mike Adams, author of Grocery Warning: How to identify and avoid dangerous food ingredients
• It seems that the more these GM foods are tested, the more frightening the implications seem to be for human health. When companies like Monsanto do their own in-house testing, results are mysteriously favorable in nearly all cases, but when independent labs run their own tests, the results are downright shocking.
• I find it interesting that the FDA believes U.S. consumers should not be allowed to know which foods are genetically modified and which aren't. The push for honest labeling of GM foods has been blockaded by corporate interests and corrupt federal regulators.
Thursday January 17, 10:10 am ET
By Christopher Leonard, AP Business Writer
Monsanto Says Biotech Use Is Still in Early Stages
CREVE COEUR, Mo. (AP) -- Monsanto Co. executives told shareholders Wednesday that record profits in 2007 are just the beginning, with growing acceptance of genetically engineered crops expected to deliver new business opportunities in coming decades.
"It's still like being back in the '60s with computers," Chief Technology Officer Robb Fraley said. "This is an industry that is very much in the beginning of its cycle."
Such predictions might have seemed far-fetched just five years ago, when Monsanto faced tough global resistance to its engineered crops -- derisively called "Frankenfood" by critics. Trade barriers kept the seeds out of many European countries and important foreign markets.
But in a sign of the times, the world's largest seed company is developing its first strain of biotech crops for a foreign country, with pest-resistant soybeans for the Brazilian market. Robust sales in the U.S., where a majority of corn and soybean crops are genetically engineered, pushed Monsanto to upgrade its 2008 outlook and predict that annual gross profit will rise from $4.29 billion in 2007 to more than $8 billion in 2012.
Chairman and Chief Executive Hugh Grant told investors at the company's annual shareholder meeting here that growing demand for food and crop-based fuels will put ever-greater challenges on farmers to grow more crops per acre -- and present Monsanto with more chances to sell its patented seeds that ward off pests and resist herbicides.
"It's going to be a really different place for our children and grandchildren by the year 2030," Grant said, noting that demand for energy is expected to double while the world population is expected to grow 33 percent by then.
He said Monsanto's pipeline of new products is geared to help farmers grow this feed and fuel by boosting the amount of crops they can produce on a per-acre basis.
While drought-tolerant corn and pest-resistant soybeans might not be the kinds of products that consumers can directly appreciate, Monsanto is betting such crops will be in high demand from farmers around the world. Fraley said Monsanto's research and development pipeline could generate new products that increase sales by $5 billion a year by 2020.
Fraley said Monsanto and other companies are just beginning to unlock the power of genetically engineering plants. In the mid-1990s, the company's blockbuster products were Roundup Ready crops, which contained a gene that made them resistant to Monsanto's popular herbicide. The trait made it easier, and cheaper, for farmers to control weeds.
But the days of a single-gene product seem over. By 2010, Monsanto plans to release a strain of corn with eight engineered traits, Grant said.
At the shareholder meeting Wednesday, Monsanto elected three directors to its board, rehired its accounting company and struck down two provisions that would have stripped legal protection from board members and forced Grant to give up his role as chairman of the board.
As the crowd filed out of Monsanto's auditorium, shareholder Carlos Berger said he couldn't be happier with the company's stock. A resident of nearby Olivette, Berger said he's owned the stock for years. Back in 2002, the stock was trading around $5 a share. This year it has traded around an all-time high of $129.28 per share. The stock fell $10.64 Wednesday to close at $112.70.
