GM: What they said would happen, but hasn't,
and what couldn't happen, but has

Government officials and Chief Scientists keep hailing GM as the technology of the future - the UK's Chief Scientist Sir John Beddington was at it again recently - but the industry regularly lets them down by not delivering on its claims and promises. Why don't they get embarrassed? Bruce Pearce and Lawrence Woodward suggest a few reasons why they should.

 The whole world is growing GM?

The promoters of GM crops claim that the whole world (bar the EU) is growing GM crops and that UK and most of the EU is missing out on a market opportunity.  However, even a cursory look at the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications (ISAAA, 2011) figures does not show this to be the case.  The area of land cultivated with GM crops does continue to increase, with a 10% increase in plantings between 2009 and 2010, to a total of 148 million hectares worldwide.  However, nearly 80% of these plantings are in 3 countries (US, Brazil and Argentina) with the US alone accounting for 45% of worldwide plantings.  The ISAAA talks about 17 "mega-countries" growing over 50,000 ha GM crops.  In reality 50,000 ha is a tiny amount of most countries' agricultural area - to put it in context, London is about 160,000 ha and the UK organic land area in 2010 was 718,000 ha (Defra, 2011) - ie over 14 times the area of a GM mega-country and even wearing a whole rose bush of spectacles we wouldn't call the UK an organic mega-country.

Feeding the world - with what?

Only four crops make up virtually all of the GM crops grown across the world.  These are soya (50%), maize (31%), cotton (14%) and canola (5%).  No new crop has even made it into significant enough levels to appear on this list.  The three "food" crops that appear in three of the top four places are not for human consumption but are used to produce animal feed.  Yes, animals eventually feed humans, but this GM supply chain is innately attached to intensive and unsustainable food production; probably better described as "feed" rather than "food" as it is focussed more on nourishing corporate than human bodies.

To spray and spray again

The GM industry, scientists and regrettably government advisors have made heroic - or more accurately, unsupportable - claims about what GM can deliver. They have promised nitrogen fixing wheat, salt and drought tolerance, enhanced nutritional values and increased yield.  What has been delivered is increased herbicide use.

Herbicide tolerance is the dominant trait in commercialised GM crops.  Crops engineered for herbicide tolerance accounted for 61% of GM crops grown in 2010; and those developed for insect resistance 17%.  Crops that have more than one engineered trait (known as stacking - usually two but sometimes three traits, e.g. herbicide tolerance and insect resistance) have become more popular and accounted for 22% of land area in 2010. Therefore on a global level these two traits make the overwhelming proportion of those used in GM crops.

Of course herbicide tolerance traits lead to more herbicide use - that is why they were developed - but the dramatic increases that have occurred have been a nasty surprise to many GM farmers because they have been forced onto an ever faster moving treadmill to cope with the build up of herbicide resistant weeds. Glyphosate resistance has been confirmed in over 20 species and over 100 resistant strains have been identified (GM Freeze, 2011).

It gets worse ...

New research from Canada has found a Bt toxin, produced by GM insect-resistant crops, in the blood of women and clear evidence that it was passed to foetuses (Aziz and Leblanc, 2011). Pesticides used on GM herbicide tolerant (HT) crops were also detected. The study by a team at Sherbrooke University Hospital in Quebec has been published in the peer reviewed journal Reproductive Toxicology. None of the women studied worked with pesticides or lived with anyone who did. The results show that the toxic Bt protein Cry1Ab was present in blood serum from all sample groups (93% of pregnant women, 80% in umbilical blood and 67% of non-pregnant women). The researchers suggest that the most probable source of the toxin is GM food.

According to GM Freeze, the detection of the Bt toxin Cry1Ab is very significant. Previous studies and advice from food safety agencies (like the European Food Safety Authority and UK Food Standards Agency) have always maintained that this toxic protein is broken down during digestion of GM food, and only GM DNA has previously been found in the blood/tissues of farm animals. This study suggests that the whole protein, not just pieces of DNA, has survived in the human gastric tract and passed into human blood, a complete contradiction of current safety advice on GM foods. Concerns have been expressed about the potential allergenicity of Bt proteins, as well as other potential toxic effects on internal organs.

... and worse

Gilles-Eric Séralini and colleagues reviewed 19 studies of mammals fed with commercialised genetically modified soybeans and maize and modified to tolerate or produce a pesticide (Séralini  et al., 2011). They obtained, reviewed and reworked the raw data of 90-day-long rat tests, having to take legal action to get access in some cases and numerous official requests to regulatory agencies in others.

Their findings are disturbing, indicating liver and kidney problems as endpoints of GMO diet effects.  In their opinion 90-day-long tests are insufficient to evaluate chronic toxicity, but even these are not obligatory. It is hard to disagree with their view that the regulatory testing of GMOs is unacceptable in terms of consumer health protection. In fact, the public inaccessibility of information is a scandal.

However, some regulatory authorities can sometimes rise to the challenge.  Back in February 2010 the Indian Government placed a moratorium on the growing of GM Brinjal (aubergine). This precaution was well-founded as a subsequent review (Gallagher, 2010) of the toxicity data submitted by Monsanto's Indian subsidiary Maharashtra Seed Company found that "The current food safety studies for Bt Brinjal were not conducted in accordance with published standards, did not accurately summarize results, and ignored toxic endpoints for rats fed Bt Brinjal."

Several indicators of toxic reactions to the GM Brinjal with potential to cause adverse effects were reported:

·       elevated white blood cell counts from chronic exposure, indicating possible inflammation allergy or tissue damage;

·       higher aspartate aminotransferase in blood from acute exposure, indicating possible liver damage;

·       elevated bilirubin in blood, indicating possible liver damage;

·       altered plasma acetylcholinesterase, indicating possible liver damage;

·       smaller ovaries, indicating possible reproductive toxicity;

·       enlarged spleens, indicating possible chronic infections or blood cancer.

In September the European Union Court of Justice ruled that honey contaminated with GM pollen must go through full GM food authorisation before it can be marketed in the EU (Court of Justice, 2011). A Bavarian beekeeper brought the case after his honey was contaminated by an open-air field trial of GM Mon810 maize. The judgement overturns the European Commission's position that honey contaminated with GM pollen should not carry GM labels because pollen was unintentionally present. The over-turning of this position means that co-existence rules will have to be much tighter than the EC wanted.

In March a US jury awarded the US company Riceland Foods Inc. US$136.8 million after court action over the 2006 contamination of US long grain rice stocks with Bayer's unapproved experimental GM rice LL601. This GM rice had only been grown on experimental plots in the USA between 1998 and 2001, yet its presence was detected in imported rice in at least 24 countries showing just how invidious and pernicious this technology is.  This award follows several others in US courts where the German-based company has repeatedly been found negligent for allowing a GM long grain rice strain, which had not received any safety approvals anywhere, to contaminate US supplies, yet no legal action was taken against Bayer by US regulators.

So what next?

The evidence is growing that GM is delivering less than promised and more than we bargained for. Regulators, scientists and policy-makers need to take these alarm bells seriously and act now to ensure we are protected. Turning a blind eye is not an option, whether from an institutional or individual perspective. Let it not be said that vested interests conspired to prevent action, when action is surely what is needed.

References

Aziz, A. and Leblanc, S. (2011) Maternal and fetal exposure to pesticides associated to genetically modified foods in Eastern Townships of Quebec, Canada. Reproductive Toxicology, Volume 31, Issue 4, May 2011, Pages 528-533. http://www.sciencedirect.com/ science/article/pii/S0890623811000566 (accessed 03/10/11)

Benbrook, C. (2009) Impacts of Genetically Engineered Crops on Pesticide Use: The First Thirteen Years.  http://www.organic-center.org/reportfiles/13Years20091126_FullReport.pdf
(accessed 03/10/11)

Court of Justice (2011) Judgment in Case C-442/09 Karl Heinz Bablok and Others v Freistaat Bayern: Honey and food supplements containing pollen derived from a GMO are foodstuffs produced from GMOs which cannot be marketed without prior authorization. Court of Justice of the European Union, Press Release 79/11, 6 September 2011.

Defra (2011) Organic Statistics 2010. United Kingdom. http://www.defra.gov.uk/statistics/files/defra-stats-foodfarm-environ-organics-statsnotice-110811.pdf (accessed 23/09/11)

Gallagher, L M. (2010) BT Brinjal Event EE1. The Scope and Adequacy of the GEAC Toxicological Risk Assessment.  Review of Oral Toxicity Studies in Rats. Wellington, New Zealand. www.testbiotech.de/ sites/default/files/Report%20Gallagher_2011.pdf (accessed 03/10/11)

GM Freeze (2011) Herbicide Tolerance and GM Crops - Why the world should be ready to Round Up glyphosate. http://www.gmfreeze.org/ publications/briefings/114/ (accessed 03/10/11)

ISAAA (2011) ISAAA Brief 42-2010: Executive Summary.  Global Status of Commercialized Biotech/GM Crops: 2010). www.isaaa.org/ resources/publications/briefs/42/executivesummary/default.asp
(accessed 25/09/11)

Séralini, G., Mesnage, R., Clair, E., Gress, S., de Vendômois, J S., and Cellier, D.  (2011). Genetically modified crops safety assessments: present limits and possible improvements. Environmental Sciences Europe 2011, 23:10. http://www.enveurope.com/content/23/1/10 (accessed 03/10/11)

With thanks to GM Freeze and see http://www.gmfreeze.org/ for further information.