Archive for the ‘News’ Category
Millions of People Working on the Behalf of Strangers…
May 29th, 2009
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Author: 
Paul Hawken’s Commencement Address to the Class of 2009 University of Portland, May 3rd, 2009
When I was invited to give this speech, I was asked if I could give a simple short talk that was “direct, naked, taut, honest, passionate, lean, shivering, startling, and graceful.” Boy, no pressure there.
But let’s begin with the startling part. Hey, Class of 2009: you are going to have to figure out what it means to be a human being on earth at a time when every living system is declining, and the rate of decline is accelerating. Kind of a mind-boggling situation – but not one peer-reviewed paper published in the last thirty years can refute that statement.
Basically, the earth needs a new operating system, you are the programmers, and we need it within a few decades.
This planet came with a set of operating instructions, but we seem to have misplaced them. Important rules like don’t poison the water, soil, or air, and don’t let the earth get overcrowded, and don’t touch the thermostat have been broken. Buckminster Fuller said that spaceship earth was so ingeniously designed that no one has a clue that we are on one, flying through the universe at a million miles per hour, with no need for seatbelts, lots of room in coach, and really good food – but all that is changing.
There is invisible writing on the back of the diploma you will receive, and in case you didn’t bring lemon juice to decode it, I can tell you what it says: YOU ARE BRILLIANT, AND THE EARTH IS HIRING. The earth couldn’t afford to send any recruiters or limos to your school. It sent you rain, sunsets, ripe cherries, night blooming jasmine, and that unbelievably cute person you are dating. Take the hint. And here’s the deal: Forget that this task of planet-saving is not possible in the time required. Don’t be put off by people who know what is not possible. Do what needs to be done, and check to see if it was impossible only after you are done.
When asked if I am pessimistic or optimistic about the future, my answer is always the same: If you look at the science about what is happening on earth and aren’t pessimistic, you don’t understand data.
But if you meet the people who are working to restore this earth and the lives of the poor, and you aren’t optimistic, you haven’t got a pulse. What I see everywhere in the world are ordinary people willing to confront despair, power, and incalculable odds in order to restore some semblance of grace, justice, and beauty to this world. The poet Adrienne Rich wrote, “So much has been destroyed I have cast my lot with those who, age after age, perversely, with no extraordinary power, reconstitute the world.” There could be no better description.
Humanity is coalescing. It is reconstituting the world, and the action is taking place in schoolrooms, farms, jungles, villages, campuses, companies, refugee camps, deserts, fisheries, and slums.
You join a multitude of caring people. No one knows how many groups and organizations are working on the most salient issues of our day: climate change, poverty, deforestation, peace, water, hunger, conservation, human rights, and more. This is the largest movement the world has ever seen.
Rather than control, it seeks connection. Rather than dominance, it strives to disperse concentrations of power. Like Mercy Corps, it works behind the scenes and gets the job done. Large as it is, no one knows the true size of this movement. It provides hope, support, and meaning to billions of people in the world. Its clout resides in idea, not in force. It is made up of teachers, children, peasants, businesspeople, rappers, organic farmers, nuns, artists, government workers, fisherfolk, engineers, students, incorrigible writers, weeping Muslims, concerned mothers, poets, doctors without borders, grieving Christians, street musicians, the President of the United States of America, and as the writer David James Duncan would say, the Creator, the One who loves us all in such a huge way.
There is a rabbinical teaching that says if the world is ending and the Messiah arrives, first plant a tree, and then see if the story is true. Inspiration is not garnered from the litanies of what may befall us; it resides in humanity’s willingness to restore, redress, reform, rebuild, recover, re-imagine, and reconsider. “One day you finally knew what you had to do, and began, though the voices around you kept shouting their bad advice,” is Mary Oliver’s description of moving away from the profane toward a deep sense of connectedness to the living world.
Millions of people are working on behalf of strangers, even if the evening news is usually about the death of strangers. This kindness of strangers has religious, even mythic origins, and very specific eighteenth-century roots. Abolitionists were the first people to create a national and global movement to defend the rights of those they did not know. Until that time, no group had filed a grievance except on behalf of itself. The founders of this movement were largely unknown – Granville Clark, Thomas Clarkson, Josiah Wedgwood – and their goal was ridiculous on the face of it: at that time three out of four people in the world were enslaved. Enslaving each other was what human beings had done for ages. And the abolitionist movement was greeted with incredulity. Conservative spokesmen ridiculed the abolitionists as liberals, progressives, do-gooders, meddlers, and activists. They were told they would ruin the economy and drive England into poverty. But for the first time in history a group of people organized themselves to help people they would never know, from whom they would never receive direct or indirect benefit.
And today tens of millions of people do this every day. It is called the world of non-profits, civil society, schools, social entrepreneurship, and non-governmental organizations, of companies who place social and environmental justice at the top of their strategic goals. The scope and scale of this effort is unparalleled in history.
The living world is not “out there” somewhere, but in your heart. What do we know about life? In the words of biologist Janine Benyus, life creates the conditions that are conducive to life. I can think of no better motto for a future economy. We have tens of thousands of abandoned homes without people and tens of thousands of abandoned people without homes. We have failed bankers advising failed regulators on how to save failed assets. Think about this: we are the only species on this planet without full employment. Brilliant. We have an economy that tells us that it is cheaper to destroy earth in real time than to renew, restore, and sustain it. You can print money to bail out a bank but you can’t print life to bail out a planet. At present we are stealing the future, selling it in the present, and calling it gross domestic product. We can just as easily have an economy that is based on healing the future instead of stealing it. We can either create assets for the future or take the assets of the future. One is called restoration and the other exploitation. And whenever we exploit the earth we exploit people and cause untold suffering. Working for the earth is not a way to get rich, it is a way to be rich.
The first living cell came into being nearly 40 million centuries ago, and its direct descendants are in all of our bloodstreams. Literally you are breathing molecules this very second that were inhaled by Moses, Mother Teresa, and Bono. We are vastly interconnected. Our fates are inseparable. We are here because the dream of every cell is to become two cells. In each of you are one quadrillion cells, 90 percent of which are not human cells. Your body is a community, and without those other microorganisms you would perish in hours. Each human cell has 400 billion molecules conducting millions of processes between trillions of atoms. The total cellular activity in one human body is staggering: one septillion actions at any one moment, a one with twenty-four zeros after it. In a millisecond, our body has undergone ten times more processes than there are stars in the universe – exactly what Charles Darwin foretold when he said science would discover that each living creature was a “little universe, formed of a host of self-propagating organisms, inconceivably minute and as numerous as the stars of heaven.”
So I have two questions for you all: First, can you feel your body? Stop for a moment. Feel your body. One septillion activities going on simultaneously, and your body does this so well you are free to ignore it, and wonder instead when this speech will end. Second question: who is in charge of your body? Who is managing those molecules? Hopefully not a political party. Life is creating the conditions that are conducive to life inside you, just as in all of nature. What I want you to imagine is that collectively humanity is evincing a deep innate wisdom in coming together to heal the wounds and insults of the past.
Ralph Waldo Emerson once asked what we would do if the stars only came out once every thousand years. No one would sleep that night, of course. The world would become religious overnight. We would be ecstatic, delirious, made rapturous by the glory of God. Instead the stars come out every night, and we watch television.
This extraordinary time when we are globally aware of each other and the multiple dangers that threaten civilization has never happened, not in a thousand years, not in ten thousand years. Each of us is as complex and beautiful as all the stars in the universe. We have done great things and we have gone way off course in terms of honoring creation. You are graduating to the most amazing, challenging, stupefying challenge ever bequested to any generation. The generations before you failed. They didn’t stay up all night. They got distracted and lost sight of the fact that life is a miracle every moment of your existence. Nature beckons you to be on her side.You couldn’t ask for a better boss. The most unrealistic person in the world is the cynic, not the dreamer. Hopefulness only makes sense when it doesn’t make sense to be hopeful. This is your century. Take it and run as if your life depends on it.
Paul Hawken is a renowned entrepreneur, visionary environmental activist, and author of many books, most recently Blessed Unrest: How the Largest Movement in the World Came into Being and Why No One Saw It Coming. He was presented with an honorary doctorate of humane letters by University president Father Bill Beauchamp, C.S.C., when he delivered this speech.
Read more great, Fight Back Friday posts here, http://www.foodrenegade.com/fight-back-fridays-may-29th
Posted in 
Failure to Yield
Evaluating the Performance of Genetically Engineered Crops
We already know that GMO’s are bad for the environment and not adequately tested as safe for us to eat, now a report by the Union of Concerned Scientist that show that GE crops do not produce more then regular or organic crops. “If we are going to make headway in combating hunger due to overpopulation and climate change, we will need to increase crop yields,” Gurian-Sherman says. “Traditional breeding outperforms genetic engineering hands down.”
Here’s the summary and the link to the complete study:
Doug Gurian-Sherman
Union of Concerned Scientists
April 2009
The Union of Concerned Scientists is the leading science-based nonprofit organization working for a healthy environment and a safer world.
Founded in 1969, UCS is headquartered in Cambridge, Mass., and has offices in Berkeley, Calif., Chicago and Washington, D.C.
Driven by economic and political forces, food prices soared to record highs in 2007 and 2008, causing hardships around the world. Although a global food shortage was not a factor then or now—worldwide food production continues to exceed demand—those recent price spikes and localized scarcity, together with rising populations in many countries and individuals’ rising aspirations, have brought renewed attention to the need to increase food production in the coming decades. Many commentators and stakeholders have pointed to the alleged promise of genetic engineering (GE)—in which the crop DNA is changed using the gene-insertion techniques of molecular biology—for dramatically improving the yields of staple food crops. But a hard-nosed assessment of this expensive technology’s achievements to date gives little confidence that it will play a major role in helping the world feed itself in the foreseeable future.
This report is the first to evaluate in detail the overall, or aggregate, yield effect of GE after more than 20 years of research and 13 years of commercialization in the United States. Based on that record, we conclude that GE has done little to increase overall crop yields.
How Else Can Farmers Increase Production?
Among the many current approaches are crop breeding; chemical fertilizers, herbicides, and pesticides; crop rotation; and organic methods, which ensure the health of the soil. Nevertheless, GE crops have received by far the most attention since they were commercially introduced in the mid-1990s. Ever since, the biotech industry and others have trumpeted them as key to feeding the world’s future population.
Executive Summary
The two primary GE food and feed crops are corn and soybeans. GE soybeans are now grown on over 90 percent of soybean acres, and GE corn makes up about 63 percent of the U.S. corn crop. Within these categories, the three most common GE crops are: (1) corn containing transgenes (genes transferred from another organism using genetic engineering) from Bt (Bacillus thuringiensis) bacteria that confer resistance to several kinds of insects; (2) corn containing transgenes for herbicide tolerance; and (3) soybeans that contain a transgene for herbicide tolerance. Now that these transgenic crops have been grown in the United States for more than a decade, there is a wealth of data on yield under real-world conditions. Thus a close examination of numerous studies of corn and soybean crop yields since the early 1990s gives us a good gauge of how well GE crops are living up to their promise for increasing those yields.
Bottom line: They are largely failing to do so. GE soybeans have not increased yields, and GE corn has increased yield only marginally on a crop-wide basis. Overall, corn and soybean yields have risen substantially over the last 15 years, but largely not as result of the GE traits. Most of the gains are due to traditional breeding or improvement of other agricultural practices.
While the need to increase food production is expected to become more urgent, awareness of the complex interactions between agriculture and the environment is also on the rise. Many of the predicted negative effects of global warming—including greater incidence and severity of drought, flooding, and sea-level rise (which may swamp coastal farmland)—are likely to make food production more challenging. At the same time, it is becoming clear that the twentieth century’s industrial methods of agriculture have imposed tremendous costs on our environment. Agriculture contributes more heat-trapping gases than does transportation, and it is a major source of pollution that has led to large and spreading “dead zones” devoid of fish and shellfish (themselves important food sources) in the Gulf of Mexico and other waterways. As we strive to produce more food, we must seek to do it in an efficient and sustainable manner—that is, in ways that do not undermine the foundation of natural resources on which future generations will depend.
Defining Yield(s)
It is crucial to distinguish between two kinds of yield—intrinsic yield and operational yield—when evaluating transgenic crops. Intrinsic yield, the highest that can be achieved, is obtained when crops are grown under ideal conditions; it may also be thought of as potential yield. By contrast, operational yield is obtained under field conditions, when environmental factors such as pests and stress result in yields that are considerably less than ideal. Genes that improve operational yield reduce losses from such factors.
But while operational yield is important, better protecting crops from pests and stress without increasing potential yield will not do enough to meet the future food needs of an expanded population. Food-crop breeders must deliver improvements both in intrinsic yield and operational yield to keep up with growing demand.
In this report, the record of commercialized GE crops in producing increases both in intrinsic and operational yield is assessed. We rely heavily on experiments conducted by academic scientists, using adequate experimental controls, and published in peer-reviewed journals. These studies, many of them recent, evaluate GE traits against other conventional farming practices. In some cases, the results of earlier widely cited reports are superseded by these more recent data.
The success of GE technology in producing new yield traits is also evaluated by examining specific transgenes associated with yield that have been tested in experimental field trials over the past two decades. This focus also provides a measure of the effort by the biotechnology industry and others to increase crop yield through GE means.
The Findings
1. Genetic engineering has not increased intrinsic yield.
No currently available transgenic varieties enhance the intrinsic yield of any crops. The intrinsic yields of corn and soybeans did rise during the twentieth century, but not as a result of GE traits. Rather, they were due to successes in traditional breeding.
2. Genetic engineering has delivered only minimal gains in operational yield.
Herbicide-Tolerant Soybeans and Corn. Although not extensive enough to develop precise yield estimates, the best data (which were not included in previous widely cited reviews on yield) show that transgenic herbicide-tolerant soybeans and corn have not increased operational yields, whether on a per-acre or national basis, compared to conventional methods that rely on other available herbicides. The fact that the herbicide-tolerant soybeans have been so widely adopted suggests that factors such as lower energy costs and convenience of GE soybeans also influence farmer choices.
Bt Corn to Control Insect Pests. Bt corn contains one or more transgenes primarily intended to control either the European corn borer (this corn was first commercialized in 1996) or corn rootworm species (commercialized in 2004). Based on available data, it is likely that Bt corn provides an operational yield advantage of 7–12 percent compared to typical conventional practices, including insecticide use, when European corn borer infestations are high. Bt corn offers little or no advantage when infestations of European corn borer are low to moderate, even when compared to conventional corn not treated with insecticides.
Evaluating operational yield on a crop-wide basis, at either a national or global scale, is needed to determine overall food availability. Given that about a third of the corn crop in the United States is devoted to European corn borer Bt varieties, using the yield data summarized above we estimate that the range of yield gain averaged across the entire corn crop is about 0.8–4.0 percent, with a 2.3 percent gain as a reasonable intermediate value.
Similar calculations can be made for Bt rootworm corn. One of the few estimates from the literature suggests that Bt rootworm corn provides about a 1.5–4.5 percent increase in operational yield compared to conventional corn treated with insecticides. Extensive field experiments in Iowa, mostly with heavy rootworm infestations, show a range of values not inconsistent with these estimates. Given that Bt rootworm corn is probably planted on up to a third of corn acres, the aggregate operational yield advantage for these varieties averaged over all corn acres is roughly 0.5–1.5 percent.
Combining the values for Bt European corn borer corn and Bt rootworm corn gives an estimated operational yield increase from the Bt traits of 1.3–5.5 percent. An increase of about 3.3 percent, or a range of 3–4 percent, is a reasonable intermediate. Averaged over the 13 years since Bt corn was first commercialized in 1996, this equates roughly to a 0.2–0.3 percent yield increase per year.
3. Most yield gains are attributable to non-genetic engineering approaches.
In the past several decades, overall corn yields in the United States have increased an average of about 1 percent per year, or considerably more in total than the amount of yield increase provided by Bt corn varieties. More specifically, U.S. Department of Agriculture data indicate that the average corn production per acre nationwide over the past five years (2004–2008) was about 28 percent higher than for the five-year period 1991–1995, an interval that preceded the introduction of Bt varieties.1 But our analysis of specific yield studies concludes that only 3–4 percent of that increase is attributable to Bt, meaning an increase of about 24–25 percent must be due to other factors such as conventional breeding.
Yields have also continued to increase in other major crops, including soybeans (which have not experienced increases in either intrinsic or operational yield from GE) and wheat (for which there are no commercial transgenic varieties). Comparing yield in the latter period with that of the former, the increases were about 16 percent for soybeans and 13 percent for wheat. Overall, as shown above, GE crops have contributed modestly, at best, to yield increases in U.S. agriculture.
Organic and low-external-input methods (which use reduced amounts of fertilizer and pesticides compared to typical industrial crop production) generally produce yields comparable to those of conventional methods for growing corn or soybeans. For example, non-transgenic soybeans in recent low-external-input experiments produced yields 13 percent higher than for GE soybeans, although other low-external-input research and methods have produced lower yield.
Meanwhile, conventional breeding methods, especially those using modern genomic approaches (often called marker-assisted selection and distinct from GE), have the potential to increase both intrinsic and operational yield. Also, more extensive crop rotations, using a larger number of crops and longer rotations than current ecologically unsound corn-soybean rotations, can reduce losses from insects and other pests.
4. Experimental high-yield genetically engineered crops have not succeeded.
Several thousand experimental GE-crop field trials have been conducted since 1987. Although it is not possible to determine the precise number of genes for yield enhancement in these trials, given the confidential-business-information concerns among commercial developers, it is clear that many transgenes for yield have been tested over the years.
Among these field trials, at least 3,022 applications were approved for traits such as disease resistance or tolerance to abiotic stress (e.g., drought, frost, floods, saline soils). These traits are often associated with yield.2 At least 652 of the trials named yield as the particular target trait. Only the Bt and herbicide-tolerance transgenes and five transgenes for pathogen resistance have been commercialized, however, and only Bt has had an appreciable impact on aggregate yields.3
Some of these transgenes may simply not be ready for prime time. It typically takes several years of field trials and safety testing before a transgenic crop is approved and ready to be grown by farmers. However, 1,108 of these field trials were approved prior to 2000, not including those for insect resistance or herbicide tolerance. Most of these earlier transgenic crops should have been ready for commercialization by the time of this report.
To summarize, the only transgenic food/feed crops that have been showing significantly improved yield are varieties of Bt corn, and they have contributed gains in operational yield that were considerably less over their 13 years than other means of increasing yield. In other words, of several thousand field trials, many of which have been intended to raise operational and intrinsic yield, only Bt has succeeded. This modest record of success should suggest caution concerning the prospects for future yield increases from GE.
What Are Genetic Engineering’s Prospects for Increasing Yield?
Genetic engineers are continuing to identify new genes that might raise intrinsic and operational yields. How likely is it that these genes will in fact produce commercially viable new crop varieties?
Research on theoretical limitations of plant physiology and morphology (form)—regarding the conversion of sunlight, nutrients, carbon dioxide, and water into food or feed—indicates how much intrinsic yield may be increased. While opinions differ about the possibility of achieving dramatically increased yields through improvements in plant form and the processes listed above, optimistic estimates suggest that yield gains of up to about 50 percent over the next several decades may be achievable and that GE technology may play a prominent role.
These dramatic projections do not consider a fundamental reason why they may not be easy to achieve, especially regarding GE. Most of the transgenes being considered for the future, unlike the ones in currently commercialized transgenic crops, influence many other genes, thereby resulting in more complex genetic effects. Such genes typically have multiple effects on a crop, and early research is confirming that some of these effects can be detrimental, maybe even preventing the crops’ commercialization altogether. Because such effects will not always be identified by testing under current regulations, improved regulations will be needed to ensure that harmful side effects are discovered and prevented.
In other words, even where these genes work as expected, they may still cause significant environmental or human health impacts, or have reduced agricultural value in some environments. And many of these genes will not address the negative impact of current industrial agriculture, and may even exacerbate these harmful effects if higher yield requires more fertilizer or pesticide use.
Given the variety of transgenes tested and the large amounts of research funding devoted to them, it would not be unexpected that some of them may eventually be successful in increasing yield. But in light of the complexity of their biochemical and physiological interactions, and their unpredictable side effects, it is questionable how many will become commercially viable.
Summary and Recommendations
The burgeoning human population challenges agriculture to come up with new tools to increase crop productivity. At the same time, we must not simply produce more food at the expense of clean air, water, soil, and a stable climate, which future generations will also require. In order to invest wisely in the future, we must evaluate agricultural tools to see which ones hold the most promise for increasing intrinsic and operational yields and providing other resource benefits.
It is also important to keep in mind where increased food production is most needed—in developing countries, especially in Africa, rather than in the developed world. Several recent studies have shown that low-external-input methods such as organic can improve yield by over 100 percent in these countries, along with other benefits. Such methods have the advantage of being based largely on knowledge rather than on costly inputs, and as a result they are often more accessible to poor farmers than the more expensive technologies (which often have not helped in the past).
So far, the record of GE crops in contributing to increased yield is modest, despite considerable effort. There are no transgenic crops with increased intrinsic yield, and only Bt corn exhibits somewhat higher operational yield. Herbicide-tolerant soybeans, the most widely utilized GE crop by far, do not increase either operational or intrinsic yield.
Genetic engineers are working on new genes that may raise both intrinsic and operational yield in the future, but their past track record for bringing new traits to market suggests caution in relying too heavily on their success.
It is time to look more seriously at the other tools in the agricultural toolkit. While GE has received most of the attention and investment, traditional breeding has been delivering the goods in the all-important arena of increasing intrinsic yield. Newer and sophisticated breeding methods using increasing genomic knowledge—but not GE—also show promise for increasing yield.
The large investment in the private sector ensures that research on GE versions of major crops will continue, while organic and other agro-ecological methods are not likely to attract a similar investment.
But given the modest yield increases from transgenic crops so far, putting too many of our crop-development eggs in the GE basket could lead to lost opportunities. Thus it is very important to compare the potential contributions of GE with those of other approaches, such as organic methods, low-input methods, and enhanced conventional-breeding methods. Where these alternatives look more promising, we should provide sufficient public funding to ensure that they will be available. Such prioritization is especially appropriate for research aimed at developing countries, where yield increases are most needed.
To ensure that adequate intrinsic and operational yields are realized from major crops in the coming years, the Union of Concerned Scientists makes the following recommendations:
• The U.S. Department of Agriculture, state and local agricultural agencies, and public and private universities should redirect substantial funding, research, and incentives toward approaches that are proven and show more promise than genetic engineering for improving crop yields, especially intrinsic crop yields, and for providing other societal benefits. These approaches include modern methods of conventional plant breeding as well as organic and other sophisticated low-input farming practices.
- •Food-aid organizations should work with farmers in developing countries, where increasing local levels of food production is an urgent priority, to make these more promising and affordable methods available.
• Relevant regulatory agencies should develop and implement techniques to better identify and evaluate potentially harmful side effects of the newer and more complex genetically engineered crops. These effects are likely to become more prevalent, and current regulations are too weak to detect them reliably and prevent them from occurring.
You can download the complete 51 page pdf file here: http://www.ucsusa.org/food_and_agriculture/
Seed Monopolies, Genetic engineering and Farmer suicides
by Vandana Shiva
An epidemic of farmers’ suicides has spread across four states of India over the last decade. According to official data, more than 160,000 farmers have committed suicide in India since 1997.
These four states are Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Punjab. The suicides are most frequent where farmers grow cotton and have been a direct result of the creation of seed monopolies. According to official data, more than 160,000 farmers have committed suicide in India since 1997.
Increasingly, the supply of cotton seeds has slipped out of the hands of the farmers and the public system, into the hands of global seed corporations like Monsanto. The entry of seed MNCs was part of the globalization process.
Corporate seed supply implies a number of shifts simultaneously. Firstly, giant corporations start to control local seed companies through buyouts, joint ventures and licensing arrangements, leading to a seed monopoly.
Secondly, seed is transformed from being a common good, to being the “intellectual property” of Monsanto, for which the corporation can claim limitless profits through royalty payments. For the farmer this means deeper debt.
Thirdly, seed is transformed from a renewable regenerative, multiplicative resource into a non-renewable resource and commodity. Seed scarcity and seed farmers are a consequence of seed monopolies, which are based on renewability of seed, beginning with hybrids, moving to genetically engineered seed like Btcotton, with the ultimate aim of the “terminator” seed which is engineered for sterility. Each of these technologies of non-renewability is guided by one factor alone – forcing farmers to buy seed every planning season. For farmers this means higher costs. For seed corporations it translates into higher profits.
Fourthly, the creation of seed monopolies is based on the simultaneous deregulation of seed corporations, including biosafety and seed deregulation, and super-regulation of farmers seeds and varieties. Globalization allowed seed companies to sell self-certified seeds, and in the case of genetically engineered seed, they are seeking self-regulation for biosafety. This is the main aim of the recently proposed National Biotechnology Regulatory Authority, which is in effect a Biosafety ‘Deregulation Authority. The proposed Seed Bill 2004, which has been blocked by a massive nationwide Gandhian Seed Satyagraha by farmers, aims at forcing every farmer to register the varieties they have evolved over millennia. This compulsory registration and licensing system robs farmers of their fundamental freedoms.
State regulation extinguishes biodiversity, and pushes all farmers into dependency on patented, corporate seed. Such compulsory licensing has been the main vehicle of destruction of biodiversity and farmers rights in U.S. and Europe.
Fifthly, corporate seeds impose monocultures on farmers. Mixed croppings of cotton with cereals, legumes, oilseeds, vegetables is replaced with a monoculture of Bt-cotton hybrids. The creation of seed monopolies and with it the creation of unpayable debt to a new species of money lender, the agents of the seed and chemical companies, has led to hundreds of thousands of Indian farmers killing themselves since 1997.
The suicides first started in the district of Warangal in Andhra Pradesh. Peasants in Warangal used to grow millets, pulses, oilseeds. Overnight, Warangal was converted to a cotton growing district based on non-renewable hybrids which need irrigation and are prone to pest attacks. Small peasants without capital were trapped in a vicious cycle of debt. Some ended up committing suicide.
This was the period when Monsanto and its Indian partner Mahyco were also carrying out illegal field experiments with genetically engineered Bt- cotton. All imports and field trials of genetically engineered organisms in India are governed by a law under the Environment Protection Act called the “Rules for the Manufacture Use, Import, Export and Storage” of Hazardous Microorganisms, Genetically Engineered Organisms or Cells 1989.”
We at the Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology used these laws to stop Monsanto’s commercialization of Bt- cotton in 1999, which is why approval was not granted for commercial sales until 2002.
The Government of Andhra Pradesh filed a case in the Monopoly and Restrictive Trade Practices Act (MRTP), India’s Anti Trust Law, arguing that Monsanto’s seed monopolies were the primary cause of farmers’ suicides in Andhra Pradesh.
Monsanto was forced to reduce its prices of Bt- cotton seeds. The high costs of seeds and other inputs were combined with falling prices of cotton due to $4billion U.S. subsidy and the dumping of this subsidized cotton on India by using the W.T.O. to force India to remove Quantitative Restrictions on agricultural imports. Rising costs of production and falling prices of the product is a recipe for indebtedness, and debtedness is the main cause of farmers’ suicides. This is why farmers’ suicides are most prevalent in the cotton belt on which seed industries own claim is rapidly becoming a Bt-cotton belt. Bt-cotton is thus heavily implicated in farmers’ suicides.
The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) has recently released a discussion paper “Bt-cotton and Farmers’ Suicides in India: Reviewing the Evidence”. The report is manipulative of the truth about farmers suicides and Bt-cotton.at every level.
Firstly, it states that “Farmers suicides is a long-term phenomena”, and the “long term” is 1997-2007. Ten years is not a long term in a 10,000 year old farming tradition. And 1997 is precisely when the suicides take on an epidemic oportion due to seed monopolies, initially through hybrids and from 2002 through Bt. Hybrids.
Secondly, the chronology of Bt-cotton introduction is false. The story begins with Monsanto’s illegal Bt trials, not with commercialisation in 2002. Secondly, the report states that “In specific regions and years, where Bt-cotton may have indirectly contributed to farmer indebtedness (via crop failure) leading to suicides, its failure was mainly the result of the context or environment in which it was introduced or planted; Bt-cotton as a technology is not to blame”.
This is an interesting argument. A technology is always developed in the context of local socio-economic and ecological conditions. A technology that is a misfit in a context is a failed technology for that context. You cannot blame the context to save a failed technology.
The technology of engineering Bt-genes into cotton was aimed primarily at controlling pests. However, new pests have emerged in Bt-cotton, leading to higher use of pesticides. In Vidharbha region of Maharashtra, which has the highest suicides, the area under Bt-cotton has increased from 0.200 million ha in 2004 to 2.880 million ha in 2007. Costs of pesticides for farmers has increased from Rs. 921 million to Rs. 13,264 billion in the same period, which is a 13 fold increase. A pest control technology that fails to control pests might be good for seed corporations which are also agrichemical corporations. For farmers it translates into suicide. The IFPRI study uses industry data to falsely claim reduction of presticide use in Bt-cotton when the empirical data and ground reality shows pesticide use increase.
There are alternatives to Bt-cotton and toxic pesticides. Through Navdanya we have promoted ‘Organic Farming and Seeds of Hope’, to help farmers move away from Monsanto’s “Seeds of Suicide”.
Organic farmers in Vidharbha are earning Rs. 6287 per acre on average, compared to Bt-cotton farmers who are earning Rs. 714 per acre on average. Many Bt-cotton farmers have a negative income, hence the suicides. The field data of Bt-cotton is also manipulated when cotton yields are shown as low in the pre-Bt-cotton years, it is not mentioned that cotton has traditionally not been grown as a monoculture but as a mixed crop converting biodiversity to monocultures of course leads to increase in “yield” of the monoculture, but this is accompanied by a decline in production at the biodiversity level. The IFPRI paper has attempted to play with figures, just like the investment bankers and hedge fund managers played with figures and caused the collapse of Wall Street. Manipulation of reality with numbers does not make for truth. In the case of seeds, it is threatening farmers’ lives. Technologies are tools. When the tool fails it needs replacing. Bt-cotton technology has failed to control pests or secure farmers lives and livelihoods. It is time to replace GM technology with ecological farming. It is time to stop farmers’ suicides.
See a wonderful talk by Vandana Shiva on The Future of Food and Seed at google video here:
And visit her website here:
State of the Science on the Health Risks of GMO Foods
From The Institute for Responsible Technology www.responsibletechnology.org
We all know stories of tobacco, asbestos, and DDT. Originally declared safe, they caused widespread death and disease. Although their impact was vast, most of the population was spared. The same cannot be said for sweeping changes in the food supply. Everyone eats; everyone is affected. The increase in several diseases in North America may be due to the profound changes in our diet. The most radical change occurred a little over a decade ago when genetically modified (GM) crops were introduced. Their influence on health has been largely ignored, but recent studies show serious problems. Genetically modified organisms (GMOs) have been linked to thousands of toxic or allergic‐type reactions, thousands of sick, sterile, and dead livestock, and damage to virtually every organ and system studied in lab animals, Nearly every independent animal feeding safety study shows adverse or unexplained effects.
GM foods were made possible by a technology developed in the 1970s whereby genes from one species are forced into the DNA of other species. Genes produce proteins, which in turn can generate characteristics or traits. The promised traits associated with GMOs have been sky high—vegetables growing in the desert, vitamin fortified grains, and highly productive crops feeding the starving millions. None of these are available. In fact, the only two traits that are found in nearly all commericialized GM plants are herbicide tolerance and/or pesticide production.
Herbicide tolerant soy, corn, cotton, and canola plants are engineered with bacterial genes that allow them to survive otherwise deadly doses of herbicides. This gives farmers more flexibility in weeding and gives the GM seed company lots more profit. When farmers buy GM seeds, they sign a contract to buy only that seed producer’s brand of herbicide. Herbicide tolerant crops comprise about 80% of all GM plants. The other 20% are corn and cotton varieties that produce a pesticide in every cell. This is accomplished due to a gene from a soil bacterium called Bacillus thuringiensis or Bt, which produces a natural insect‐killing poison called Bt‐toxin. In addition to these two traits, there are also disease resistant GM Hawaiian papaya, zucchini and crook neck squash, which comprise well under 1% of GMO acreage.
THE FDA’S “NON‐REGULATION” OF GM FOODS
Rhetoric from the United States government since the early 1990s proclaims that GM foods are no different from their natural counterparts that have existed for centuries. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has labeled them “Generally Recognized as Safe,” or GRAS. This status allows a product to be commercialized without any additional testing. According to US law, to be considered GRAS the substance must be the subject of a substantial amount of peer‐reviewed published studies (or equivalent) and there must be overwhelming consensus among the scientific community that the product is safe. GM foods had neither. Nonetheless, in a precedent‐setting move in 1992 that some experts contend was illegal, the FDA declared that GM crops are GRAS as long as their producers say they are. Thus, the FDA does not require any safety evaluations or labeling of GMOs. A company can even introduce a GM food to the market without telling the agency.
Such a lenient approach was largely the result of the influence of large agricultural corporations According to Henry Miller, who had a leading role in biotechnology issues at the FDA from 1979 to 1994, “In this area, the US government agencies have done exactly what big agribusiness has asked them to do and told them to do.” The Ag biotech company with the greatest influence was clearly Monsanto. According to the New York Times, “What Monsanto wished for from Washington, Monsanto and, by extension, the biotechnology industry got. . . . When the company abruptly decided that it needed to throw off the regulations and speed its foods to market, the White House quickly ushered through an unusually generous policy of self‐policing.”
This policy was heralded by Vice President Dan Quayle on May 26, 1992. He chaired the Council on Competitiveness, which had identified GM crops as an industry that could boost US exports. To take advantage, Quayle announced “reforms” to “speed up and simplify the process of bringing” GM products to market without “being hampered by unnecessary regulation.”2 Three days later, the FDA policy on non‐regulation was unveiled.
The person who oversaw its development was the FDA’s Deputy Commissioner for Policy, Michael Taylor, whose position had been created especially for him in 1991. Prior to that, Taylor was an outside attorney for both Monsanto and the Food Biotechnology Council. After working at the FDA, he became Monsanto’s vice-president.
*Note from Mom* Michael Taylor is now being considered to head “Food Safety” by the Obama adminstration. Write the White House and tell them, no thanks!
THE FDA COVERS UP HEALTH RISKS
Taylor’s policy needed to create the impression that unintended effects from GM crops were not an issue. Otherwise their GRAS status would be undermined and they would need the extensive testing and labels that are normally required for food additives. But internal memos made public from a lawsuit showed that the overwhelming consensus among the agency scientists was that GM crops can have unpredictable, hard‐to‐detect side effects. Various departments and experts spelled these out in detail, listing allergies, toxins, nutritional effects, and new diseases as potential dangers. They urged superiors to require long‐term safety studies.3 In spite of the warnings, according to public interest attorney Steven Druker who studied the FDA’s internal files, “References to the unintended negative effects of bioengineering were progressively deleted from drafts of the policy statement (over the protests of agency scientists).”4
FDA microbiologist Louis Pribyl, PhD, wrote about the policy, “What has happened to the scientific elements of this document? Without a sound scientific base to rest on, this becomes a broad, general, ‘What do I have to do to avoid trouble’‐type document. . . . It will look like and probably be just a political document. . . . It reads very pro‐industry, especially in the area of unintended effects.
The scientists’ concerns were not only ignored, their very existence was denied. The official FDA policy stated, “The agency is not aware of any information showing that foods derived by these new methods differ from other foods in any meaningful or uniform way.”6 In sharp contrast, an internal FDA report stated, “The processes of genetic engineering and traditional breeding are different and according to the technical experts in the agency, they lead to different risks.”7 The FDA’s deceptive notion of no difference was coined “substantial equivalence” and formed the basis of the US government position on GMOs.
Many scientists and organizations have criticized the US position. The National Academy of Sciences and even the pro‐GM Royal Society of London8 describe the US system as inadequate and flawed. The editor of the prestigious journal Lancet said, “It is astounding that the US Food and Drug Administration has not changed their stance on genetically modified food adopted in 1992. . . . The policy is that genetically modified crops will receive the same consideration for potential health risks as any other new crop plant. This stance is taken despite good reasons to believe that specific risks may exist. . . . Governments should never have allowed these products into the food chain without insisting on rigorous testing for effects on health.”9 The Royal Society of Canada described substantial equivalence as “scientifically unjustifiable and inconsistent with precautionary regulation of the technology.”
GMOS ARE INHERENTLY UNSAFE
There are several reasons why GM plants present unique dangers. The first is that the process of genetic engineering itself creates unpredicted alterations, irrespective of which gene is transferred. The gene insertion process, for example, is accomplished by either shooting genes from a “gene gun” into a plate of cells, or using bacteria to infect the cell with foreign DNA. Both create mutations in and around the insertion site and elsewhere.11 The “transformed” cell is then cloned into a plant through a process called tissue culture, which results in additional hundreds or thousands of mutations throughout the plants’ genome. In the end, the GM plant’s DNA can be a staggering 2‐4% different from its natural parent.12 Native genes can be mutated, deleted, or permanently turned on or off. In addition, the insertion process causes holistic and not‐well‐understood changes among large numbers of native genes. One study revealed that up to 5% of the natural genes altered their levels of protein expression as a result of a single insertion.
The Royal Society of Canada acknowledged that “the default prediction” for GM crops would include “a range of collateral changes in expression of other genes, changes in the pattern of proteins produced and/or changes in metabolic activities.”13 Although the FDA scientists evaluating GMOs in 1992 were unaware of the extent to which GM DNA is damaged or changed, they too described the potential consequences. They reported, “The possibility of unexpected, accidental changes in genetically engineered plants” might produce “unexpected high concentrations of plant toxicants.”14 GM crops, they said, might have “increased levels of known naturally occurring toxins,” and the “appearance of new, not previously identified” toxins.15 The same mechanism can also produce allergens, carcinogens, or substances that inhibit assimilation of nutrients.
Most of these problems would pass unnoticed through safety assessments on GM foods, which are largely designed on the false premise that genes are like Legos that cleanly snap into place. But even if we disregard unexpected changes in the DNA for the moment, a proper functioning inserted gene still carries significant risk. Its newly created GM protein, such as the Bt‐toxin, may be dangerous for human health (see below). Moreover, even if that protein is safe in its natural organism, once it is transferred into a new species it may be processed differently. A harmless protein may be transformed into a dangerous or deadly version. This happened with at least one GM food crop under development, GM peas, which were destroyed before being commercialized.
FDA scientists were also quite concerned about the possibility of inserted genes spontaneously transferring into the DNA of bacteria inside our digestive tract. They were particularly alarmed at the possibility of antibiotic resistant marker (ARM) genes transferring. ARM genes are employed during gene insertion to help scientists identify which cells successfully integrated the foreign gene. These ARM genes, however, remain in the cell and are cloned into the DNA of all the GM plants produced from that cell. One FDA report wrote in all capital letters that ARM genes would be “A SERIOUS HEALTH HAZARD,” due to the possibility of that they might transfer to bacteria and create super diseases, untreatable with antibiotics.
Although the biotech industry confidently asserted that gene transfer from GM foods was not possible, the only human feeding study on GM foods later proved that it does take place. The genetic material in soybeans that make them herbicide tolerant transferred into the DNA of human gut bacteria and continued to function. That means that long after we stop eating a GM crop, its foreign GM proteins may be produced inside our intestines. It is also possible that the foreign genes might end up inside our own DNA, within the cells of our own organs and tissues.
Another worry expressed by FDA scientists was that GM plants might gather “toxic substances from the environment” such as “pesticides or heavy metals,”16 or that toxic substances in GM animal feed might bioaccumulate into milk and meat products. While no studies have looked at the bioaccumulation issue, herbicide tolerant crops certainly have higher levels of herbicide residues. In fact, many countries had to increase their legally allowable levels—by up to 50 times—in order to accommodate the introduction of GM crops.
The overuse of the herbicides due to GM crops has resulted in the development of herbicide resistant weeds. USDA statistics show that herbicide use is rapidly accelerating. Its use was up by 138 million pounds in the first nine years of GM crops.17 But over the next two years, it jumped by another 120 million pounds (estimated). Between 2005 and 2006, the use of Roundup herbicide—used on GM Roundup Ready crops—was up by 38%. And because Roundup is becoming less effective on weeds, farmers are now using more toxic herbicides, such as 2‐4D, which has increased by 237% from 2004 to2006.18
All of the above risks associated with GM foods are magnified for high‐risk groups, such as pregnant women, children, the sick, and the elderly. The following section highlights some of the problems that have been identified.
GM DIET SHOWS TOXIC REACTIONS IN THE DIGESTIVE TRACT
The very first crop submitted to the FDA’s voluntary consultation process, the FlavrSavr tomato, showed evidence of toxins. Out of 20 female rats fed the GM tomato, 7 developed stomach lesions.19 The director of FDA’s Office of Special Research Skills wrote that the tomatoes did not demonstrate a “reasonable certainty of no harm,”20 which is their normal standard of safety. The Additives Evaluation Branch agreed that “unresolved questions still remain.”21 The political appointees, however, did not require that the tomato be withdrawn.1
According to Arpad Pusztai, PhD, one of the world’s leading experts in GM food safety assessments, the type of stomach lesions linked to the tomatoes “could lead to life‐endangering hemorrhage, particularly in the elderly who use aspirin to prevent [blood clots].”22 Dr. Pusztai believes that the digestive tract, which is the first and largest point of contact with foods, can reveal various reactions to toxins and should be the first target of GM food risk assessment. He was alarmed, however, to discover that studies on the FlavrSavr never looked passed the stomach to the intestines. Other studies that did look found problems.
Mice fed potatoes engineered to produce the Bt‐toxin developed abnormal and damaged cells, as well as proliferative cell growth in the lower part of their small intestines (ileum).23 Rats fed potatoes engineered to produce a different type of insecticide (GNA lectin from the snowdrop plant) also showed proliferative cell growth in both the stomach and intestinal walls (see photos).24 Although the guts of rats fed GM peas were not examined for cell growth, the intestines were mysteriously heavier; possibly as a result of such growth.25 Cell proliferation can be a precursor to cancer and is of special concern.
Rats fed GM potatoes showed proliferative cell growth in the stomach and intestines.
1 Calgene had submitted data on two lines of GM tomatoes, both using the same inserted gene. They voluntarily elected to market only the variety that was not associated with the lesions. This was not required by the FDA, which did not block approvals on the lesion‐associated variety. The FlavrSavr tomato has since been taken off the market. After the FlavrSavr, no other biotech company has submitted such detailed data to the FDA.
GM DIETS CAUSE LIVER DAMAGE
The state of the liver—a main detoxifier for the body—is another indicator of toxins.
Rats fed the GNA lectin potatoes described above had smaller and partially atrophied livers.26
Rats fed Monsanto’s Mon 863 corn, engineered to produce Bt‐toxin, had liver lesions and other indications of toxicity.27
Rabbits fed GM soy showed altered enzyme production in their livers as well as higher metabolic activity.28
The livers of rats fed Roundup Ready canola were 12%–16% heavier, possibly due to liver disease or inflammation.29
Microscopic analysis of the livers of mice fed Roundup Ready soybeans revealed altered gene expression and structural and functional changes (see photos).30 Many of these changes reversed after the mice diet was switched to non‐GM soy, indicating that GM soy was the culprit. The findings, according to molecular geneticist Michael Antoniou, PhD, “are not random and must reflect some ‘insult’ on the liver by the GM soy.” Antoniou, who does human gene therapy research in King’s College London, said that although the long‐term consequences of the GM soy diet are not known, it “could lead to liver damage and consequently general toxemia.”31 Rats fed Roundup Ready soybeans also showed structural changes in their livers. 32
GM FED ANIMALS HAD HIGHER DEATH RATES AND ORGAN DAMAGE
In the FlavrSavr tomato study, a note in the appendix indicated that 7 of 40 rats died within two weeks and were replaced.33 In another study, chickens fed the herbicide tolerant “Liberty Link” corn died at twice the rate of those fed natural corn.34 But in these two industry‐funded studies, the deaths were dismissed without adequate explanation or follow‐up.
In addition, the cells in the pancreas of mice fed Roundup Ready soy had profound changes and produced significantly less digestive enzymes;35 in rats fed a GM potato, the pancreas was enlarged.36 In various analyses of kidneys, GM‐fed animals showed lesions, toxicity, altered enzyme production or inflammation.37,38 Enzyme production in the hearts of mice was altered by GM soy.39 And GM potatoes caused slower growth in the brains of rats.
GM CROPS TRIGGER IMMUNE REACTIONS AND MAY CAUSE ALLERGIES
Allergic reactions occur when the immune system interprets something as foreign, different, and offensive, and reacts accordingly. All GM foods, by definition, have something foreign and different. And several studies show that they provoke reactions. Rats fed Monsanto’s GM corn, for example, had a significant increase in blood cells related to the immune system.50 GM potatoes caused the immune system of rats to respond more slowly.51 And GM peas provoked an inflammatory response in mice, suggesting that it might cause deadly allergic reactions in people.52
It might be difficult to identify whether GM foods were triggering allergic responses in the population, since very few countries conduct regular studies or keep careful records. One country that does have an annual evaluation is the UK. Soon after GM soy was introduced into the British diet, researchers at the York Laboratory reported that allergies to soy had skyrocketed by 50% in a single year.53 Although no follow‐up studies were conducted to see if GM soy was the cause, there is evidence showing several ways in which it might have contributed to the rising incidence of allergies:
• The only significant variety of GM soy is Monsanto’s “Roundup Ready” variety, planted in 89% of US soy acres. A foreign gene from bacteria (with parts of virus and petunia DNA) is inserted, which allows the plant to withstand Roundup herbicide. The protein produced by the bacterial gene has never been part of the human food supply. Because people aren’t usually allergic to a food until they have eaten it several times, it would be difficult to know in advance if the protein was an allergen. Without a surefire method to identify allergenic GM crops, the World Health Organization (WHO) and others recommend examining the properties of the protein to see if they share characteristics with known allergens. One method is to compare the amino acid sequence of the novel protein with a database of allergens. If there is a match, according to the WHO, the GM crop should either not be commercialized or additional testing should be done. Sections of the protein produced in GM soy are identical to shrimp and dust mite allergens,54 but the soybean was introduced before WHO criteria were established and the recommended additional tests were not conducted. If the protein does trigger reactions, the danger is compounded by the finding that the Roundup Ready gene transfers into the DNA of human gut bacteria and may continuously produce the protein from within our intestines.55
• In addition to the herbicide tolerant protein, GM soybeans contain a unique, unexpected protein, which likely came about from the changes incurred during the genetic engineering process. Scientists found that this new protein was able to bind with IgE antibodies, suggesting that it may provoke dangerous allergic reactions. The same study revealed that one human subject showed a skin prick immune response only to GM soy, but not to natural soy.56 Another study showed that the levels of one known soy allergen, called trypsin inhibitor, were as much as seven times higher in cooked GM soy compared to a non‐GM control.57
• GM soy also produces an unpredicted side effect in the pancreas of mice—the amount of digestive enzymes produced is dramatically reduced.58 If a shortage of enzymes caused food proteins to breakdown more slowly, then they have more time to trigger allergic reactions. Thus, digestive problems from GM soy might promote allergies to a wide range of proteins, not just soy.
• The higher amount of Roundup herbicide residues on GM soy might create reactions in consumers. In fact, many of the symptoms identified in the UK soy allergy study are among those related to glyphosate exposure. [The allergy study identified irritable bowel syndrome, digestion problems, chronic fatigue, headaches, lethargy, and skin complaints, including acne and eczema, all related to soy consumption. Symptoms of glyphosate exposure include nausea, headaches, lethargy, skin rashes, and burning or itchy skin. It is also possible that glyphosate’s breakdown product AMPA, which accumulates in GM soybeans after each spray, might contribute to allergies.]
It is interesting to note that in the five years immediately after GM soy was introduced, US peanut allergies doubled. It is known that a protein in natural soybeans cross‐reacts with peanut allergies, i.e. soy may trigger reactions in some people who are allergic to peanuts.59 Given the startling increase in peanut allergies, scientists should investigate whether this cross‐reactivity has been amplified in GM soy.
BT‐TOXIN, PRODUCED IN GM CORN AND COTTON, MAY CAUSE ALLERGIES
For years, organic farmers and others have sprayed crops with solutions containing natural Bt bacteria as a method of insect control. The toxin creates holes in their stomach and kills them. Genetic engineers take the gene that produces the toxin in bacteria and insert it into the DNA of crops so that the plant does the work, not the farmer. The fact that we consume that toxic pesticide in every bite of Bt corn is hardly appetizing.
Biotech companies claim that Bt‐toxin has a history of safe use, is quickly destroyed in our stomach, and wouldn’t react with humans or mammals in any event. Studies verify, however, that natural Bt‐toxin is not fully destroyed during digestion and does react with mammals. Mice fed Bt‐toxin, for example, showed an immune response as potent as cholera toxin, 60, became immune sensitive to formerly harmless compounds,61 and had damaged and altered cells in their small intestines.62 Moreover, when natural Bt was sprayed over areas around Vancouver and Washington State to fight gypsy moths, about 500 people reported reactions—mostly allergy or flu‐like symptoms.63,64 Farm workers and others also report serious reactions6566676869 and authorities have long acknowledged that “people with compromised immune systems or preexisting allergies may be particularly susceptible to the effects ofI The Bt‐toxin produced in GM crops is “vastly different from the bacterial [Bt‐toxins] used in organic and traditional farming and forestry.”71 The plant produced version is designed to be more toxic than natural varieties,72 and is about 3,000‐5,000 times more concentrated than the spray form. And just like the GM soy protein, the Bt protein in GM corn varieties has a section of its amino acid sequence identical to a known allergen (egg yolk). The Bt protein also fails other allergen criteria recommended by the WHO, i.e. the protein is too resistant to break down during digestion and heat.
If Bt‐toxin causes allergies, then gene transfer carries serious ramifications. If Bt genes relocate to human gut bacteria, our intestinal flora may be converted into living pesticide factories, possibly producing Bt‐toxin inside of us year after year. The UK Joint Food Safety and Standards Group also described gene transfer from a different route. They warned that genes from inhaled pollen might transfer into the DNA of bacteria in the respiratory system.73 Although no study has looked into that possibility, pollen from a Bt cornfield appears to have been responsible for allergic‐type reactions.
In 2003, during the time when an adjacent Bt cornfield was pollinating, virtually an entire Filipino village of about 100 people was stricken by mysterious skin, respiratory, and intestinal reactions.74 The symptoms started with those living closest to the field and spread to those further away. Blood samples from 39 individuals showed antibodies in response to Bt‐toxin, supporting—but not proving—a link. When the same corn was planted in four other villages the following year, however, the symptoms returned in all four areas—only during the time of pollination.75
Bt‐toxin might also trigger reactions by skin contact. In 2005, a medical team reported that hundreds of agricultural workers in India are developing allergic symptoms when exposed to Bt cotton, but not when
axposed to natural varieties.76 They say reactions come from picking the cotton, cleaning it in factories, loading it onto trucks, or even leaning against it. Their symptoms are virtually identical to those described by the 500 people in Vancouver and Washington who were sprayed with Bt (see table on next page).
Bt Spray
Sneezing,
runny nose,
exacerbations of asthma
Watery, red
Itching, burning,
inflammation,
red,
swelling
Fever,
some in hospital
Bt Cotton
Sneezing, runny nose
Watery,red
Itching, burning, eruptions, red, swelling
Fever,
some in hospital
Download the complete 28 page report with Pictures and documentation at: http://www.responsibletechnology.org