GM-free Scotland

Were we being a bit too glib when we dismissed GM safety questions as “simply unasked”, or the GM production of drugs and plastics as taking up too much land space (see FINDING THE QUESTION TO EVERY ANSWER – News, May 2008)?

If you think so, here are some more questions and answers for you.

Is GM safety an illusion? Have a look at the safety assessment on GM maize MON810, which is the only GM crop under commercial cultivation in the EU. (It is described on the biotech lobby website, http://www.agbios.com/cstudies.php?book=FSA&ev=MON810)

The regulator’s attention has been carefully and rigorously focused on three things:

• Our history of safe exposure to the various organisms whose genes were copied, and to the plants transformed. This diverts attention into familiar territory of limited relevance to the novel qualities in the GMO you will be asked to eat.
• Tests involving some form of the protein generated by some form of the gene. These ascertain digestibility in a (very efficient) machine, and the absence of acute toxicity in a laboratory animal. These tests serve as ‘proofs’ that ‘the protein’ is safe because it will be destroyed by digestion, and that eating ‘the protein’ doesn’t make animals drop dead. This is of limited relevance to the GMO you will be asked to eat. The protein actually tested will be similar, but not identical to the native protein, and similar, but not identical, to what is produced by the GM plant. It will most likely have been generated in copious quantities by a bacterium genetically transformed for the purpose
• A vast sea of compositional data which reveals little more than that the GM food is nutritionally adequate if used in a restricted diet, and that known toxin levels are within accepted limits. Since the break-down elements of a food-plant can be numbered in thousands, are known to vary widely with growing conditions, and have a huge normal range, unusual qualities in the GMO are unlikely to be revealed: if one does emerge, it will be drowned by the sheer volume of ‘normal’ data. Unknown detrimental qualities or interference with other nutritional factors are untestable by these means.
  

What has consistently been by-passed is the safety assessment of the whole GM plant with its own version of the GM protein, its own unknown metabolic by-products arising from the inevitable genomic disturbances, and its role in a normal diet where digestibility can vary, or, in a normal population whose digestive systems will vary in efficiency. Long-term effects are ignored completely, as is the question of molecular stability: if the genome is rearranging itself, any current safety tests will become obsolete.

Is GM plastic an illusion? It has come to light that the ‘sustainable’, ‘biodegradable’, ‘compostable’, ‘recyclable’ plastics which offer “more disposal options” and a saving of up to 80% of the carbon of oil-based equivalents, do none of these things in any practical way. The very idea of using less or using something else is just beginning to emerge in consciousness.

Are GM materials for manufacturing an illusion? No, but it is impossible to keep them out of the food chain where they tangibly threaten food safety. The disruption to the ecosystem from pervading alien synthetic materials spreading in uncontrollable ways by gene pollution, tangibly threaten the environment. The very idea of recycling what we’ve got instead of remanufacturing from dwindling raw materials is just beginning to occur to us.

Are pharm-crops an illusion? No, but besides the tangible threat to our food safety and our environment, we have to question whether we need their products in the first place. Consider these statistics described in the British Medical Journal:

Of about 2,500 treatments offered in conventional medicine:

• 36 percent are beneficial or likely to be beneficial to the patient
• 14 percent are a trade-off between benefit and harm, or unlikely to be beneficial
• 46 percent have unknown effectiveness.

Or, as it was summarized graphically, ‘It’s a crap shoot – a 64 percent chance that the treatment will be either harmful, ineffective, or “gee, we have no idea what might happen”’

Well-nourished people with a good life-style and good living conditions are healthy. We’re spending a lot of money, time and ingenuity devising chemicals to answer health questions which could remain simply unasked if the same resources were applied to maintaining the health of the person and not to the disease.

So, look at all the evidence and ask yourself: is GM a way forward, or a PR-generated illusion distracting us from the real solutions?

SOURCES

• John Vidal Sustainable’ bio-plastic can damage the environment, Guardian 26.04.08
• How Much Does Conventional Medicine Know, ISSN 1752-8526 BMJ Publishing Group 2008, http://clinicalevidence.bmj.com