more geneticaly modified scarines

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http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=18154

 

Spermicidal Breakfast Cereal

 

By Carmelo Ruiz, ZNet

 

This article was translated from the Spanish by Miguel Alvarado.

 

 

 

Just when the global diatribe over food and genetically modified

crops (GM) is heating up in tone and breadth, the corporations that

create them are staging a showcase for a fresh batch of transgenics.

 

 

 

These new GM crops, known as biopharmaceuticals, or biopharms for

short, produce industrial and pharmaceutical chemicals within their

tissues. The plants, including soy, rice, corn and tobacco, are

genetically altered to produce substances such as growth hormones,

curdling agents (coagulants), vaccines for humans (as well as farm

animals), human antibodies, industrial enzymes, contraceptives and

even pregnancy deterrents.

 

 

 

Scientists and corporations alike embrace biopharmaceuticals with

glee: " Imagine being able to harvest enough globulin (a compound

that fights arthritis) for the whole world in all of fifty acres? "

writes Dr. William O. Robertson for the Seattle Post-

Intelligencer. " Imagine being able to find the protein healthy

people use to prevent arthritis or breast cancer and being able to

produce it in large quantities in rice and tobacco. "

 

 

 

ProdiGene, a leader in the field, calculates that by the end of this

decade, 10% of the corn produced in the US will be

biopharmaceutical. The volume of biopharmaceutical drugs and

chemicals could reach the $200 billion figure, according to Dow

AgroSciences' Guy Cardinau.

 

 

 

Warnings

 

 

 

But some scientists and ecologists are concerned. Will it be

possible to contain and segregate such crops, fruit and seed, in

order to avoid a biological Chernobyl?

 

 

 

Is there any guarantee that these products won't accidentally end up

at the supermarket? And how can we keep their pollen from

fertilizing other fields and reproducing out of control?

 

 

 

" One single mistake from a biotechnology company and we'll be having

someone else's prescription medicine for breakfast in our cereal, "

warns Larry Bohlen, spokesman for Friends of the Earth, an

international ecology organization.

 

 

 

" What will happen if the pollen of a transgenic plant containing

some kind of drug fertilizes a nearby edible crop? " argues the

Erosion, Technology and Concentration Action Group (ETC) in a report

published in 2000.

 

 

 

The report continues to ask: " How will the soil microorganisms and

insects which benefit agriculture be affected by crops genetically

designed to produce industrial and pharmaceutical chemicals? What

will happen if animals eat the biopharmaceutical crops? Will the

biopharmaceutical proteins be altered during the various stages of

growth, harvest and storage? Will they cause allergic reactions?

 

 

 

According to biologist Brian Tokar, professor at the Institute for

Social Ecology, the most serious problems concern cross-pollination

and unknown effects to insects, soil microorganisms and other native

life-forms.

 

 

 

A Little Mishap In Nebraska

 

 

 

There have been mistakes with these crops already. In November 2002,

at an agricultural cooperative in Aurora, Nebraska, 500,000 bushels

of soy were contaminated with biopharmaceutical corn. One of the

coop members harvested an experimental batch of corn for ProdiGene

the year before and then proceeded to plant a crop of soy for human

consumption in the same field.

 

 

 

During a routine inspection, federal officials from the Department

of Agriculture found the corn stalks for ProdiGene growing among the

soy plants. By the time they made the discovery, soy from that field

was already being stored mixed with the soy of other coop members.

Fortunately, the authorities were able to segregate the contaminated

grain just before it reached the supermarket aisles.

 

 

 

The company was slapped with a $500,000 fine for negligence; yet,

and in spite of such gross near disaster, the government still

allows the corporation to continue with biopharmaceutical research

as well as keeping the precise nature of the contaminating batch in

Nebraska a trade secret. Mark Ritchie, president of the Institute

for Agriculture and Trade Policy, describes the incident as

the " Three Mile Island " of biotechnology, in reference to the

emergency caused by a nuclear reactor in the 70s..

 

 

 

After the ProdiGene scandal, two industrial corporations which had

so far supported transgenic research began to reconsider their

positions. The Grocery Manufacturers Association, a group which

represents supermarket distributing companies, expressed concern

about the possibility that biopharmaceuticals could end up

contaminating food supplies; such concern was also shared by the

National Food Processors Association. The president, John Cady,

requested strict and mandatory regulations in order to protect food

products from being contaminated by biopharms.

 

 

 

Other people don't share such concerns. The Biotechnology Industry

Organization, a group that represents biotech companies, and the

American Farm Bureau Federation, an organization dedicated to Big

Farming, are currently lobbying in Washington to obtain support from

the federal government in order to weaken biopharmaceutical

regulations.

 

 

 

Biological contamination

 

 

 

Transgenic products unfit for human consumption have already

contaminated the food chain. At the end of the year 2000,

environmental and consumer advocacy groups in the United States

discovered that hundreds of american products in the supermarkets

had been contaminated with traces of Starlink, a genetically

enhanced GM corn that was declared unfit for human consumption by

the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

 

 

 

Although the Starlink strain was farmed in just 0.04% of the US corn

production area, and was only meant for farm animal consumption, it

ended up tainting 430 million bushels and to this day keeps showing

up regularly in US exports.

 

 

 

" The Starlink discovery in Japan and South Korea, two of the most

important US corn consumers, indicates that it could be found

anywhere, " remarks Meena Raman, from Malaysia, coordinator in Asia

for Friends of the Earth Transgenics Program. " Until the US and

Aventis (the biotechnology company that created Starlink) controls

contamination, no other countries should allow corn imports. "

 

 

 

A more severe case of genetic contamination is taking place in

Mexico, where the presence of GM corn has been documented since

2001. It continues to show up in rural farming communities, both

peasant and indigenous, sown by small farmers who are not aware of

the transgenic threat; and it is proliferating rapidly, across wild

and mixed varieties, in spite of the Mexican government's ban on

transgenic crops, in effect since 1998. This contamination deeply

concerns environmentalists, scientists and farmers, since Mexico is

the cradle of corn and axis of its diversity, rendering the long

term consequences on the environment and human health uncertain.

 

 

 

In Mexico, people are distressed by the possibility that

biopharmaceutical corn could be introduced in the country. Silvia

Ribeiro, of the ETC organization, expresses great annoyance about

the California-based company Epicyte, which ostentatiously declared

having developed a spermicidal corn to be used as a contraceptive.

 

 

 

Ribeiro stated in La Jornada: " The potential of spermicidal corn as

a biological weapon is outrageous, since it easily interbreeds with

other varieties, is capable of going undetected and could lodge

itself at the very core of indigenous and farming cultures. We have

witnessed the execution of repeated sterilization campaigns

performed against indigenous communities. This method is certainly

much more difficult to trace. "

 

 

 

We cover the world

 

 

 

Where are biopharms cultivated? All over the world. At the

molecularfarming.com website, investors solicit the collaboration of

farmers willing to lease their land for biopharmaceutical

experiments anywhere in the world. They have signed agreements in

Brazil, Ireland, Australia, Greece, Zimbabwe, Panama and many other

countries.

 

 

 

Activist Beth Burrows first denounced the claims at the Molecular

Farming's website. Burrows is president of the Edmonds Institute, a

nonprofit dedicated to bioethics and biosecurity issues.

 

 

 

Award-winning journalist Devinder Sharma, an expert in agricultural

and nutritional matters who lives in India, comments on

molecularfarming.com: " This is part of a global scheme to transfer

dirty industries onto the Third World. "

 

 

 

" First came the exporting of toxic and industrial recycled waste to

developing countries in Africa and Southeast Asia. Now comes the

biopharms. In the US there's a huge problem regarding these crops.

What are they gonna do? Transfer dirty technology. "

 

 

 

Don't worry, be happy

 

 

 

In spite of all this, biopharming advocates assure us that they're

perfectly safe. Doctor Allan S. Felsot, an environmental

toxicologist at Washington State University considers the use of

plants to produce pharmaceuticals and other chemicals " not even a

new concept, if we take into account that we've used medicinal

plants for centuries. "

 

 

 

Felsot insists there's nothing unusual about our breeding human

proteins in the tissues of transgenic plants. " The proteins (in

question) are the same found in our bodies. Most of them are used as

medicine through cellular fermentation. They are very well defined

and have been subject to exhaustive research and clinical trials on

humans. "

 

 

 

Doctor Robertson adds: " The possibilities boggle the mind, the

opportunities are impossible to grasp in their totality and the

risks appear minimal when they're compared with the risks we have

encountered in medicine throughout the years. "

 

 

 

What's ahead?

 

 

 

" What will have to happen before the Department of Agriculture takes

seriously the fact that millions of people almost ended up consuming

experimental drugs and chemicals? " asks Brandon Keim, of the Council

for Responsible Genetics in reference to the ProdiGene scandal. " A

few sensational deaths? Maybe an increase in debilitating disorders

which will only be noticeable some decades later, when it's already

too late? "

 

 

 

Biopharmaceuticals are in an experimental stage but the corporations

producing them anxiously await the day when federal authorities give

them the go-ahead to enter the market.

 

 

 

Carmelo Ruiz is a journalist and a research associate of the

Institute for Social Ecology. He has previously published in Grist,

E Magazine, the New York Daily News, Corporate Watch, IPS and other

media.