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Engineered DNA Found in Crop Seeds

Tests Show U.S. Failure to Block Contamination From Gene-Altered

Varieties

 

By Rick Weiss

Washington Post Staff Writer

Tuesday, February 24, 2004; Page A02

 

Much of the U.S. supply of ordinary crop seeds has become contaminated

with strands of engineered DNA, suggesting that current methods for

segregating gene-altered seed plants from traditional varieties are

failing, according to a pilot study released yesterday.

 

More than two-thirds of 36 conventional corn, soy and canola seed

batches contained traces of DNA from genetically engineered crop

varieties in lab tests commissioned by the Union of Concerned

Scientists, a Washington-based advocacy group.

 

The actual amount of foreign DNA present in U.S. seeds appears to be

small, and most engineered genes getting into the seed supply are among

those that regulators have deemed safe for consumption, the report

acknowledges.

 

But if federal rules and farm practices are not tightened, it concludes,

the United States may soon find it impossible to guarantee that any

portion of its food supply is free of gene-altered elements, a situation

that could seriously disrupt the export of U.S. foods, seeds and oils.

Many believe it could also gravely harm the domestic market for organic

food -- one of the fastest-growing and more lucrative segments of U.S.

agriculture.

 

And with a growing number of crop varieties now being engineered to

produce not just agricultural chemicals, but also potent pharmaceutical

and industrial products in their leaves and stems, future incidents of

cross-contamination may pose even more serious health and economic

risks, the report warns.

 

"No one wants drugs or plastics in our cornflakes," said Margaret

Mellon, director of the food and environment program at the Union of

Concerned Scientists, an environmental and health group that has taken a

skeptical stance toward agricultural biotechnology but is generally

respected by experts for hewing to science. "Left unchecked, this is a

problem that will hurt the U.S. economically, and perhaps even affect

our health."

 

The 70-page report, "Gone to Seed," recommends that the agriculture

department conduct a thorough assessment of the extent of genetic

contamination of the U.S. seed industry.

 

The report also calls for tighter restrictions on the outdoor planting

of crops engineered to make drugs and industrial products. It suggests

that reservoirs of still-pure seed stocks for major crops be set aside

immediately as an "insurance policy" in case gene-altered varieties

prove to be environmentally or medically harmful.

 

Industry officials said the findings were predictable.

 

"We were not surprised by this report . . . knowing that pollen travels

and commodity grains might commingle at various places and you may have

some mixing in transport or storage," said Lisa Dry, communications

director for the Biotechnology Industry Association.

 

Rather than pursue the unrealistic goal of trying to keep seeds

completely free of genetic contaminants, she and other industry

representatives said, the United States should work harder to get

European and other nations -- many of which have balked at engineered

crops and foods -- to be more accepting of the technology.

 

"It's important for countries around the world to adopt a uniform

standard" of acceptable levels of contamination, Dry said.

 

Dick Crowder, president of the Alexandria-based American Seed Trade

Association, agreed, saying he believes U.S. regulators are doing an

adequate job of keeping the food supply safe.

 

The Food and Drug Administration and the Department of Agriculture have

been developing standards to keep unwanted engineered products out of

the food supply. Spokesmen from both agencies said yesterday they would

review the report.

 

Whatever their significance, the findings indicate a remarkable degree

of inadvertent DNA redistribution since American farmers started growing

genetically engineered crops on a commercial scale eight years ago. Most

of the varieties in use today have either a bacterial gene that helps

the plant fight insect pests or a gene that makes the crop resistant to

a popular weedkiller.

 

Hundreds of other varieties are in testing. The group could not search

for many of those possible contaminants, because more than half of their

DNA sequences are trade secrets.

 

Engineered crops remain highly restricted in Japan, Europe and other

regions of the world, but they have become popular with American farmers

and accepted by most U.S. consumers. In recent years, about 80 percent

of all soy grown in this country has been genetically engineered, as is

most canola and about 40 percent of all corn.

 

Non-engineered products are generally mixed with engineered varieties,

except when they are aimed at certain foreign or specialty markets. But

plants that are grown specifically to replenish the nation's supply of

conventional seeds are carefully segregated to retain their purity and

are used to produce "certified" commercial grade seed.

 

Mellon's group bought certified soy, corn and canola seeds and had six

popular varieties of each tested for contaminating DNA sequences at two

different laboratories that specialize in such tests -- GeneScan USA of

Belle Chasse, La., and Biogenetic Services of Brookings, S.D.

 

The first lab found engineered DNA in half the corn and soy varieties

and in all six of the canola. The second lab, which was given larger

amounts with which to work, got positive results on five of six

varieties for all three crops.

 

The molecular test used, known as PCR, is extremely sensitive and is a

standard workhorse of molecular biology today, though its use in plant

materials is still being perfected. Although PCR does not do a good job

of estimating amounts, the scientists estimated that probably 0.05

percent to 1 percent of each batch's total DNA was engineered DNA.

 

It remains unclear to what extent the contamination is biological -- the

result of pollen spread in the field -- or mechanical, from inadvertent

commingling of conventional seeds with engineered seeds in farm

equipment or in storage areas, Mellon said.

 

***************************************************************

 

Crops 'widely contaminated' by genetically modified DNA

 

16:43 23 February 04

 

NewScientist.com news service

 

US scientists are warning of a potentially "serious risk to human

health" after the discovery that traditional varieties of major American

food crops are widely contaminated by DNA sequences from GM crops.

 

Crops engineered to produce industrial chemicals and drugs - so-called

"pharm" crops - could already be poisoning ostensibly GM-free crops

grown for food, warns the study by the Washington-based Union for

Concerned Scientists, released on Monday.

 

"If genes find their way from pharm crops to ordinary corn, they or

their products could wind up in drug-laced corn flakes," says the

report's co-author, UCS microbiologist Margaret Mellon.

 

In trials, crops have been genetically engineered to manufacture

proteins for healing wounds and treating conditions such as cystic

fibrosis, cirrhosis of the liver and anaemia; antibodies to fight cancer

and vaccines against rabies, cholera and foot-and-mouth disease.

Conventional drugs manufacture is subject to stringent controls to

prevent them entering the food chain or contaminating the natural

environment. But there are currently no such controls to prevent the

spread of DNA sequences from pharm crops.

 

The UCS asked two commercial laboratories to test traditional varieties

of three crops - maize, soybeans and canola or oil-seed rape - for

specific sequences of DNA that have been introduced into GM varieties

currently grown on US farms. The sequences studied mostly give

resistance to proprietary pesticides.

 

The labs reported that the seeds were "pervasively contaminated with low

levels of DNA sequences from GM varieties". Up to 1 per cent of

individual seeds, and more than half the batches of seeds, contained one

or more of the GM sequences.

 

Cross-pollination

 

There is no evidence that the crops tested were unsafe, say the authors.

But they fear this may not be true for second-generation GM crops that

contain DNA sequences that manufacture drugs and industrial chemicals.

 

"Seed contamination is the back door to the food supply," says Mellon.

"The realisation that some seeds may already have been contaminated [by

pharm crops] is alarming" and could pose a "serious risk to human

health".

 

Until now concern about GM contamination has focused on

cross-pollination in the field. But the authors guess that much of the

contamination has arisen from a failure to keep GM and traditional seeds

apart during manufacture and distribution.

 

The tests did not discover any crops contaminated with sequences from

pharm or industrial crops because there are no current tests for them.

But co-author and plant pathologist Jane Rissler warns: "Until we know

otherwise, it is prudent to assume that engineered sequences originating

in any crop - including genes from crops engineered to produce drugs,

plastics and vaccines - could potentially contaminate the seed supply."