NEW THREAT TO INDIGENOUS PEOPLE

[Guest guest]

NEW THREAT TO INDIGENOUS PEOPLE

 

The survival of indigenous people, within the U.S. and across

the globe, is being directly threatened by genetic engineering

(GE) of food crops.

 

In September, 2001, scientists discovered genetically engineered

(GE) corn at 15 locations in the state of Oaxaca, deep in

southern Mexico, a country that has outlawed the commercial use

of all genetically engineered crops.[1] No one knows how it got

there.

 

In the U.S., genetically engineered corn has been grown

commercially since 1996 and 26 percent of all U.S. corn acreage

is now genetically engineered. The remote region of Oaxaca where

the illegal GE corn was discovered is considered the heartland

of corn diversity in the world. Scientists had hoped to keep

Oaxaca's rich diversity of corn uncontaminated by GE strains

because Oaxaca retains the wealth of genetic varieties developed

during 5500 years of indigenous corn cultivation. Scientists now

say that aggressive forms of GE corn, let loose in Oaxaca, may

drive native species to extinction, causing the loss of

irreplaceable cultivars.

 

It is unclear whether the GE corn was carried deep into Mexico

by birds, or was intentionally spread there by corporations or

governments promoting GE crops.

 

All genetically engineered varieties of corn are owned and

patented by transnational corporations. The only legal way to

acquire such seeds is to purchase them from the corporation

holding the patent. Such patents are called " intellectual

property " and their enforcement under international law has been

a major goal of " free trade " agreements in recent years. The

World Trade Organization (WTO) contains strict protections for

Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs), and patented

forms of life, such as GE crops, are explicitly covered by

TRIPs.

 

Under WTO rules, national governments are required to protect

the intellectual property rights of corporations. In the U.S.

and Canada, farmers have complained that they have become

victims of gene drift, or genetic pollution, as GE crops have

drifted across property lines, contaminating non-GE crops with

patented GE varieties. Genetic drift of GE crops to non-GE

fields has, in fact, been well documented and even the GE

corporations and their regulators in government acknowledge that

it is a serious problem. Now, however, Monsanto, a leading

supplier of GE seeds, has cleverly turned the tables on the

alleged victims of genetic pollution by suing them for stealing

Monsanto's patented genes. In the first case that came to trial,

in Canada in 2001, Monsanto sued Percy Schmeiser, an organic

farmer who complained of genetic pollution. Monsanto said that

after 40 years of growing crops organically, Mr. Schmeiser had a

change of heart and decided to raise a genetically-engineered

crop by stealing Monsanto's patented genes. Monsanto won and

Schmeiser must pay. With this important victory in the bank,

Monsanto now has similar lawsuits pending against farmers in

North Dakota, South Dakota, Indiana, and Louisiana.[2] Thus

farmers that fall victim to genetic pollution may find

themselves sued for violating the intellectual property rights

of a corporation and be forced to compensate the genetic

polluter.

 

The purpose of patenting seeds is to prevent seed saving -- the

ancient indigenous practice of keeping seeds from this year's

crop to grow next year's crop. Farmers who purchase GE seeds

sign contracts requiring -- under penalty of law -- that they

not save seed from one crop to the next. Thus farmers who employ

GE seeds must purchase new seed year after year, making them

dependent upon whatever transnational corporation owns the

patent. Farmers who can't afford to buy seed each year will

simply not be allowed to grow a crop. In free-market societies,

such displaced farmers are free to move to a city where they are

free to be unemployed.

 

Today's GE crops can't guarantee that farmers won't save seeds.

Corporations intent on preventing seed-saving must hire agents

to travel from farm to farm, reporting any unlicensed crops.

Such monitoring is expensive.

 

To avoid the need for monitoring, and to gain 100 percent

control over farmers, the GE corporations have developed a new

technology -- terminator genes. Terminator genes prevent a crop

from reproducing itself unless certain " protector " chemicals are

applied to the crop. Any farmer using terminator seeds must buy

the " protector " chemicals each year. As terminator technology

spreads around the world, it will end indigenous agriculture,

and much biodiversity as well. An estimated 1.4 billion

indigenous people currently grow their own crops for

subsistence, worldwide.[3] In many instances, their land is

being eyed for corporate " development " and GE crop technology

offers a legal way to separate indigenous people from their

land.

 

The ETC Group (www.etcgroup.org) of Winnipeg, Canada, revealed

last week that two of the world's largest genetic engineering

firms -- DuPont and Syngenta (formerly Astrazeneca) -- during

2001 were awarded new patents on " terminator " seeds, engineered

for sterility. In 1999, Syngenta's (then Astrazeneca's) Research

and Development Director claimed that all work on terminator

technology had ceased in 1992, but the ETC Group found that the was either mistaken or dissembling: Syngenta's latest

terminator patent was applied for March 22, 1997 and awarded May

8, 2001.

 

" Terminator [technology] is a real and present danger for

global food security and biodiversity -- governments and civil

society cannot afford to let 'suicide seeds' slip beneath their

radar, " said Hope Shand, Research Director of the ETC Group.[4]

 

Despite the grim social consequences that seem likely to follow

the widespread adoption of genetically engineered crops, few

scientists have questioned the safety of the technology itself.

The major GE corporations have insisted for 15 years that their

technology is thoroughly understood, reliable, and safe, and

government regulators have agreed (or at least remained silent).

 

Now a new report, released this month, asserts that the

scientific theory underpinning the genetic engineering industry

is dangerously outdated and wrong.[5] The new report, by Dr.

Barry Commoner of Queens College, City University of New York,

says, " The genetically engineered crops now being grown

represent a massive uncontrolled experiment whose outcome is

inherently unpredictable. The results could be catastrophic, "

the report says.

 

At present, 68 percent of U.S. soybean acreage, 26 percent of

our corn acreage, and more than 69 percent of our cotton acreage

have been genetically engineered. " [A] ny artificially altered

genetic system, given the magnitude of our ignorance, must

sooner or later give rise to unintended, potentially disastrous,

consequences, " says the new report.

 

The safety assurances of the genetic engineering industry are

based on the scientific premise that one gene controls one

characteristic. If this is true, then removing a gene from one

species and inserting it into a new species will give the new

species one new characteristic, no more and no less.

 

Unfortunately the theory that a single gene controls a single

characteristic, while it may have seemed true 40 years ago, is

known to be wrong today:

 

1) Genes are composed of segments of DNA, a long molecule coiled

up within each cell's nucleus.

 

2) The 40-year old theory (developed by Francis Crick, who, with

James Watson, discovered DNA in 1953), says that DNA strictly

controls the production of RNA which in turn strictly controls

the creation of proteins which give rise to specific inherited

characteristics. Because DNA is the same in all creatures, this

theory says that a gene will produce a particular protein (and a

particular characteristic) no matter what species it finds

itself in -- thus making it possible for the genetic engineering

corporations to claim that inserting genes from one species to

another will not lead to any surprises or dangerous side

effects.

 

3) It was -- of all things -- the Human Genome Project that

revealed most starkly that Crick's theory was wrong. There are

about 100,000 different proteins in a human and, if Crick were

right, there should be 100,000 genes to produce these proteins.

However, the Human Genome Project announced last February that

humans have only about 30,000 genes. (See many articles in

SCIENCE Feb. 16, 2001.) Thus there must be something more than

mere genes controlling the development of proteins and the

resulting characteristics.

 

4) Actually, scientists had known for many years (since 1981 in

the case of human genes) that after DNA creates RNA, the RNA can

split into several parts, giving rise to several different

proteins and several different characteristics. This is called

" alternative splicing. " By 1989 more than 200 scientific papers

had been published describing alternative splicing.

 

5) As cells split and reproduce themselves, their DNA molecule

also reproduces itself, but sometimes errors occur in in DNA

reproduction. Special proteins repair these errors of

reproduction, so genetic inheritance is not simply a matter of

genes -- it's a matter of interaction between genes and repair

proteins. Will these complex interactions always work reliably

and identically when a gene is placed into the entirely new

environment of a different species?

 

6) Proteins function as they do because of two characteristics:

they have a specific chemical (molecular) make-up, and they are

physically folded into a particular shape. The Crick theory

assumes that a particular gene always gives rise to a single

protein that is chemically identical and is identically folded.

However, scientists now know that proteins get folded in a

particular way by the presence of additional " chaperone "

proteins. More protein-gene interactions.

 

7) Furthermore, during the 1980s, in searching for the causes of

fatal " mad cow " disease, scientists made the startling discovery

that some proteins can reproduce themselves without involving

any DNA whatever -- an impossibility according to the Crick

theory. These proteins are now called " prions " and, as Dr.

Commoner points out, they reveal that processes far removed from

the Crick theory are at work in molecular genetics and can give

rise to fatal disease.

 

Thus the basic theory underlying genetic engineering of crops is

quite wrong. Single genes are important, but they do not

invariably give rise to a single characteristic in an organism.

A gene's action is modified by alternative splicing, by proteins

that repair errors in reproduction, and by the chaperones that

fold the final protein into its active shape. In nature, such a

system works reliably within a species because it has been

tested and refined for thousands of years. But when a single

gene is removed from its familiar surroundings and transplanted

into an alien species, the new host's system is likely to be

" disrupted in unspecified, imprecise, and inherently

unpredictable ways, " the Commoner report concludes. In practice

these disruptions are revealed by the vast number of failures

that occur whenever a gene transplant is attempted.

 

Most ominously, the report points out, Monsanto Corporation

acknowledged in 2000 that its genetically modified soybeans

contained some extra fragments of a transferred gene. Despite

this, the company announced that it expected " no new proteins "

to appear in the GE soybeans. Then during 2001, Belgian

researchers announced that the soybean's own DNA had been

scrambled during the insertion of the new gene. " The abnormal

DNA was large enough to produce a new protein, a potentially

harmful protein, " Dr. Commoner concludes.

 

Thus genetically engineered crops threaten not only the

agricultural systems and the cultural survival of all indigenous

people, but also the food security and safety of all people

everywhere.

 

==========

 

[1] Carol Kaesuk Yoon, " Genetic Modification Taints Corn in

Mexico, " NEW YORK TIMES October 2, 2001, pg. unknown. Available

at www.nytimes.com for a fee.

 

[2] David R. Moeller, GMO LIABILITY THREATS FOR FARMERS (St.

Paul, Minn.: Farmers' Legal Action Group, Inc., November 2001).

Available in PDF format at www.iatp.org.

 

[3] Pat Roy Mooney, THE ETC CENTURY; EROSION, TECHNOLOGICAL

TRANSFORMATION, AND CORPORATE CONCENTRATION IN THE 21ST CENTURY

(Winnipeg, Canada: The ETC Group, 2001); available in PDF: http://-

www.rafi.org/documents/other_etccentury.pdf. The ETC Group

(formerly RAFI, the Rural Advancement Foundation International)

can be reached at 478 River Avenue, Suite 200, Winnipeg, MB R3L

0C8 Canada; Tel: (204) 453-5259, Fax: (204) 284-7871. This

report is " MUST READ " for all activists.

 

[4] News Release: " Sterile Harvest:New Crop of Terminator Patents

Threatens Food Sovereignty, " January 31, 2002. Available in PDF:

http://www.etcgroup.org/documents/new_termpatent_jan2002.pdf

 

[5] Barry Commoner, " Unraveling the DNA Myth, " HARPER'S MAGAZINE

(February 2002), pgs. 39-47.