Read Part One of this interview
AM: Here’s a quote from your book: "An internal memo from FDA’s division of anti-infective drug products said that the benefit to be gained by the use of Kanamycin, that’s the antibiotic resistant marker in transgenic plants, is outweighed by the risk.” How are antibiotic resistant markers used and what are the risks?
Jeffrey: When you insert the genes through the gene gun method or by infecting it through bacteria, you don’t know which of the cells got the genes that you want to get into the DNA. You can’t look at a microscope and tell. So what they do is add an anti-biotic resistant marker gene along with your target transgene. The antibiotic resistant marker gene produces a protein, which confers invisibility to a particular antibiotic to the cell. So scientists will douse all of the cells with this particular antibiotic, killing all of them except the very few that ended up incorporating the transgene into their DNA where it’s being expressed. It’s only used for this one moment to select the transformed cells but it becomes cloned and reproduced into the millions of acres of plants and consumed by humans and animals.
Scientists are very concerned that antibiotic resistant genes will not only confer resistance to the target antibiotic, in this case Kanamycin, but also to a family of related antibiotics, thus accelerating the development of antibiotic resistant diseases around the world which renders our tools to protect against infectious diseases less effective and puts those who get sick at grave risk. The British Medical Association called for a moratorium on genetically engineered foods and called antibiotic resistant marker genes one of the reasons.
There are so many things that can go wrong. Consider the promoter. The promoter is the on-switch for the inserted transgene. The assumption, and a long list of assumptions were used, as the basis for safety claims, which have proven untrue, is that the promoter would only turn on the transgene to which it was attached. It turns out the promoter can switch on other genes down stream permanently 24-7 at high volume causing an overproduction of a potential carcinogen or anti-nutrient or allergen. Moreover, the promoter was found to transfer to human gut bacteria, meaning it might switch on a gene inside our bacteria at random causing who knows what. In fact the promoter might integrate into human DNA causing an overproduction of an unknown gene. This is another form of genetic roulette. Throwing a dart into the DNA and making changes that are not known or monitored.
AM: Doesn’t all of this really speak to the fact of how little is really understood about genetics.
Jeffrey: We are rewriting our understanding about the DNA every few months. It used to be that the vast stretches of the DNA that were not considered the coating regions, which is the genes were only comprised 1 to 3 percent of the DNA. The others were considered junk genes. Now they realize that those have a very important role to play. I was just read over the phone yesterday about someone from a biotech company commenting on the newly discovered importance of RNA that gets created from these non-coating regions. They become RNA but they don’t produce proteins. They were dismissed in the past, but now it’s clear that they have a regulatory function and the person made it clear that genetic engineering could disrupt this causing unpredicted changes.
No one has figured how this brilliantly complex molecule really creates an animal, plant, and human being with all of our complexity. There are so many levels of it that are yet to be understood. Last year an entirely new code was discovered in the DNA that had been overlooked. What wonders are yet to discover possible quantum, mechanical or field effects, or areas of science and biology that we have not understood? I asked a Monsanto scientist, “What happens if it turns out that the whole sequence of the DNA is important? What happens if by inserting these genes we’re disrupting a level that we have not yet understood?” He never answered my question. He just sat in silence and then he continued eating, and eventually came back to me and said, “Well, you know we need genetic engineering to feed the world.” And he was clearly sincere but he was clearly wrong. He had no concept of alternative methods and better methods for production and also he had no concept of the fact that hunger these days is not associated with overall production.
We have more food per person than anytime in human history. But there are more fundamental social and economic aspects that underlie poverty. So he had been somewhat brainwashed in believing he’s willing to risk the lives of people on the planet in order to save the lives of people on the planet.
There’s another Monsanto person I talked to, and he actually left Monsanto believing that their genetically engineered foods were unsafe and could cause a catastrophic problem. He said he joined the company because of what he had read in the words of Robert Shapiro, the CEO that was pushing GMO crops in a new employee orientation meeting in the headquarters of Monsanto. He mentioned how excited he was that they were creating products that could help the world, improve the cleanup and processing of waste and produce drugs in the fields. He was quoting Robert Shapiro. After the meeting a vice president pulled him aside and said, “What Robert Shapiro says is one thing. What we do is something else. We’re here to make money. We don’t even understand what he’s talking about.”
AM: The reality is that the biotech industry is at least 50 years ahead of themselves in terms of what they don’t know and what they are presently doing.
Jeffrey: I love the quote from Ignacio Chapela: Come back in 50 to 100 years after you’ve done your homework.
AM: You’ve talked about some of the events in the field. Please describe some of the more alarming studies in the labs.
Jeffrey: Sure. I want to talk about genetically engineered soybeans. We know that soon after the GM soy was introduced to the UK, soy allergies skyrocketed by 50 percent. And no follow up studies were done. We do know that the highly disruptive process of gene insertion caused big changes in the levels of various compounds produced in soy. Monsanto’s own study found seven times higher than normal levels of a known allergen, tripsen inhibitor, in cooked soy. Second, the protein that it produces which causes the soy beans to become herbicide tolerant, which means they don’t die when sprayed with Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide; the protein has sections that are identical to known allergens and may provoke an allergic response. According to WHO (World Health Organization) and FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization) criteria should’ve stopped the commercialization of Roundup Ready soybeans or at least prompted additional tests, which were never done. Third, there’s at least one study that showed an individual who had a skin prick reaction to genetically engineered soy and not to non-GMO soy. And the scientists identified a new unpredicted protein that had been created in the soy that also could bind with IGE, meaning it was potentially allergenic.
We also know that the use of Roundup herbicide increases dramatically on fields where Roundup Ready products are growing. As of 2004, it was estimated that farmers used 86 percent more Roundup on Roundup Ready soy fields. And the residues of the Roundup and their breakdown products, which accumulate in the plant, might also create food sensitive or allergic type reactions. And lastly, they analyzed the transgene in the crop, and it turns out that it wasn’t functioning properly, but instead of just transcribing a specific section, the stop signal didn’t work and it was transcribing a longer section of RNA than expected. That RNA became further processed into 4 different types, any one of which might create a new potentially allergenic or toxic protein.
Now having said that, let’s look at what the animal studies have found in relationship to feeding Roundup Ready soybeans. Mice that were fed GM soy had evidence of toxic reactions in their livers, reduced digestive enzymes in the pancreas, altered structures and function of the testicles. There were similarly altered enzymes in major organs of rabbits. But coming back to the testicles, there was alterations in the young sperm cells. And then they took the GM fed mice and mated them and looked into the embryos and found alterations in the expression of the DNA in the embryos compared to those whose parents were fed non-GM soy.
Then in the Russian National Academy of Sciences, they fed GM soy to female rats and then bred them and 56 percent of the off spring died within 3 weeks compared to 9 percent of the offspring of rats fed non-GM soy. The offspring were also on average much smaller, more aggressive and could not reproduce in a subsequent study. Although this was considered a small and preliminary study, the same Russian institute switched its source of rat feed to a source that was using genetically engineered soy. Within 2 months, all of the rats in the facility had an offspring mortality rate of over 50 percent, suggesting that this is a generic feature of GM soy in rats and it is unknown if it’s contributing to problems in humans.
AM: How does the public get the regulatory agencies to protect them instead of protecting the biotech industries?
Jeffrey: My book Genetic Roulette was designed in part for decision makers, at all levels, including policy makers. I gave the book to the Secretary of Agriculture and explained that he could just flip through the executive summaries on the left side of each of the 65 two-page spreads, each one dedicated to a different health risk or adverse finding of genetically foods and then could hand the book over to his staff to read the detailed side text on the right. I also used the book recently at my EPA testimony, gave it to a number of leaders on Capitol Hill. I leave next week to testify at the European Union. I will meet parliamentarians in England, Ireland, Poland and France and also will use it at a UN Conference. So I’m getting the information to individuals who have the ability to create legislation or to regulate.
However, I believe that the shortcut to ending genetic engineering of the food supply is in our hands directly. I take inspiration from the events in Europe. There was a controversy surrounding a UK government grant in which supposedly harmless genetically engineered potatoes caused massive damage in virtually every system studied. Potentially precancerous cell growth in the digestive tract, smaller brains, livers and testicles, partial atrophy of the liver, damaged immune system. When the scientist went public with his concern, he was fired from his job after 35 years, silenced with threats of a lawsuit. His 20 member research team was disbanded. And eventually when he was able to speak, it erupted into a full-scale media war exposing the health risks of GM crops to the public. The pushback by consumers was so considerable that within a couple of months Unilever, Britain’s largest food company, committed to remove genetically engineered ingredients from its European brands. Within a week nearly every major company followed suit.
Those same companies continue to sell GMO products in the United States where 60 percent of the population mistakenly believes they’ve never eaten a GMO food in their life. So what is the tipping point to cause these same companies to stampede away from GM? My belief is that if even 5 percent of U.S. consumers actively avoided GMO laden brands, it would be more than needed for the tipping point.
Jeffrey Smith is a leading spokesperson on the health dangers of genetically modified foods and the author Seeds of Deception: Exposing Industry and Government Lies about the Safety of the Genetically Engineered Foods You’re Eating; his latest book is Genetic Roulette: The Documented Health Risks of Genetically Modified Foods
