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A genetically modified food is a food product containing some quantity of any genetically modified organism (GMO) as an ingredient.

Some nations have very strong disagreement over genetically modified organisms. For example, the European Union and Japan have enacted labelling and traceability requirements for GM food products, while the United States does not believe these requirements are necessary.

Contents [hide] 1 Background 1.1 History 1.2 Challenge of Penetrating Communications Barriers 1.3 Controversies over risks 1.4 Public reaction 1.5 Application 1.6 Future applications 2 Policy around the world 2.1 United States 2.2 European Union 2.2.1 EU regulation 2.3 Japan 2.4 Canada 2.5 China and other developing countries 3 See also 4 References 5 External links 5.1 News/commentary

 

Background

Although "biotechnology" and "genetic modification" commonly are used interchangeably, GM is a special set of technologies that alter the genetic makeup of such living organisms as animals, plants, or bacteria. Biotechnology, a more general term, refers to using living organisms or their components, such as enzymes, to make products that include wine, cheese, beer, and yogurt. Combining genes from different organisms is known as recombinant DNA technology, and the resulting organism is said to be "genetically modified," "genetically engineered," or "transgenic." GM products (current or in the pipeline) include medicines and vaccines, foods and food ingredients, feeds, and fibers.

Locating genes for important traits—such as those conferring insect resistance or desired nutrients—is one of the most limiting steps in the process. However, genome sequencing and discovery programs for hundreds of different organisms are generating detailed maps along with data-analyzing technologies to understand and use them.

 

History

The first commercially grown genetically modified food crop was a tomato created by Calgene called the FlavrSavr. Calgene submitted it to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for testing in 1992; following the FDA's determination that the FlavrSavr was, in fact, a tomato, did not constitute a health hazard, and did not need to be labeled to indicate it was genetically modified, Calgene released it into the market in 1994, where it met with little public comment. Considered to have a poor flavor, it never sold well and was off the market by 1997.

Subsequent genetically modified food crops included virus-resistant squash, a potato variant that included an organic pesticide that kills caterpillars, named after the bacterium that produces it, Bt (NB: the US Environmental Protection Agency classified the Bt potato as a pesticide, but required no labeling), strains of canola, soybean, corn and cotton engineered by Monsanto to be immune to their popular herbicide Roundup, and Bt corn.

There was a brief interlude where Monsanto flirted with introducing a technology called terminator into food crops, which produced plants that grew sterile seeds. The so-called "terminator" gene technology was developed by Delta and Pine Land and the USDA, who co-owned the patent. The purpose of the terminator gene is to prevent the escape of genetically modified traits into wild-type species by sterilizing any resultant hy-brids. The terminator gene technology created a backlash amongst those who felt the technology would prevent re-use of seed in the developing world and was merely a means to protect intellectual property rights. Use of the terminator technology would also prevent "volunteers", or crops that grow from unharvested seed, a major concern that arose during the Starlink debacle.

 

Challenge of Penetrating Communications Barriers

It is very difficult to present to mainstream audiences a counterpoint to what the industry is doing. For example, with over 50M USD invested by Syngenta at the University of Berkley's biology department, and with several decision-making committees having two out of five seats controlled by Syngenta employees, professors opposing the technology feel threatened. There is even a web site for American professors saying they are being refused tenure for anti-GMO views.

Another example comes from documentarist, Adriano Sverko, creator of "My Kitchen Is Not Your Lab." Independent Labs designed to test for GMOs, using the most up-to-date testing equipment, in two separate cases (Fairfield, Iowa and Budapest, Hungary), refused to invite cameras into their lab testing sites. Publicizing the testing labs could make people feel safer and at-ease, since, a few hundred dollars is sufficient to test any food. Conversely, however, testing can inspire individuals to take action against the products that they are traditionally most loyal to. Independent testing labs are afraid to publicize themselves, fearing that various interest groups might accuse them of being partisan.

A simple observation from New Zealand's Member of Parliament, Susan Kedgley, has yet to circulate in the American popular press: "It is interesting to have a food that is so unique you are able to take out a patent on it, yet in regulatory regimes, it is treated as essentially the same as a conventional food."

 

Controversies over risks

In August 1998 widespread concern, especially in Europe, was sparked by remarks by a leading GM researcher (with 270 published scientific papers to his name), Dr Arpad Pusztai, regarding some of his research into the safety of GM food. In his experiments, rats fed on genetically modified potatoes had suffered serious damage to their immune systems and shown stunted growth. He was vilified by leading British politicians, other scientists and by the GM companies, not least because his remarks, in a television interview, preceded the scientific publication of his results. Neither his eminence in the field nor his previous enthusiastic support for GM food were enough to save his career. Dr Pusztai was forced into retirement and his research suspended, whilst the British government blocked efforts to repeat his experiments which would have proved or disproved his claims. In May 2005, a leaked report from Monsanto showed that some of its own experiments were raising doubts over the safety of GM food, and in particular seriously called into question the regulatory doctrine of substantial equivalence - that GM food with similar proteins and toxins is deemed no different than conventional food, without further investigation of the effects of any other differences. In Monsanto's research, rats fed on a diet rich in genetically modified corn developed abnormalities to internal organs and changes to their blood, raising fears that human health could be affected by eating GM food.

Whilst for many the safety of GM food for human consumption has yet to be demonstrated, the main public concerns have been over the environmental impacts of crops grown for food or for animal feed. In March 2005 these concerns were strengthened when the largest farm-scale trial comparing the biodiversity impact of GM crops with equivalent conventional crops found a significant negative impact on wildlife from GM.[1] In July 2005 it was reported that those same trials had seen a possible transfer of a herbicide-resistance gene from GM oilseed rape to a wild cousin, charlock, a possibility previously discounted by scientists as virtually impossible. Two other weeds (both wild turnips) were also found to be herbicide-resistant

 

Public reaction

Public outcry about the undue influence that the terminator gene (preventing plants from producing seeds) would give to Monsanto, particularly in less developed nations where seed saving is more common (in developed countries farmers usually tend to use the 1st generation seeds anyway), led to its withdrawal.

Awareness grew throughout the nineties and eventually produced a strong backlash against GM foods (discussed below), which were panned as "untested", "unlabeled" and "unsafe"; following this backlash, the International Rice Research Institute, with funding from the Rockefeller Foundation developed a strain of rice enriched with vitamin A through genetic modification, dubbed golden rice. Subsequently the biotech industry touted this as a boon to poor people suffering from Vitamin A deficiency, which can cause blindness. This was condemned by GM food opponents as a ploy and a public relations move. (See golden rice for more.)

The Sierra Club ran several advertising campaigns that dubbed the new technology "franken foods". A Sierra Club article in the New York Times in the late 1990s compared the use of plant retroviruses as transgenes in GMOs to HIV, also a retrovirus. No plant virus cross infects humans, nor are any plant viruses remotely related to HIV.

Many prominent environmental organizations, like Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace, currently consider the issue of the presence of GMOs in conventional food products to be a major issue - indeed Greenpeace has made it a centerpiece of their activism. In 2002, opponents placed a measure on the Oregon ballot that would have made that state the first to require labelling of GMO food. Greenpeace's activities are in spite of the views of founder Patrick Moore, who has championed the use of GMOs for food production in third world countries that are especially prone to drought and poor soil conditions. Complicating the issue, the majority of GM crops grown today are fed to animals, and many fear the indirect affects to human food production.

 

Application

Transgenic crops are grown commercially or in field trials in over 40 countries and on 6 continents. In 2000, about 109.2 million acres (442,000 km²) were planted with transgenic crops, the principal ones being herbicide- and insecticide-resistant soybeans, corn, cotton, and canola. Other crops grown commercially or field-tested are a sweet potato resistant to a US strain of a virus that affects one out of the more than 89 different varieties of sweet potato grown in Africa, rice with increased iron and vitamins, and a variety of plants able to survive extreme weather.

Between 1996 and 2002, the total surface area of land cultivated with GMOs has increased by a factor of thirty. Land producing GMO crops grew from 17,000 km² (4.2 million acres) in 1996 to 520,000 km² (128 million acres) in 2001. The value for 2002 was 145 million acres (587,000 km²) and for 2003 was 167 million acres (676,000 km²). Soybean crop represented 63% of total surface in 2001, maize 19%, cotton 13% and canola 5%. In 2004, the value was about 200 million acres (809,000 km²) of which 2/3 were in the United States.

Four countries represent 99% of total GM surface in 2001: United States (68%), Argentina (22%), Canada (6%) and China (3%). It is estimated that 70% of products on U.S. grocery shelves include GM products. In particular, Bt corn is widely grown, as are soybeans genetically designed to tolerate Monsanto's Roundup herbicide.

The US Agriculture Department estimated that 38 percent of the 79 million acres (320,000 km²) of corn planted in 2003 will be genetically engineered varieties as well as 80% of the 73.2 million acres (296,000 km²) soybeans. The Grocery Manufacturers of America estimate that 75% of all processed foods in the U.S. contain a GM ingredient.

 

Future applications

On the horizon are bananas that produce human vaccines against infectious diseases such as Hepatitis B; fish that mature more quickly; fruit and nut trees that yield years earlier, and plants that produce new plastics with unique properties. The next decade will see exponential progress in GM product development as researchers gain increasing and unprecedented access to genomic resources that are applicable to organisms beyond the scope of individual projects.

Technologies for genetically modifying (GM) foods offer dramatic promise for meeting some areas of greatest challenge for the 21st century. Like all new technologies, they also pose some risks, both known and unknown. Controversies surrounding GM foods and crops commonly focus on human and environmental safety, labeling and consumer choice, intellectual property rights, ethics, food security, poverty reduction, and environmental conservation (see below for a summary of "GM Foods: Benefits and Controversies").

 

Policy around the world

In 2000, countries that grew 99% of the global transgenic crops were the United States (68%), Argentina (23%), Canada (7%), and China (1%). Although growth is expected to plateau in industrialized countries, it is increasing in developing countries.

 

United States

In the United States, genetically modified food is widely available and accepted by consumers. The Food and Drug Administration assists companies in testing the safety of GM foods, but this process is voluntary. Labeling food as GM or non-GM is also voluntary. The USDA's office of the animal and plant health inspection service (APHIS) also regulates GM crops. Some environmentalist groups believe the U.S. should regulate GM food more closely, and have called for mandatory labeling and testing requirements. Although agribusinesses are not required to test the safety of GM foods any more than non-GM foods, they have a legal duty to ensure that all their products are safe for human consumption.

Interestingly, some Amish people have adopted GM crops, because they are more productive, allow for less intensive farming (less pesticides, etc.), and do not conflict with the Amish lifestyle. [2]

 

European Union

See also Trade war over genetically modified food

In Europe, a series of unrelated food crises during the 1990s (e.g. the BSE (or 'mad cow' disease) outbreaks and foot and mouth disease) have created consumer apprehension about food safety in general, and eroded the public trust in government oversight of the food industry. This has further fueled widespread public concern about GMOs, in terms of environmental protection (in particular biodiversity), health and safety of consumers and the right to make an informed choice. The apprehension might also be due to the perceived novelty of GM foods, as well as cultural factors relating to food. The mishandling of the BSE crisis has left some consumers unwilling to consider "science" to be a guarantee of quality.

European consumers are demanding that their "right to know" the content and origin of the food they consume be respected. In a context of local food surplus where current GM food has little added nutritional value, many European consumers are wondering why any risk should be taken. However, as a result of the high quantity of GMO crops, the presence of GM in imported food products (shipments of grain for food, feed and processing for example), is now thought inevitable and largely unavoidable, and usually not mentioned.

 

EU regulation

For these reasons, the marketing of GM food is regulated in a manner that helps to provide the necessary levels of safety, transparency and reassurance. At the beginning of the 2000's, European officials insisted that new regulations were needed to "restore consumer confidence" in the technology. These new regulations required strict labelling and traceability of all food and animal feed containing more than 0.5 % GM ingredients. Directives, such as directive 2001/18/EC, were designed to require authorisation for the placing on the market of GMO, in accordance with the precautionary principle. (see also Tax, tariff and trade).

One of the features of the European system is a comprehensive pre-market risk assessment, a system trying to provide means for products to be followed at each stage of their production and distribution, by both transmission of accurate information and labelling. This traceability is a means to implement post-market measures such as monitoring and withdrawals (recalls).
This system is not only limited to GMO products but should encompass any food product ultimately.

The original EU rules for labelling of GM products were limited to products where transformed DNA and/or transformed protein are detectable, not to products that have been produced from GMOs but no longer appears to contain modified DNA and/or proteins. New rules for tracebility and labelling which came into force in 2004 also require labelling of highly refined products made from GM indgredirents like oil and corn syrup, even though that the presence of recombinant DNA or protein cannot be proven. The labelling rules do not apply to products of microbial genetic engineering, so the cheese made with the help of GM-chymosin doesn't have to be labelled. Officials stress that while traceability facilitates the implementation of safety measures, where appropriate, it cannot and should not be considered as a safety measure.

In April 1998, a 5 year ban was pronounced on new genetically modified crops. At the end of 2002, European Union environment ministers agreed new controls on GMOs could eventually lead the 25-member bloc to reopen its markets to GM foods. European Union ministers agreed to new labelling controls for genetically modified goods which will have to carry a special harmless DNA sequence (a DNA code bar) identifying the origin of the crops, making it easier for regulators to spot contaminated crops, feed, or food, and enabling products to be withdrawn from the food chain should problems arise. A series of additional sequences of DNA with encrypted information about the company or what was done to the product could also be added to provide more data. (see Mandatory labelling).

See Trade war over genetically modified food for more details on disputes and more recent developments between the United States and the EU arising from EU position on genetically modified organisms.

 

Japan

Japan, like Europe, maintains labelling standards for GM food products. Japanese demand and assistance has led to a small effort to set up separate processing facility for non-GM soybeans in the U.S.

 

Canada

Labelling is currently not required for GM food products sold in Canada. In 2005, a standing committee began work in the province of Prince Edward Island to assess a proposal to ban the production of GM foods within the province.

 

China and other developing countries

China is currently a producer of GM cotton, research published in Science shows that Chinese farmers growing GM cotton use significantly less pesticides, reducing costs and improving farmer health. The Chinese government has also released safety certificates following field and laboratory testing allowing the cultivation of GM tomato, pimiento and a species of morning glory. Development of new GM crops for food is an active field of research in Chinese institutions.

In March 2002, China introduced biosafety rules that demanded strict labelling, extensive documentation and government approval for food shipments. Under these new rules, all soybean shipments from the United States were briefly interrupted until interim safety certificates could be acquired.

In 2004 the Chinese Ministry of Agriculture announced its intention to assess the safety of GM rice lines developed by Chinese institutions for insect, disease and herbicide resistance, with government approval the crops may be planted as soon as spring 2006.

Agriculture officials from developing and other economically disadvantaged nations are receiving training courses on GMO at the American Agriculture Department, with instruction in the WTO rules on GM products and benefits of biotechnology. U.S. industry groups are also providing "technical assistance" to fund initiatives that promote "science-based and transparent biotechnology regulations" in countries such as China.

 

See also

• Biogenetic Revolution
• Biosafety Protocol
• Conventional food
• Food monitoring
• Food withdrawal
• Organic food
• Pre-market risk assessment
• Tax, tariff and trade
• Substantial equivalence

 

References

• Huang, J. et al. 2002. Plant Biotechnology in China. Science 295:674-677.
• Niu, 2003. Caution in China over GM Crops. Science 299: 1013
• Lei, W. 2004. China Could Be First Nation to Approve Sale of GM Rice. Science 306:1458-1459.
• Robert Ali Brac De La PerriFre and Franck Seuret (2001), Brave New Seeds: The Threat of GM Crops to Farmers, Zed Books
• Stephen Nottingham (2003), Eat Your Genes: How Genetically Modified Food Is Entering Our Diet, Zed Books

 

News/commentary

• Geoffrey Lean, The Independent, 22 May 2005, "Revealed: health fears over secret study into GM food"
• Severin Carrell and Andy Rowell, The Independent, 22 May 2005, "When fed to rats it affected their kidneys and blood counts. So what might it do to humans? We think you should be told"
• Paul Brown and David Gow, The Guardian, March 22, 2005, "Damning verdict on GM crop:Final report on world's most comprehensive field trials says oil seed rape varieties would harm wildlife and environment"
• Zachary Makanya, Seedling, July 2004, "12 reasons for Africa to reject GM crops"