Well, genetic engineering requires all sorts of tools. There are the various parts of genes that you need, from the promoter sequence, to the terminator sequence, enhancers, repressors, not to mention the functional part of the gene itself. But then you also need the tools to get it into your target organism… and the list goes on. It takes time, research, and least of all piles of $$$ to get all these parts together to make it all work. It’s no small wonder that the only companies to successfully launch GE crops are the big ones.

But there’s a new field emerging that is much more demanding than splicing a few genes together – synthetic biology. Building new organisms means that an organismal toolkit will have to be put together. Preferably one that many people can use, free of patent restrictions that could hinder their use by academic labs and small startups. Something open-source…

The new effort, called the BIOFAB: International Open Facility Advancing Biotechnology (BIOFAB), aims to produce thousands of free, standardized DNA parts to shorten the development time and lower the cost of synthetic biology for academic or biotech laboratories. The BIOFAB has received two years of funding from the NSF and matching support from founding partners Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) and the BioBricks Foundation (BBF), a non-profit organization that supports and promotes the use of synthetic biology. (emphasis added)

Bio-Fabulous!

The chair of BIOFAB’s executive committee, Jay Keasling, is also familiar to some of us. Shortly after receiving a very nice humanitarian award, Frank was all over him to get a photo with him. (I tried to do a video interview but the camera ran out of battery power.)

Unfortunately, there is not much information on the BIOFAB website, so the article is all we have to go off of for now. I’m interested to see what comes out of this project in the future, and what happens when open-source GE goes mainstream!

“Terminator” technology, also referred to as “Suicide Seeds,” are marketing terms coined by GE opponents to reframe what is technically called Genetic Use Restriction Technology, or GURT. This technology can take several forms, the most widely discussed one was developed by scientists working at the USDA and the Delta and Land Pine company, which is now owned by Monsanto. It works by means of three engineered genes, that when brought together in one plant, they act in combination to halt the development of embryos in the seeds the plant produces. The result is a plant that produces food as normal, but does not produce fertile seeds.

For those that are interested in a full scientific explanation of the technology, you can read about it here. But in short, GURTs can be used by seed companies to protect their intellectual property by preventing farmers from saving and replanting their seeds, which has often led to several lawsuits, some high-profile. It has also been suggested that for some crops that do not get much attention from plant breeders, that it would provide an incentive for them to spend the time and money it takes to improve a crop, because they could guarantee being able to sell their seeds in the future.

The public reaction to GURTs has been to imagine that it will turn farmers into servants of the seed industry, completely dependent upon them for seed purchases year after year. It is assumed that no non-GURT seeds will be available, and that this technology will allow seed companies to tell farmers what to grow and at what price, tell people what to eat, and basically rule the world. Hyperbole aside, at the very least the worry is that it will make farmers unable to choose what to grow, or financially yoked to a large corporation. For small-scale farmers in developing countries, they worry that it will give those large companies the power to extract all the money they can, keeping them in an impoverished state.

The strong backlash against “Terminator” GURTs has likely contributed to Monsanto’s decision to pledge not to use GURTs in any of their seeds. They acquired the technology when they bought Delta and Land Pine in 2000, a cotton breeding company. Nevertheless, many people believe that GURTs are widespread in use, even Vandana Shiva seems to repeatedly indicate that she believes that Bt cotton seeds are sterile and cannot be regrown. (You would think that since preventing the use of GURTs in commercialized GE crops is regarded as a victory for GE opponents, that they would all be very conscious of its absence.)

How much of this opposition is based on legitimate fears, and how much does would it change seed buying/replanting practices on farms?

As I have said elsewhere, monopolistic control of food crops by a few companies does not sound very likely to me, since companies making GE crops are sprouting up around the world, and antitrust laws in this country and others. Not to mention that government agencies and nonprofit organizations are also working on GE crops for developed and developing countries alike. In the case of GE crops developed by companies, since they would have patents on their engineered traits, they would have the authority to require royalties for farmers to plant fields of those crops. Given that farmers today are not allowed to save GE soybeans and replant them without paying a fee to the seed company, the only difference in this situation with a GURT is that the control would be biological rather than legal.

Would it force farmers to buy seeds every year? The fact is, many farmers already rebuy seed every year. In the case of hybrid crops that have higher yields than open-pollinated varieties, the hybrid must be regenerated each year from two inbred parents (which are typically proprietary). The debate over seed saving was hashed out in the debates over hybrid corn in the 1900s, and the result is that the vast majority of corn grown are hybrids. The increase in yield and other beneficial traits outweighs the continual cost of buying the seed.

Indeed, as Raoul Adamchak explains in Tomorrow’s Table, even organic farmers often purchase new seeds every year. Whether it is an heirloom Brandywine tomato or a hybrid sweet corn, seeds bought from a company that specializes in seed production (and/or breeding) are often a good bet against a bad batch of seed. From page 133:

At reasonable prices it is easier to let the seed companies provide the seed. In addition, they generally do a better job of maintaining seed purity and quality. If hybrid prices get too high, growers can switch to [Open-Pollinated varieties] instead, and save seeds. This can be a difficult choice is a specific trait like disease resistance, size, or uniformity is needed. Yields may also be less.

Even if seed saving is possible to do, it is still economically preferrable to go with seed provided by professional seed-producing operations, aside from issues of variety and transgene patents. If the price of seed gets too high, whether genetically engineered or not, farmers will go back to other varieties that are better for their bottom line. The economics of the situation will drive farmers one direction or another. I’m no economist, but it seems that the economics of competition in the seed market will ensure that there are alternatives available, irrespective of the presence or absence of GURTs.

“Terminator’s” you Eat

There is a very widely used and accepted conventional analog of Terminator GURTs that most of us have eaten – they’re called Seedless Watermelons. These are generated by manipulating the number of chromosomes in watermelon cells to give them three copies of each chromosome instead of two. (For more on how this works, you can watch a video I made about it here.) The resulting “Triploid” Watermelons sponteneously abort their seeds, leaving a juicy, seedless fruit. The seeds have to be regenerated year after year from other plants, and farmers and consumers obviously cannot replant seeds that don’t even exist!

Ironically, while genetic engineering is not allowed in organic agriculture, Seedless watermelons are. Nevermind the fact that the chromosome numbers are artificially manipulated using chemicals – it appears that this early form of direct genetic manipulation has been grandfathered in.

My point in bringing up the seedless watermelon is this: It results in exactly the same thing as genetically engineered GURTs – and that is it effectively prevents the plant from generating fertile seeds. The argument is often made, most vociferously by Shiva, that GURTs are immoral because they interrupt the traditional practice of seed saving. Shiva and others must therefore agree that seedless watermelons are also immoral for the same reason. Why is there no call for a moratorium on seedless watermelons? Well, that would be the pits.

Anyone wonder where the seeds are in bananas? There’s another one for you. The bananas we eat are also triploid, and produce no seeds. Although you can grow new banana trees from cuttings, it doesn’t produce any seeds that you could plant. Is the cavendish banana immoral, too?

Neither of these were made with genetic engineering, which means that unless Shiva hasn’t heard of Bananas and Seedless Watermelons, that the objection is not based on its effects on seed saving but on something else.

Can you think of any more examples?

Spread of Sterility?

In the global discussion of GURTs, there is a widespread perception that the “Terminator” will get out and run rampant, killing off not only every native crop but also spreading into other species and wiping them out. This about this for a second, is it possible for sterility to spread?

Not by any genetic mechanism I am familiar with. The pollen grains from GURT crops that cross-pollinate with others will make a few sterile seeds that will not grow and so their genes will not make it to the next generation. So if you grew corn next to another farmer who grew corn with a GURT in it, some of the seeds from the edge of your field could have been pollenated by a few stray grains from your neighbor’s field. If you were growing an open-pollinated variety and saved seed from year to year, you would have a few seeds that wouldn’t grow – but only if you gathered them from the margins of your field (which is not a good idea anyway).

And as for GURTs spreading into other species sterilizing them – these claims are based on a basic misunderstanding of how evolution works. Genes spread when they provide a benefit to the organism, and sterility is the exact opposite of an advantage. Aside from the small increases that can be seen from genetic drift – a trait needs to help the plant survive and reproduce to sweep through a population, and sexual sterility by definition does not do that.

But take a look at what Vandana Shiva said on pages 82-83 of her book, Stolen Harvest:

Molecular biologists are currently examining the risk of the terminator function escaping the genome of the crops into which it has been intentionally incorporated and moving into surrounding open-pollinated crops or wild, related plants in nearby fields. Given nature’s incredible adaptability and the fact that the technology has never been tested on a large scale, the possibility that the terminator may spread to surrounding food crops or to the natural environment is a serious one. The gradual spread of sterility in seeding plants would result in a global catastrophe that could eventually wipe out higher life forms, including humans, from the planet.

It is ironic that Shiva often argues that genetic engineering and the “Terminator” violate evolution, when it is evolution that proves that her claims are unfounded.

It is possible that one of the three genes in the Delta and Pine-style GURT could mutate and not function anymore – so this style of GURT is not 100.00% fool-proof. However even in that case the remaining two functional genes would not spread sterility because you would need all three genes to bring about sterility. Still no scientific justification for Shiva’s declaration about ‘spreading sterility,’ however it is possible that a few transgenes of the other traits in the crop could still leak out on rare occasions.  At Genetic Maize Anastasia argues that a different style of GURT would be a better choice for preventing gene flow.

The prevention of gene flow is an interesting issue when it comes to GURTs. On one hand, companies want to make money selling their GE seeds and not have to chase patent infringers for saving their seeds. So the biological reification of the legal landscape seems to be what the opponents are the most afraid of. On the other hand, GURTs can be seen as a layer of protection for those who do not want to grow (or eat) genetically engineered crops.

My Mission is to Protect You

In the first Terminator film, Arnold Schwarzenegger played the enemy, a robot bent on terminating Sarah Connor before she could bear Humanity’s Last Hope. In the second film, the same Schwarzenegger instead played the part of the protector of Connor and her son. How can “Terminator” technology instead become a protector working for seed savers rather than against?

To explain this, let me turn to Jeremy at the Agricultural Biodiversity Weblog. Jeremy is not known for very glowing reviews of genetically engineered crops, although he has said that he tires of the same old pro-anti debate. But recently, he posted a very thoughtful rant on seed saving and GURTs:

When are the knee-jerk opponents of genetically modified crops going to realize that genetic use restriction technologies (GURTs) are their friends?¹

(…)

GURTs thus stop any characters bred into a GMO from being transferred into another variety of the same crop and into the crop’s wild relatives.

So, IIED, remind me, please: why is that a bad thing?

Does it stop the farmer saving seeds? On the contrary, it makes life easier, because the farmer does not have to worry about genetic pollution. She can, of course, still take advantage of good pollution, or introgression, if she wants to.

Does it stop her using farm-saved seed? No, how could it, when any polluted seeds are going to fail to grow. It makes using the farm-saved seed more secure.

Can she still exchange and sell farm-saved seed? You bet, and not only that, but her customers and swap-partners will be grateful that her seeds cannot possibly be polluted.

Opponents of GURTs seem to think that massive influxes of foreign pollen are the norm. They’re not. And I certainly wouldn’t want to accept, even as a gift, seed from someone who knew so little about farming and seed saving that they couldn’t even maintain their own varieties. Cross pollination from a different field is a fascinating and rare source of diversity in farmers’ fields, not the norm. GURTs pose absolutely no threat to farm-saved seed. In fact, I believe that they can enhance genetic diversity (by maintaining the separation between varieties), improve seed quality (for the same reasons) and have no impact at all on the livelihoods of poor farmers.

So you can easily see that GE crops with GURTs in them can instead be used to protect non-GE crops from cross-pollination. Indeed, as many opponents of GE crops argue that farmers are afraid of getting sued for cross-pollination, this fear would be all but eliminated if they were using GURTs. Percy Schmeiser would have remained an obscure canola farmer in Canada. He wouldn’t have been able to spray his fields and collect herbicide-tolerant canola seeds for replanting, and he couldn’t have gotten sued.

There’s something else to think about when it comes to opponents of genetic engineering. Often, the argument is made that GE crops cannot be grown unless there is a 0% risk of affecting the environment, organic farms, etc. Zero percent risk does not exist anywhere in the Universe, but this is as close as it comes. Essentially, the most hardcore anti-GE voices out there are asking for GURTs, whether or not they are aware of it. The more you demand absolute exclusion of cross-pollination in biosafety regulations, the more incentive you are giving biotech companies to develop terminator technologies. If you really cannot stomach GURTs, then maybe pushing a little less hard on absolute separation would be tactically smarter (just a little advice).

GURTs are not opposed for scientific reasons – the pseudo-biological reasons given by Shiva et al are a scientific veneer on what is really an economic argument. They fear consolidation of the seed market and corporate control of the food supply. But as Jeremy has demonstrated, the seed-saving diva Shiva might find GURTs to be her best ally in keeping a GE-free farm-saved seed supply in circulation amongst poor farmers. If a GURT can prevent the flow of patented transgenes into openly-traded seed supplies, it would instead be a A T-101 working to protect her effort from Monsanto’s T-1000. Ironic, isn’t it?

I’m not advocating the use of GURTs, lest anybody misunderstand me. (Although I could form a cogent argument in favor of GURTs in pharma-crops.) But there is more to this trait than meets the eye, and I think that it has become a lightning-rod issue that is less clear-cut than its opponents make it out to be. The Terminator can be sent to kill, but it can also be sent to protect. Discussions about the use of technology so often hinge on these kinds of dualities, which is why we need to discuss these things in a more sensible (and scientific) fashion.

I’ll leave you with Jeremy’s dynamite conclusion.

I hold no brief for or against GMOs, though I do think they have yet to prove themselves in the areas where they make the loudest claims. This is not about GMOs. It is about honesty. Any opponent of GMOs, however good the rest of their arguments might be, immediately loses my respect if they are also against GURTs.

*Arnold voice*: “Respect Terminated.”

A couple things to note about the video – Cramer repeats the claim that Monsanto has raised its prices by 42% without finding out that it was based on a misunderstanding. The article it was based on was comparing an older variety of GE soybeans to a newer one with different breeding and different transgenic traits. But many took it to be a sign that the big bad gene giant was accelerating the prices of the same old seeds. You can read more about it at Looking Beyond the Headline at the Monsanto blog.

To put it another way, I have Windows XP Home edition on my computer, but there is the newer Windows Vista to consider as well. If I was buying a new computer right now, the price of XP would start at $79 according to a google price search I just did. Vista would begin at $107 for the home edition. This is a 35% increase… does it mean that Microsoft is jacking up its Windows prices? If you ask Microsoft, Vista is a superior product (although opinions differ on that estimation). The newer varieties of seeds are supposed to be worth more to the farmers in terms of yield and savings on input and labor costs, thus the seed companies can charge more and the farmers will buy them. The previous version of the seeds have not changed very much in terms of price from year to year.

So it weakens Jim Cramer’s argument that this price increase is challenging the feds to go after them with anti-trust action. (Far be it for me to suggest that the government might be better at research than Mad Cramer, and would probably not make the same mistake.) Still, there is the potential for this to occur. In 2003, antitrust investigators requested information from Monsanto with regard to the herbicide industry, and I don’t recall anything tangible coming out of that. (correct me if you find anything) Then again, it was under a previous administration, so the Obama Administration could be looking for a more independent feel for the state of competitiveness in agriculture.

As Cramer mentioned in his segment, antritrust regulators announced their plan to investigate agriculture in Monsanto’s home-town of St. Louis, which many take to be a clear sign of a challenge toward the Bt Behemoth, so I guess we’ll have to wait and see what comes of this.

I wanted to make a brief comment about one of the claims that floats around in the statements of the opponents to genetic engineering, and that is the notion that seed companies are trying to “control the food supply,” and by extension, rule the world. The very existence of anti-trust laws in this and other countries precludes that from happeninig, and it would be interesting to see if there is some action taken to try to split up Monsanto like what was tried with Microsoft. I do have a thought on an analogy between the Windows anti-trust issue and the seed company contracts, but I’ll need to do a little more research to be able to flesh it out.

But here’s my last point to make on the issue of ‘ruling the world’ through GE crops. The more regulatory hurdles you throw at the technology, the more you concentrate its use in the hands of the largest companies. If you want there to be other companies, governments, university programs, etc, to be making GE crops that will compete against the seed companies that exist today, it has to be economically feasible for those organizations to be able to get through the regulatory process. In a bizarre irony, organizations such as Greenpeace that want to get rid of genetic engineering because they believe it will force a corporate monopoly – might actually be helping that come to pass because they are trying to make it harder for anyone to produce and approve a genetically engineered crop. So only ones who could afford to do it in a Greenpeace regulatory dream-world will be Monsanto… and probably China.

Wouldn’t it be weird if they were actually working for them?

Most Europeans don’t consider themselves to be anti-science or particularly technophobic. In fact, Europe’s full embrace of the scientific consensus on another environmental issue, global warming, has enabled the continent to take the clear lead on climate change, with the most ambitious emissions targets, the first carbon trading market, and the greenest urban infrastructure plans on the planet.

Europe’s scientific disconnect is more broadly true of eco-minded citizens worldwide: They laud the likes of James Hansen and Rajendra Pachauri but shrink in horror at the scientist who offers up a Bt corn plant (even though numerous studies indicate that Bt crops—by dramatically curbing pesticide use—conserve biodiversity on farms and reduce chemical-related sickness among farmers).

So why the disconnect? Why do many environmentalists trust science when it comes to climate change but not when it comes to genetic engineering? Is the fear really about the technology itself or is it a mistrust of big agribusiness?

Contributing their views (in order) are Pam Ronald, Raj Patel, Nina Fedoroff, and Noel Kingsbury. Read the article, I’ll offer a few opinions about it after the jump.

In my humble opinion, the opposition is chiefly due to anti-corporate sentiments, some of which are not entirely unfounded. The conflict of interest of making a product and simultaneously ensuring its safety does not go unnoticed – that is why we have government regulators at the EPA, FDA, and USDA. Other nations around the world have set up their own governmental oversight and have come to the same conclusions as in the U.S., and the article does not mention that the European Union has approved several GE crops, while individual nations are sketchy about them. Germany seems to be having a particularly harsh case of food fears, and have gone after public research into the technology as well.

My first complaint about a contribution to the article was when Raj Patel said,

This points to my concerns about the state of scientific debate. The direction of research priorities in agriculture is predominantly shaped not by the relative merit of different technologies, but rather the research priorities of the private sector. The largest publicly funded examination of genetically engineered agriculture—the UK government’s field trials—found GM crops inferior to conventional agriculture in most respects. But conventional and GM agriculture are not the only two comparison points.

First, it is frustrating when people do not give any specific details about when studies were conducted, by whom, and where they were published. It makes it difficult to look up the precise details to verify whether they are accurately reporting the results. Several anti-GE groups have put up position statements about these field trials, which seem to have been completed in 2002-03 and declared the GE crops to be a failure. The Naked Scientists podcast, however, tells more about the story:

After a three years of farm-scale trials looking at the environmental impact of GM crops the results are finally out this week. These were the biggest trials carried out anywhere in the world, showing just how concerned the government are that they get enough information to make a decision about whether Britain should adopt the new technology. The trials were looking at three different crops, sugar beet, maize and oilseed rape- all of which had been genetically modified to be resistant to particular herbicides (chemicals that kill weeds). The idea behind the crops is that farmers will be able to treat fields less frequently with weedkillers, as the treatments will be more effective and only target the weeds without damaging the crops. This would save time and money, as well as reducing the amount of chemicals farmers are using in total.

But the fields trials suggest that at least two out of the three GM crops, beet and oilseed rape, had a harmful impact on the environment in and around the fields where they were grown. This included a decrease in the number of bees and butterflies, as well as a reduction in the number of wild plant seeds available to feed animals like birds. But they did find more soil insects present in the fields sown with the GM beet and oilseed rape, which may be because herbicides were used less often. There was good news for fans of GM technology as well- GM maize was found to be better for wild plants, animals and insects than normal maize. It’s important to point out that these effects on the local wildlife are nothing to do with the actual genetic modification of the plants, but more to do with the levels and types of weedkillers used by the farmers, as well as how often they treated their fields. (emphasis added)

Reductions in insect life that depend upon weeds growing in your fields are going to be fewer when you are controlling the weeds. Interestingly, in the case of herbicide-tolerant beets, it was later discovered that if you strip-sprayed your field of GE beets, it actually provided MORE plants for insect life, without damaging the crop. This is one of the things that happens when you rely on older results. (Here is a link to another option for providing food for wildlife.)

It is good to note that biased reporting of results is going on here. In this field trial (assuming I have found the correct one), they also reported that soil insects were increased in the same fields. They also concluded that the GE Bt maize was better for the environment than the conventional counterpart, mostly because it reduced pesticide sprays.

Next, I would like to comment on Nina Fedoroff’s contribution. She co-wrote Mendel in the Kitchen, which is an excellent book that I highly recommend. In this article, she was straight to the point, accessible, and talked about the way people’s attention spans (including the media) cause facts to be ignored and trumpted stories to be preferred instead. But it may be that Fedoroff is committing a similar sort of error.

With a computer and bit of effort, almost anyone can extract the facts from the gloom and catastrophism. Fact: Modern genetic modification of crops is responsible for most of the crop yield increases of recent years. This means, of course, that the farmers who’ve adopted GM crops have benefited the most.

There have been yield gains in Bt cotton, Bt corn, and with soybean farmers elsewhere in the world that have been able to fit a second soy crop into the same year due to GE technology, however I take issue with her potential mis-statement that genetic modification is responsible for most of the yield increases in recent years. Breeding still provides a large part of yield improvements, which is ongoing, especially for those breeders utilizing marker-assisted or “precision” breeding. The reason why I characterize it as a potential mis-statement is that I know that Fedoroff calls breeding genetic modification. (It is) If she meant that genetic engineering contributed most of the yield gains I would probably disagree, but if she meant all forms of genetic modification then I think she could have been more clear in her statement.

Next, I would like to address a couple of Tom Philpott’s claims. He points out that the kind of consensus that has formed around climate science amongst climate scientists is stronger than the consensus that has formed around GE crops, and I agree with that for the most part. There is a good consensus amongst plant scientists on the subject and some environmentalists, but not all other branches of science fully agree.

The real question becomes: How can serious publications like Seed claim that skepticism toward GMOs reflects a “scientific flip-flop”? To be sure, the illusion of a broad consensus holds sway in the United States, and the IAASTD has clearly failed to correct it. The US media greeted its release with near-complete silence—in stark contrast to its reception in the European media.

The possibility that the IAASTD’s statements about genetic engineering might be symptomatic of this dissonance doesn’t seem to occur to him. There’s a lot of politics involved, for example, the US government was very resistant to climate change agreements under Bush’s presidency, which has quickly turned around now that Obama is in office. The U.S.’s position on GE crops seems not to have changed (and indeed, has been repeatedly emphasized). Could that not be more parsimoniously explained by political opposition to GE crops from people (and even scientists) outside the U.S.? I would like to note that the EU is moving toward growing GE crops steadily year by year.

Next, Philpott brings up a report written by Don Lotter, attempting to explain the pursuit of GE crops in terms of mere economics and politics without the strength of scientific evidence. I have already begun reading the report, and without going into too much detail at this time, its conclusions and analysis are problematic. For example, some major claims are made that do not correspond to the references cited. I will provide more details in another post, but I think referring to a paper with more scholarly rigor would bemore appropriate.

Philpott brings up the multi-generational Austrian feeding ‘study.’

When there have been long-term trials by independent researchers, the results have hardly been comforting.

For example, writes Lotter:

In a 2008 report (Velimirov et al., 2008) of research commissioned by the Austrian government, a long-term animal feeding experiment showed significant reproductive problems in transgenic corn-fed rats when all groups were subject to multiple birth cycles, a regimen that has not hitherto been examined in feeding studies comparing transgenic and non-transgenic foods.

Thus in the first-ever multi-generational study of the effects of GMO food, evidence of serious reproductive trouble comes to light: reduced birth weight and fertility.

As detailed here, this study was raising its mice under poor conditions. How do we know? They fed GE maize and non-GE maize to two groups, the experimental group and the control, and allowed them to breed for several generations. For a properly conducted feeding study, they should have had a very low mortality rate in the control group – about 1%. But as the study authors reported, they lost an average of 8% of their control mice. This means that the mice were living in poor conditions, and is seriously calls into question any conclusions that could be drawn from it. And if you take a look at the average pup losses per generation, you’ll notice something odd:

The curious incidence of silence about mistreated animals

Notice the high numbers of mouse pup losses in the control (ISO), and low losses in the transgenic? The GE-fed mice survived better, yet this is not mentioned anywhere. And the European media is silent on this… the argument goes both ways.

It is also exceedingly important to note that this study was not peer-reviewed – and I daresay it would not have survived even the most lax of scientific journal reviews. David Tribe has posted more about the study and its problems. We need to base our opinions on the best available evidence from reliable studies published in peer-reviewed scientific journals. As Nina Fedoroff said, anyone with a computer can find out this information. Why hasn’t Tom?

Curiously, after claiming that this study was independent, Tom Philpott then ‘flip-flops’ and supports the notion that no truly independent study exists.

A group of 23 US scientists signed a letter to the EPA declaring that, “No truly independent research [on GMOs] can be legally conducted on many critical questions.”

Which one is it?

I would like to note that intellectual property issues when it comes to public research are in issue that needs to be addressed.

Noel Kingsbury, whose book Hybrid, the history and science of plant breeding comes out later this year, closes the deal:

The fact is that the scientific case against GM is pretty threadbare. It is far more precise and predictable than some of the most important breeding technologies of the last 50 years. If you get hot under the collar about GM, why not the far more frightening “radiation breeding”? Mention that to most anti-GM activists and they look puzzled. Radiation breeding involves zapping seeds or cuttings with radiation, or treating plant material with gene-altering chemicals. Many countries in the 1960s invested in “radiation fields” where trees were grown behind big earthen dykes so that they would be permanently irradiated. The goal: obtaining mutations that might be useful, as one in several tens of thousands was. The first radiation-bred rice was sold as “Nuclear Rice” in Hungary in the mid-1950s. Imagine marketing that today! Radiation breeding is unpredictable, uncertain in its results, and causes widespread genome damage. But no one has ever suggested that it has ever done any harm! Much Italian pasta has been grown with an irradiated durum wheat. Nearly all Asian pears are the offspring of irradiated grafts. And—get this— much European organic beer is brewed from radiation-bred barley! No one complains or protests. Wake up! Be realistic! Why get so excited by GM?

GM crops must be looked at and judged variety by variety. The first generation Roundup^™ varieties are giving way to second generation crops with some highly valuable characteristics, like resistance to pests (thousands of deaths by pesticide poisoning have already been avoided by Chinese and Indian caterpillar-proof cotton) and drought-tolerance. Once we start to see soy with omega-3s or nutrient-enhanced tomatoes, attitudes will surely start to change.

World population is increasing, arable land availability is decreasing, and water resources are shrinking. We need every technology possible to increase yields, reduce toxic pesticide use, improve nutritional value, and feed the world. The European and Indian opposition to GM is rooted in a hopelessly romantic view of farming. Farming is not a romantic business—it is about feeding the human race, and we must listen to the overwhelming consensus of plant science—that GM is safe and desirable.

The important distinction being made here is that there is a consensus within plant science, but not necessarily one between disciplines. The key difference between how these two kinds of genetic changes are being treated politically and socially have more to do with the political and social climates in different hemispheres and less to do with the science that has been conducted around the world. In some cases, science is being ignored in the interest of societal issues, and in other cases, bad science is being wielded as a weapon to draw attention away from the good science that exists.

According to this press release, the ACLU charges “that the patenting of two human genes linked to breast and ovarian cancer will inhibit medical research. The organization also claims that the patents are invalid and unconstitutional.”

It continues:

“This is going to turn into one of the watershed events in the evolution of the bioindustry,” says John Sterling, Editor in Chief of GEN. “The pros and cons of patenting genes have been an ongoing, and often acrimonious series of debates, since the in re Chakrabarty decision in 1980. But this particular case seems to have taken on a life of its own with over fifteen plaintiffs. For while the lawsuit specifically centers on the patentability of two cancer-related genes, the ACLU says it plans to challenge the entire concept of patenting genes. What we have here is one group, the ACLU and its allies, contending that gene patents stifle life science research and potentially harm the health of thousands of patients. On the other side are biotech companies who maintain that without gene patents research incentives are seriously diminished and innovation is smothered.”

Kenneth I. Berns, M.D., Ph.D., Editor in Chief of the peer reviewed journal, Genetic Testing and Molecular Biomarkers (http://www.liebertpub.com/gtmb), which is the official journal of the Genetic Alliance, says the “patenting of human genes is a bad idea and that healthcare in the U.S. would be enhanced if the ACLU suit prevails.” Dr. Berns is also Director of the University of Florida Genetics Institute in Gainesville.

William Warren, partner at the Sutherland law firm, thinks the ACLU, in this case, is barking up the wrong tree. “The ACLU unexpectedly based its invalidity challenge on claims to unpatentable subject matter,” he says. “The ACLU might have instead considered challenging the Myriad patents for obviousness.” Warren and Sutherland colleague, Lei Fang, Ph.D., M.D., have authored a legal article, which will be published in the June 1 issue of GEN entitled “Patentability of Genetic Sequences Limited.” It is now available online. (http://www.genengnews.com/news/bnitem.aspx?name=54504126&source=genwire)

Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News also has an article about the lawsuit.

I’m interested to see what the legal arguments will entail, so I’ll try to follow this as it develops.

Here’s a bit of background into the issue at hand. When you make a genetic discovery, such as figuring out the gene (or allele) that causes X, whether it be a predisposition to breast cancer, added sweetness in sweet corn, etc. Under U.S. Patent law you are allowed to patent that genetic sequence, which gives you certain rights as I understand it.

For a period of time, you are allowed a monopoly on profiting from the specific information of that discovery. In the case of Myriad Genetics, they get to charge people if they want to conduct research on the patented versions of the gene, do a diagnostic test based on that sequence, etc. The idea behind this is that it gives people a financial incentive to not only make these discoveries but also to publish them. Without such a financial incentive, it might be much longer before either public institutions discover it and publish, or companies will keep this information secret in order to protect their investment. Without patents, Myriad may still be charging for a ‘breast cancer predisposition’ screen test – without telling anybody what the gene is.

On the other hand, as a monopoly, it restricts the ability for people to find out such information about themselves, and restrict the ability of public researchers (and other companies) to conduct research on these genes. They would have to arrange a licensing agreement with the patent holder in order to do so. In the case of a crop gene, it might be annoying from the perspective of a breeder that wanted to use a molecular marker to ‘precision breed’ this gene into their crops. But when it comes to public researchers studying diseases like breast cancer, patent restrictions can go from beyond annoying to potentially dangerous.

Now to address a common myth about patents in the life sciences. Some people believe that the patents on BCRA1 and BCRA2, and other patents of this type, mean that the patent holders ‘own’ the genes, and even the organisms that contain them. This is not true. As I understand it (and I’m not a patent law expert!) they own the use of the information about that gene, for example, the specific sequence of the mutant breast-cancer gene. They do not own any part of men or women who possess this gene!

In plants, if one were to patent a gene that gives a desirable trait, then you would own the ability for a breeder to use the sequence of that gene to screen their different plant lines for that gene directly. This is known as a molecular marker, which is a tool for more accurate breeding. If, however, there was a way to screen for the gene that was based upon phenotype, such as a wrinkly seed in a test cross, the patent would have no effect on that.

In fact, there would be absolutely no restriction on such a patented gene being bred into whatever cultivars anyone so chooses. The gene existed before its discovery, and so the patent cannot touch that. You cannot take some native landrace, find a few genes in it, and claim that you own the plant – as is often implied about such patents.

This is distinct from the kind of patent that comes into play with transgenic crops, where a gene is assembled from various components and inserted into the genome of a plant. In this case because the gene itself is owned, people or organizations that generated this new gene own your ability to use the gene and breed it into other crops.

Because these two kinds of patents are different, I don’t think the ACLU lawsuit will affect GE crops, however, if they are successful, it may affect other patents related to plant genetics. Patents are a human construct, not a biological one, and when you apply human concepts to biological realities there may always be conflicts. It will be interesting to see how this plays out.

By William Harvey:

Hello readers, I am William Harvey, the Director of Global GMO Policy at Greenpeace International. In exchange for support of this blog’s continued operations, I will be posting regularly at Biofortified, and my office staff will monitor and moderate the continued discussion. We have made a few minor changes to the look of the blog. Now for my first blog post.

Everyone knows that every Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) are patented by corporations. There is not a single GMO that can be grown without the explicit permission through a signed contract. This puts the power in the hands of multinationals, taking it away from the indigenous people of Hawaii, Southeast Asia, Africa, and even farmers in the U.S. are having their right stripped away. The right to save seed is fundamental to growing food, and anything that removes this right is morally wrong.

This is why Greenpeace has a strong stance against genetic modification, because as a corporate technology it inherently requires that farmers be unable to save seed. We also seek to eliminate hybrid crops, because these are another method for maintaining the dominance of seed companies over farmers. Hybrids do not breed true – and so farmers have to keep re-buying seed. Recently, we have added seedless watermelons to our growing list of ‘farmer suicide’ foods, because the triploid seeds must be purchased every year.

As we have learned from cases such as Schmeiser v Monsanto, the biotech companies will stop at nothing to prevent farmers from saving their seeds. Indeed, they were violating his rights as a plant breeder to have control over his own homebrewed canola seeds. Farmers that breed crops have the right to control their seeds while biotech companies do not. These plant breeder protections are there for a reason – so farmers and breeders can maintain control of what they produce, because it is their intellectual property.

Before I go, there is one last issue that I would like to address: Golden Rice. This “biofortified” rice is nothing more than a PR effort by the biotech companies, and represents a Trojan Horse designed to slip through the opposition to GMOs by presenting us with a moral dilemma: either allow GMOs to be grown or people will suffer. In 2001, Michael Pollan saw through this attempt:

Unless I’m missing something, the aim of the biotechnology industry’s audacious new advertising campaign is to impale people like me—well-off first worlders dubious about genetically engineered food—on the horns of a moral dilemma.

(…)

Granted, it would be immoral for finicky Americans to thwart a technology that could rescue malnourished children. But wouldn’t it also be immoral for an industry to use those children’s suffering in order to rescue itself?

It is clear that the very attempt to address malnutrition in developing countries through genetic engineering is immoral precisely because it presents us with a moral dilemma. Our values are not up for debate.

Nor is it up to debate whether it is right to test this unsafe food on children. Before they have long-term studies proving the safety of this GMO in the diets of children, it is wrong to test it on anyone else’s children. Let these genetic engineers test it on their own kids before poisoning children in other countries. (If they did this, however, we should take their kids away for reckless endangerment.) Golden Rice is racist, classist, and is utilizing strategies that have not been seen since the Third Reich.

As soon as we allow a purportedly humanitarian GMO to be grown on Asian soil, the biotech companies will press hard for their for-profit GMOs to be allowed through local regulations. If Golden Rice can be grown, why not Roundup Ready soy or Liberty Link corn?

It is my firm belief that as soon as Golden Rice is grown and people are forced to be dependent upon it, that the rug will be pulled out from under them. Any one of the patents underlying the rice crop could be used to force them to pay for it down the road. With their own local varieties destroyed, the transnational colonialism would be complete, if there was any resistance left it will be finished.

In conclusion, it is clear that this rice must be stopped at all costs, because it may be a scheme intended to keep the people in developing countries underfoot.

William Harvey is the Director of Global GMO Policy at Greenpeace International. He makes his own Biodynamic Wine from the safety of Marin County, which is GE Free.

I am a label reader. If there is an excess of added sugar or too many ingredients with names that I don’t recognize then I don’t buy the product. Not all information, however, is useful.

A few months ago our local food coop began posting red “consumer alert” signs that say, “Conventional foods that contain corn, soy, or canola may be genetically engineered.” I find these signs more annoying than helpful. It is a little bit like the warnings posted on science textbooks in some states that say, “This textbook discusses evolution, a controversial theory which some scientists present as scientific explanation for the origin of living things, such as plants and humans. No one was present when life first appeared on Earth. Therefore, any statement about life’s origins should be considered as theory, not fact”.

Neither statement says anything informative about the state of our food nor the creation of our universe. With no specific hazards associated with GE foods or evolution, how can a consumer use these statements to make a more informed choice about the risk to their health or to their faith in God?

The National Research Council Committee states that attempts to assess food safety based solely on the process are scientifically unjustified. Rather than adding a general label about the process with which a plant variety was developed, it would make more sense to label food so that consumers are informed about what is actually in or on the food. But this, too, is not necessarily helpful. For some people it may be informative to read a label that says, “may contain traces of carbamate pesticides, which at high concentrations are known to cause death of animals” or “may contain trace amounts of purified Bacillus thuringiensis protein, which kill Leptidoptera (a class of insects).” But is it helpful to most consumers who are not familiar with the science?

Here is another example. If we carry forward with labeling the product, then organic produce treated with rotenone, a “natural” pesticide favored by some organic farmers, would need to be labeled with the following, “may contain trace amounts of rotenone–chronic exposure can cause damage to liver and kidney” (Occupational Safety and Health Administration 1998). Organic super sweet corn would require this label: “Carries a genetic mutation induced by radiation mutagenesis, resulting in the presence of a mutant protein.” Organically grown papaya would need to be marked: “may contain vast amounts of papaya ringspot viral RNA and protein”.

These labels are so ominous that it is not likely that many people would feel comfortable eating these organic fruits and vegetables. Still, there is no evidence that any of these food products are hazardous. After all, we have been eating sweet corn and organic papaya safely for years.

It seems to me that if the labeling statement does not help with safety interventions or inform consumer choice, it does not serve the purpose. It only confuses and unnecessarily alarms people.

This is a repost from Tomorrow’s Table.