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Anastasia on 19 March 2010
That headline catches your eye, doesn’t it?
We’ve seen such claims made in popular media such as the March 2010 Fury as EU approves GM potato: Critics claim plant could spread antibiotic-resistant diseases to humans in the Independent: “Opponents fear bacteria inside the guts of animals fed the GM potato – which can cause human diseases – may develop resistance to antibiotics.” Groups that actively work against deregulation of genetically engineered crops have been making such claims for years.
We’ve also seen these claims in peer-reviewed journals (although, far less frequently than in non-peer reviewed media and reports). For example, in the February 2009 issue of Critical Reviews in Food Science and Nutrition, the review Health Risks of Genetically Modified Foods: “An area of concern focuses on the possibility that antibiotic resistance genes used as markers in transgenic crops may be horizontally transferred to pathogenic gut bacteria, thereby reducing the effectiveness of antimicrobial therapy.”
Are antibiotic marker genes in genetically engineered crops really a risk to human health? Many people have raised this question and there seems to be a lot of confusion about the issue. It’s time to look into the risks and reasons more deeply.
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Anastasia on 5 March 2010
This summer will be my 4th year growing corn for my research. Every year, I’ve seen some crazy things in the transgenic and non-transgenic fields alike. For example:
On the left is “tassel ear”, where silks and kernels (female, seed producing plant parts) appear on the tassel (male, pollen producing plant parts), where they are most certainly NOT supposed to be – it’s ok for sorghum and other grasses, but not for corn! On the right, there are at least 2 ears where there should be one, and those leaves poking out between the two might be more ears. Neither of these plants are transgenic or carry heritable mutations that cause these strange phenotypes. Both transgenic and non-transgenic fields are treated with a herbicide before we plant but after that the plants are grown with no additives, chemical or otherwise.
So, what the heck is going on?
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When I was in grad school, there was a lab in our department that studied intestinal parasitic roundworms. Although this wasn’t related to what I was doing in any way—everyone who has been to grad school will know that you attend the department seminars for the donuts and/or pizza no matter what the topic is. I have to say, though, that the seminars from this lab made the donuts and pizza a little less appealing.
One of the students of the lab defended his thesis work during this time frame. He was a terrific speaker who made us understand the medical and economic burdens of these parasites on the impoverished communities he studied. Somehow he managed to make the story of sample collection amusing…. And the details of the discovery of his own infection (after a very hot curry meal) made that defense one of the most memorable during my career in science (Figure 1, right. Speaker and his infectious agent). But I still remember the scientific point: these infections have real impacts on the humans and the agricultural animals that live in close proximity to them in the developing world. And that there appear to have been separate and distinct infections in humans and in pigs in the studies they performed.
Until recently I hadn’t thought much about the roundworms. But this week when this paper came across my desk, I was glad to see that there was a potential breakthrough in the treatments for roundworms that could improve the health of millions of children. And how might this be accomplished? Using the Bt protein.
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Frank N. Foode on 1 March 2010
Hi everyone, Frank N. Foode here. Over the weekend, I went to the MOSES organic farming conference in La Crosse Wisconsin. It was right on my way across the country so it wasn’t much of a detour for me. This conference brought farmers, consumers, and seeds from all over the Midwest to attend some workshops about everything from producing seed, to building healthy soils, to market farming and even some were about genetic engineering. Karl was also there and he reminded me that I still have a lot of pictures from my travels last year that I haven’t put up on the blog. So now that I’m back in Berkeley (there’s a story about that which I will tell), I am not wasting any time showing you how much fun I had!
Anastasia has set up a Flickr account for the blog, which you can see on the Photos page! This has made it so much easier for me. I may be smarter than the average corn but all this web stuff is confusing.
You can see the pictures from my whole trip in the Flickr photo album hosted on Biofortified here, on the Flickr site, or read more below.
Seed Swap! I can’t wait!
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Organic consumers not very concerned about GE
(Hat tip to Elton Robinson at South East Farm Press)
The Consumers Union wanted to know what consumers felt about genetically engineered crops cross-pollinating with organic crops. So in early February, they conducted a poll. They called a thousand random people over the phone and asked them just two questions:
Sounds like a pretty simple exercise. However, I question the use of the term “contaminated.” This is a loaded term, and assumes one of the things that they want people to believe – that organic agriculture should not include genetic engineering. This introduces a bias into the poll. For instance, if you asked these two similar and benign questions, you would get two different results:
Of course, hybrids are allowed in organic agriculture, but I’ll bet my backyard garden harvest for this entire year that if you ask these two questions the word ‘contaminated’ will have a measurable effect and cause people to answer that they are more concerned than they would be otherwise.
Ok, that issue aside, it is good that the Consumers Union did a poll such as this, because there hasn’t been very much research investigating what people really think about genetic engineering and organic agriculture, and there’s been some talk about it in numerous channels. So how concerned are consumers about this “contamination?”
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