WHAT IS GM FOOD - PART 1
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What Is Genetic Modification?
Is GM Food Safe To Eat?
Are GM Crops Safe To Grow?
Do We Need GM Food and Crops?
Can We Stop GM Food and Crops?
Seattle December 1999

WHAT IS GENETIC MODIFICATION?

Briefly - traditional plant breeding involves crossing varieties of the same species in ways they could cross naturally. For example disease resistant varieties of wheat have been crossed with high-yield wheats to combine these properties. This type of natural gene exchange is safe and fairly predictable. [An analogy would be trying to run a Windows 95 programme on a Windows 98 machine - they are very closely related so it will probably work]

Genetic engineering involves exchanging genes between unrelated species that cannot naturally exchange genes with each other. GE can involve the exchange of genes between vastly different species - e.g. putting scorpion toxin genes into maize or fish antifreeze genes into tomatoes. It is possible that a scorpion toxin gene even when it is in maize DNA will still get the organism to produce scorpion toxin - but what other effects may it have in this alien environment? [An analogy would be trying to run a Mac programme on a Windows machine - if you're very lucky it might work but it will probably crash]. We are already seeing this problem - adding human growth hormone genes to pigs certainly makes them grow - but it also gives them arthritis and makes them cross-eyed (which was entirely unpredictable).

It will be obvious, for example, that the gene for human intelligence (yes - one has supposedly been identified) will not have the same effect if inserted into cabbage DNA as it had in human DNA - but what effect WOULD it have??? (It would certainly do SOMETHING but no-one has the slightest idea what this would be).


 

IS GM FOOD SAFE TO EAT?
The answer is that nobody knows because long term tests have not been carried out.

Companies wanting a GM product approved in the UK or USA are required to provide regulatory bodies with results of their own safety tests. Monsanto's soya beans were apparently fed to fish for 10 weeks before being approved. There was no requirement for independent testing, for long-term testing, for testing on humans or testing for specific dangers to children or allergic people.
Both the UK and USA claimed to have rigorous standards and it took a long time for them to reveal how minimal the research into safety had been.

The reason that the research has been so minimal is an interesting story. The biotech companies in the USA and UK provide substantial funding to the major political parties, they have many representatives and past or future employees on the government regulatory bodies (there is a revolving door between Monsanto and the FDA for example). The regulatory bodies were persuaded that GM foods were 'substantially equivalent' to non-GM foods and so needed only minimal testing - rather than the types of tests expected of pharmaceuticals. [This is, of course, inverted logic because it is only through such rigorous testing that we could discover whether GM foods are different from conventional foods].

For the last 10-20 years government and university funded independent research has been in decline and corporate funded commercial research has been on the increase. Nearly all the research done, even in University departments, depends on corporate funding. This means that there has been massive research into the potential of GM foods and very little into long-term dangers. The ONLY long-term research that was carried out in the UK was government-funded research by a government-appointed top scientist, Dr Arpad Pustzai. He concluded that GM potatoes (but not conventional potatoes) caused severe harm to rats. The UK Government immediately dismissed his results (before studying them) and his research institute (which is funded by Monsanto) silenced him. The British Medical Association, despite threats, has published his results in order to attempt independent peer-review of these but the Government do not want these experiments to be repeated and have no plans to do any more long-term research.

The current position of the UK Government is that "There is no evidence of long-term dangers from GM Foods". This is not surprising as it is doing everything it can to prevent such long-term tests from taking place.
The American Food and Drug Administration is currently being prosecuted for covering up research that suggested possible risks from GM foods.  Research that was not publicised included tests of GM tomatoes on rats, which like the rats in Dr Pustzai’s research, developed ‘erosions’ of the intestine wall - an effect not observed with conventional tomatoes.


 

ARE GM CROPS SAFE TO GROW?
Again, the answer is that nobody knows because long-term safety tests have not been carried out.  despite the absence of such tests a wide range of problems have already been encountered and many more have been predicted.



 

DO WE NEED GM CROPS?
Europe, the USA and most other Western countries are overproducing food and have to set aside land and destroy crops in order to tackle this problem. Land is also being degraded and wildlife destroyed by the intensity of our agriculture.  GM crops such as RoundupReady soya beans promise an even more intensive agriculture and involve the use of herbicides that destroy all plantlife apart from the herbicide-resistant crop. If this results in higher production it will only mean that more crops have to be destroyed.  Surely the answer is to reintroduce less intensive agricultural techniques such as organic farming, that will reduce pollution, produce healthier food and allow our wildlife to recover.

Obviously the West does not need GM crops and consumers do not need or want GM foods. But the next question is does the Third World need it?

For articles considering this question click here.


 

CAN WE STOP GM FOOD AND CROPS?
Two years ago it looked as if we had no choice and would have to accpt these foods.  The biotech companies across the world were united, they were collaborating with western governments and had pressured the supermarkets into supporting them.

Since then a revolution has taken place.  Consumers across the world have boycotted GM foods and demanded that they be labelled; supemarkets have stopped selling GM foods and manufacturers have removed GM ingredients from their products.  Environmental, consumer and development charities have united to oppose GM foods and crops - with over 100 such groups in the UK supporting the campaign for a Five Year Freeze on these products. Third World farmers have organised global protests against GM crops, countries have banned the crops and the nations of the Third World have demanded and obtained the right to refuse to import GM seeds and crops.


 

SEATTLE DECEMBER 1999
The protests culminated in the historic protest in Seattle at the meeting of the World Trade Organisation.  There the leaders of the Third World united to stop the WTO, multinationals and the biotech industry from forcing GM food and crops, an exploitative economic system, anti-environmental and anti-union laws upon all the nations of the world.  The Third World leaders were backed by 100,000 demonstrators representing consumer, environmental, development, human rights, health and pro-democracy groups as well as farmers and unions. It is possible that this event will be seen as marking not only the end of GM food and crops but the moment when the people of the world reversed the global spread of corporate power.  What a wonderful way to mark the dawn of a new Millennium.

see also:

Action Aid's series on the World Trade Organisation: "Prescribing food insecurity"
Contents and glossary (193K)
Introduction: Prescribing food insecurity (312K)
Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs) and Farmers' Rights (542K)
The Marrakesh Decision: a lack of political will (294K)
The agreement on agriculture: an overview (including the effect of the AoA on women) (297K)
AoA * market access (530K)
AoA * domestic support (279K)
AoA * export subsidies (168K)
AoA * dumping (185K)
Trade in genetically modified crops (199K)
These require Acrobat Reader, available here

Third World Network's pages on Seattle


NEXT: GM and the Third World

Genetic Food Alert 4 Bertram House, Ticklemore St, Totnes, Devon TQ9 5EJ Tel: 01803 868523 info@geneticfoodalert.org.uk