Biopharming is the use of transgenic crops containing human or other animal
genes to produce expensive pharmaceutical proteins and vaccines at reduced
cost. Biopharming has been promoted by universities, the biotechnology industry
and by the United States and Canadian governments with little thought given
to the consequences of contaminating the crop plant gene pool with genes
that have profoundly toxic side effects on healthy humans, farm animals
and wildlife. The production of pharm crops has been promoted and farmers
recruited to participate in field production of the valuable crops with
marginal concern given to the consequence of food crop gene pollution. Inevitably,
field production led to at least one detected instance of food crop pollution
by a biopharmaceutical gene and its product, the catastrophe was recounted
by Ho (1). The problems associated with biopharming of crops producing vaccines
and cytokines was reported by Cummins (2,3,4). Any biopharmaceutical crop
grown in the open environment must be carefully monitored regarding spread
of pollen to nearby cropland or to weedy relatives , surface and groundwater
should be monitored for the biopharmacuetical protein and airborn dust and
debris from the damaged plant parts should be monitored but it is clear
that monitoring has been very perfunctory. Growing plots should be well
isolated from human habitation to avoid random contact leading to human
exposure.
Even though the pollution of a food crop following the field release of
a pharm crop (the pharm crop was transgenic corn modified with a gene for
a vaccine for pig diarrhea) in the United States was widely reported worldwide
most Canadians are unaware of the extensive creation and field testing of
biopharmaceutical crops in Canada. The government bureaucracy maintains
secrecy over the actual pharm crops and the locations of their field testing
by designating the operations confidential business information (CBI). At
the same time an industry group (Canadagriculture) linked to Agriculture
Canada actively promotes biopharmaceutical crop production both in Canada
and in the third world.
The Emonds Institute recently uncovered efforts to solicit farm plots and
growers for pharm crop growing and promised that there would be extraordinarily
rich returns for participants (5).Canadagriculture’s website (6) was
used to circulate the following promotion:” Wanted: Contract growers
Asking Price: $0 Ad Placed On: 12/2/02 Contact: brian marshall ([email protected])
We need more contract growers to join the 30,000 acres we already have
from Canada on our Global Database. Our aim is the Environmentally SAFE
growing of new NONFOOD Molecular Crops. More information by visiting http://www.molecularfarming.com/database
The molecular farming data base includes the following applicants for pharm
crop production: The data base lists a number of interesting areas of proposed
biopharmaceutical production based on isolation and security. The offerings
included the following countries: Zimbabwe, Pakistan, Panama, Romania, Tunisia,
Indonesia and Guinea among many others. Canada had a number of offerings
the most interesting being 100 Acres - { Toronto }. There is nowhere in
metro Toronto where there is a reasonable expectation of isolation from
random human contact and the millions of inhabitants pose a huge target
for released biopharmaceutical pollution.
Canada seems to have lost a sense of responsibility to the human population
and recklessly promotes the interests of pharmaceutical corporations. The
actual testing or production of pharm crops seems to be lost in a bureaucratic
“black hole” and extracting truthful information from the bureaucracy
is a nightmare. The testing and production of hirudin transgenic canola
illustrates the fundamental problem.
Hirudin is an anticoagulant drug obtained from a blood leech, it is capable
of producing internal bleeding if it is consumed inappropriately. The leech
hirudin gene was used to create transgenic canola in which the drug protein
was accumulated in the oil bodies of canola seeds(7). An article by Giddings
et al (8) stated “Oilseed rape transgenic for hirudin is now grown
commercially in Canada by SemBioSys (Calgary, Canada). That comment was
quoted by reviewers in other authoritative journals and farm newspapers
reported that production was commencing near Kamloops, British Columbia.
I began trying to obtain concrete information on hirudin production in Canada
January 2003, Dr. Yarrow of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (cfia) commented:
“Thank you for your earlier e-mail and please accept my apologies
for not getting back to you sooner. The concern you have raised is a very
important one - we will be actively investigating. Notwithstanding our investigation,
to our knowledge, there is no commercial production of hirudin in the outside
environment in Canada. The CFIA (or rather AAFC at the time, prior to the
formation of the Agency) authorized confined research field trials of this
nature in the mid-nineties, but has not done so since. To our knowledge,
the proponents of these field trials did not pursue the hirudin production
initiatives, which were characterized at the time as proof of concept activities.
Once I have more information about the source of the journal's information,
etc, I will e-mail you again.”
Dr. Yarrow passed the investigation to Dr. Finstad of CFIA who replied :
“Thank you for your email inquiring about commercial production of
hirudin in canola. Dr. Yarrow has asked me to investigate this claim.
I have confirmed with SemBioSys Genetics Inc. that they have not engaged
in any commercial production of hirudin in canola. The statement in
Nature Biotechnology 18:1151-1155 is incorrect. Although SemBioSys did undertake
authorized confined research field trials of this plant material in Canada
between 1994 and 1997, they have not continued this project. The company
is aware of the inaccurate statement in Nature Biotechnology and has publicly
confirmed that the statement is untrue. I hope this addresses your concerns.”
The CFIA did not really address all of my concerns because I had earlier
and repeatedly asked “where were the confined field trials conducted”
In Canada confined field trials are never confined, they are just surrounded
by crops CFIA thinks will not be pollinated by canola. The location of the
field trials might be useful to any farm family whose members experience
untoward internal bleeding.
Finally, Agriculture Canada and its small sub-department CFIA seems to
have grown fully schizophrenic They faithfully and fanatically support creation
and dissemination of transgenic food crops, they also faithfully and fanatically
support creation and dissemination of transgenic biopharmaceutical crops.
However, gene pollution from the biopharmaceutical crops will eliminate
the market for the transgenic food crops. The Agriculture Canada remedy
for this fundamental problem seems to be to be sneaky and underhanded about
the testing and production of biopharmaceutical crops and to encourage the
dangerous biopharmaceutical production in third world countries. The Canadian
bureaucrats seem to believe that a genetically modified Ponzi game is the
remedy to fundamental problem of the coexistence of transgenic food crops
and transgenic biopharmaceutical crops . [A Ponzi Game is one in which managers
pay out early dividends from the intake of investors in the game, the managers
normally “fly the coop” before the subterfuge is uncovered,
in the transgenic Ponzi game the participants may have to finally pay heavy
costs to those they injure.
References are available on request , please state the name of the paper
