“Biosafety standards for Molecular Farming,”
Molecular Farming is primarily focused on the production of biopharmaceutical
proteins in crop plants. Field testing of genetically modified (GM) corn,
canola , tobacco, alfalfa, safflower, rice and tobacco mosaic virus. Seventy-seven
such tests have been undertaken in the United States and a large number in
other countries. These tests have been undertaken , for the most part, with
extreme secrecy regarding location, nature of the product being tested and
the safety considerations of the tests. The few published reviews of the environmental
and human safety evaluations of the tests focused mainly on the possibility
of pollen flow to nearby crops and weeds and ignored the real hazards of seed
transfer by farm machinery and on vehicles of all types along with browsing
animals. The likely pollution of surface and groundwater by crop leaves and
roots debris and breakdown has been almost entirely ignored event though the
pharmaceutical products were active in minute quantity.
Considering acceptable safety standards for undertaking field
tests and production of biopharmaceutical crops the following recommendations
should be considered:
1. Field tests and production facilities should
be fully disclosed to the public in a timely way. Both the location and the
nature of the product being grown should be made available to the public and
any known deleterious side effects of the product should be disclosed. Public
health authorities should be provided methods of detecting the product in
environmental samples and in human blood and urine.
2. Production and testing of high potency biopharmaceutical
products should be limited to fully isolated green house facilities. The facility
should have restricted human contact ans to prevent access by insects and
birds. Contact with the soil and groundwater should be controlled and only
treated wastewater released from the facility. Most pf the biopharmaceutical
products are high value items that can be produced economically in a fully
isolated facility. Organic waste from the facility should be incinerated on
site.
3. All molecular farming production should undertake full
studies on the spread of pollen and seeds from the production sites. Adequate
methods for high sensitivity detection of pollutants in surface and groundwater
should be made available and studies should be undertaken, if possible , by
neutral third parties
Implementation of the standards described above should go a long ways towards
making Molecular Farming acceptable by farmers and the public.
