ISP Lecture Summary

Summarised by Lim Li Ching

Brian John explained that as a scientist not working in the GM field, he has observed the GM scientific debate from the outside, but does not like what he sees. He asked, “Is the science of GM crops and foods fit for public consumption?”

His involvement in the issue dates back to 2001 when Aventis proposed two trial fields of GM maize near Mathry in Pembrokeshire as part of the Government’s Farm Scale Evaluations (FSEs). He was deeply concerned by the secrecy, obfuscation and arrogance that surrounded these trials. Among other things, they were told that health and safety issues were off the agenda, having already been sorted out. But there was virtually no published material to support this contention, instead the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA), Aventis, the Advisory Committee on Releases to the Environment (ACRE) and other bodies were relying on the highly criticised concept of ‘substantial equivalence’.

The local community reacted quickly; within a few weeks the landowners concerned had been virtually ostracised, and had pulled out of the trials. GM Free Cymru was thus born, with support today across Wales and with a policy line close to that of the Welsh Assembly Government.

From the start, they noticed a very dangerous ‘spin’ put on the debate by certain sections of the media. The spin was that opposition to GM was based largely upon emotion and even hysteria, and that pro-GM arguments were based upon science. The biotechnology industry, DEFRA, the Prime Minister, ACRE, the Royal Society and the Food Standards Agency (FSA) have echoed this. Such over-simplifications explain why science and scientists are held in such low esteem; scientists are perceived as arrogant, complacent and probably corrupt. They insist on repeating the mantra “Trust us - we are scientists” without apparently doing anything to deserve that trust.

The pro-GM case on health and safety appears to be based upon reductionist science that assumes no link between a GM food and an identifiable pathological condition unless a direct causal relationship can be established. But none of the scientists in whom we are supposed to place our trust is actually looking for causal relationships; the US Food and Drug Administration has confirmed that it has never undertaken research into the health effects of eating GM foods, and the UK Food Standards Agency (FSA) has no intention of doing such work either.

John contended that the public response is based upon a much more sophisticated and subtle appreciation of science than portrayed by GM proponents. The majority of people in the UK have an antipathy towards GM technology, not (as the GM spin-doctors would have us believe) because they do not understand the issues or the science, but because they understand them far too well. People know that GM crops are uniquely unstable and uniquely dangerous, and feel that they have been repeatedly let down by science and by scientists.

The corporate ownership of GM science is further cause for concern. The field is dominated by technicians and multi-million pound research laboratories funded by the GM corporations. They control the research agenda and the means of publication, and they pay compliant technologists to promote their commercial interests. ‘Inconvenient’ research projects do not happen and ‘inconvenient’ research results do not see the light of day. Even independent institutes and university laboratories and departments depend increasingly upon commercial sponsorship, and find themselves constrained and even gagged by the agreements that come with the money.

There is widespread perception that the regulatory committees are dominated by industry placements and academics who are, or have been, funded by GM corporations. What are we supposed to think when DEFRA civil servants and Aventis employees travel to community meetings together, or when a Monsanto Director of Corporate Affairs sits at a DEFRA desk dealing with GM enquiries?

John debunked the myth that those who oppose GM technology are somehow harming the UK biotechnology industry and affecting Britain’s competitiveness abroad. Part of this myth, nurtured by the industry itself, is that new biotechnology investments worth billions of pounds will relocate abroad if Britain maintains its hostility towards GM crops and foods. But biotechnology is not the same as GM technology; if the biotechnology industry was to listen to the public and dump its GM obsession, it could, and should, have a bright future with market support and public approval.

John catalogued the many incidences that have led to the public feeling betrayed by the Government and its advisory committees. We were told that ‘terminator technology’ was being phased out, but this technology is being actively developed and extended by Monsanto, and the oilseed rape used in the FSE programme contained GM constructs designed to limit fertility. Similarly, we were told that the use of antibiotic resistant markers in GM crops was being phased out, but now ACRE is recommending consent for AT Ltd to conduct trials with a GM potato containing kanamycin and neomycin resistant marker genes.

We were told that there would be zero tolerance of unauthorised releases into the environment of GM crops used in the FSE programme. What we have is a catalogue of slapdash procedures, adventitious occurrences of GM varieties, and breaches of the regulations. Almost all of these have gone unpunished, on the basis that the amount of harm done was “within acceptable limits”.

We were told that the integrity of organic and conventional farming would be protected. Now we learn that the Government accepts the inevitability of GM pollution of related varieties, and is talking of contamination thresholds well above the detectable level of 0.1%. At the same time it is fighting against the labelling of meat, cheese, milk, eggs and other products from animals given GM feed. The Government is pressing the case for ‘coexistence’, another word for ‘pollution’.

What about the science of the FSE programme? John said that there have been repeated assurances that the FSEs were being conducted under normal farming management regimes for environmental impact studies. But the trials appear to have been designed, not for normal maximisation of yield and profit, but for the benefit of wildlife. Key questions on the environmental impacts and safety of GM crops are not being addressed. While reserving final judgement until the full scientific findings are published, the FSEs seem to have been cynically manipulated.

John highlighted the replacement of good science by media manipulation. GM multinationals, government-funded research institutions, the Royal Society and the FSA have been using propaganda techniques to promote GM crops and food. The Royal Society, a charity, is supposed to take an independent, impartial view on GM issues, but in John’s view it has been promoting the commercial interests of GM companies at the expense of public interest. The FSA, through its promotion of GM foods and its interference in the GM public debate, has outraged many. Organizations like Sense about Science, the Scientific Alliance, the Agricultural Biotechnology Council, the International Policy Network and the Science Media Centre are funded to promote GM issues; there is a complex web of contacts between them and government departments.

Scientists who discover ‘inconvenient’ things are marginalized and vilified by quite senior figures in the UK scientific establishment. In the case of Mexican maize landraces, John alleged that Monsanto hired a shadowy media company to invent biotechnologists, who then encouraged a campaign to bombard the Editor of Nature with manufactured protests following the peer-reviewed publication of the Quist/Chapela paper. The peer-reviewed paper by Ewen and Pusztai, published in The Lancet, led to their vilification, in which senior fellows of the Royal Society were involved. In order to justify its dismissal of that paper on the effects of GM potato consumption in rats, the Royal Society fraudulently cited a review paper - an opinion piece - that contained no new science.

John discussed ‘substantial equivalence’ - originally a marketing or commercial concept, designed to convince a sceptical market that GM crops are essentially the same as non-GM crops. Then somebody realised that the concept was handy for politicians. Somehow or other it became a scientific term, although it is essentially meaningless. Very conveniently, it was used by the GM industry and Government to explain away the lack of testing for GM health and safety effects; such tests were not needed, it is said, because GM crops and foods are substantially equivalent to what we have been eating for years. But when it suited them, the GM multinationals claimed their varieties were ‘distinctive’ enough to pass the distinctiveness, uniformity and stability test and to be added to the seed lists while simultaneously being substantially the same as varieties on the list.

The precautionary principle is enshrined in legislation and guided the Scottish Parliament’s Health Committee and the British Medical Association - when somebody wants to introduce something unnecessary (like GM food) into the British diet, it should be assumed to be harmful unless its proponents prove otherwise. Its proponents have not attempted to do so, other than by reference to the ‘substantial equivalence’ nonsense. There have been no properly-conducted controlled clinical trials. Neither the FSA nor the Government has shown interest in looking at the effects of short- or long-term ingestion of GM foods by healthy people, let alone by those with vulnerable immune systems including babies, the elderly and infirmed. They simply assume that GM foods are safe unless their opponents prove otherwise. This is a betrayal of the precautionary principle and indicates the extent to which commercial interests have overtaken public health interest.

What are GM crops actually for? John noted that they enable GM multinationals to increase their market share and extend their domination of the world market in seeds and agrochemicals. As far as the consumer is concerned, there are no perceived benefits associated with the use of GM crops. Not only are they not needed, there is a whole host of problems associated with GM technology.

Good science, driven by integrity and concern for the common good has been replaced with corporate greed, media manipulation and the vilification of scientists whose views happen to be uncomfortable. John concluded by saying that the science of GM crops and foods is poisoned and corrupt, and is therefore unfit for public consumption.