New Straits Times » Features

Weeding out deception

By HILARY CHIEW

Tuesaday March 02^nd 2004

FOR years, biotech giants have assured consumers that genetically modified (GM) foods are the substantial equivalent of their conventional counterparts and need no safety testing. They added that there is no evidence that GM food can harm humans or animals that end up in the human food chain.

However, some scientists are challenging the integrity of the claims of the biotech companies.

Scientific director of the Norwegian Institute of Gene Ecology, Dr Terje Traavik, asked if relevant research has been done at all. “Absence of evidence of harm is not evidence of absence of harm,” he pointed out in his paper, The Risk of Genetic Engineering during a Third World Network seminar held ahead of the Cartagena Biosafety Protocol.

The professor in gene ecology at the University of Tromso, Norway, said seemingly relevant research had not asked the right questions.

Dr Arpad Pusztai concurred with Traavik: “A recent review of available scientific papers concluded that the most pertinent questions on environmental safety of GM crops have not yet been asked, let alone studied.”

The former Rowett Institute researcher had alerted the world of the effects of GM potatoes on young rats and cast serious doubts on the safety of GM food.

“There isn’t a great deal being done even though research to exclude such risks should have been carried out before the GM crops were introduced into the food chain. The conclusion is that the amount of work done on health risk assessment is absolutely inadequate,” said Pusztai.

“The scientific quality of even what is published is, in most instances, not up to the standard expected,” he added. “How-ever, as our future is claimed to be dependent on the success or failure of the promise of genetic modification delivering GM foods which will be wholesome, plentiful and, most importantly, safe for us all, the emphasis was on strict but fair criticism.

“From the results, the conclusion seems inescapable that the present crude method of genetic modification has not delivered GM crops that are safe and wholesome.”

Criticising the industry’s and public regulators’ preferred safety assessments, Pusztai said they are based on the poorly defined and non-legally-binding concept of so-called “substantial equivalence” that is nothing more than a shrewd business strategy.

He said biotech companies’ claim to substantial equivalence is based on the fact that the plant created by them is novel due to its GE insert, yet the same as its parent, and therefore requires no testing. ”This is self-contradictory,” said Pusztai.

“How can a GM plant be novel and the same (at the same time)? The industry needs the plant to be novel so it can be patented but refuses to subject the plant to rigorous risk assessment. Like the GM potatoes that I had worked on, they may look the same and taste the same but the effect is certainly not the same,” said Pusztai.

“There is a compelling need to develop further the concepts of biological testing, particularly for potential long-term effects. If there is a general willingness to fund research along these or similar lines and the regulators accept the concept of biological/ toxicological testing transparently and inclusively, the methods are available for the work to start.

“Following this route, publishing the results and consulting the public will ensure that a technology which promised safe and plentiful food will deliver. We are confident that if people see that everything has been done to establish its safety, they will accept it willingly.”

Clearly the credibility of GM food is at stake and public confidence needs to be restored. This crisis call into question the independence of scientific research, or the lack of it.

For Jeffrey Smith, an American who has been campaigning for more accountability from the biotech industry, the task is a difficult one. “With less research money available from public sources, an increasing number of scientists in the United States and Europe are dependent on corporate sponsors, and hence, corporate acceptance of their research and results. But reliance on corporate sponsorship can carry a hidden price,” he warns in his book, Seeds of Deception: Exposing Industry and Government Lies About the Safety of the Genetically Engineered Foods You’re Eating.

According to an article published in the Times Higher Education Supplement in England, a poll of 500 scientists working in either government or recently privatised research institutes (in Britain) revealed that 30% had been asked to change their research conclusions by their sponsors.

“Sociologist Walter Powell believes that the close link between universities and industry are a principal reason why US firms now dominate the biotech market. University of Minnesota professor Anne Kapuscinski, who studies GMOs, thinks that same close link may be making it difficult for scientists to raise questions about GMO safety,” says Smith.

Jeffrey Smith’s Seeds of Deception can be ordered online at www.seedsofdeception.com

email: info@indsp.org