SUNS 4335 Tuesday 1 December 1998
INDIA: MONSANTO'S FIELD TRIALS SET OFF A STORM
Geneva, 29 Nov (Chakravarthi Raghavan) -- News that the Monsanto transnational corporation has begun field trials in India of genetically-engineered crops, with several of the state governments
where trials are reportedly taking place ignorant of these, has provoked a major outcry, and NGO activists are planning direct actions.
At least one state government, that of the Karnataka state in southern India, where such field trials of the genetically engineered "Bollgard" or Bt Cotton, has said that the central government in New Delhi has permitted Monsanto to conduct some field experiments in parts of Northern Karnataka, but that the state would ensure that the testing of Monsanto's "terminator technolopgy" would not be allowed.
But the publicly expressed comments by Mr. Byre Gowda, agriculture minister of Karnataka state, implies that the centre had not consulted the state before allowing field trials in three areas.
According to Dr. Vandana Shiva, of the Research Foundation for Science, Technoloy and Ecology, there has been no public consultation and participation over the decision on these field trials, nor any public hearing or notification as is required for any environmentally destructive activity.
A local peasants movement, led by Hanuman Gowda (who had led the movement against Cargill seed corporation in 1993) have announced plans for direct action in the areas where field trials are scheduled, and are reported to have locked up seed stores.
The government of Karnataka has announced the setting up of an experts coordinating committee, headed by the chief secretary to the government, to see whether the transnational corporations were using the terminator-technology (gene technology that prevents the crops from these seeds from yielding seeds that can be planted in the next generation). The state agriculture minister has said that the state had written to the central government opposing permission to the TNC for
field trials.
Apart from the unknown hazards of such genetically engineered plants (where genes from some other crops or even species are 'engineered' into the seed of a crop, through use of virus-vectors whose ability to carry the genes from one to another is enhanced by genetic biologists), points out Shiva, while these socalled pesticide generating plants are offered as a specific against need for artificial pesticides, there is now evidence that pests are evolving resistance to such genetically
engineered plants, Bt crops.
While the "science" of the genetic engineers appear to be based on a linear, unidirectional flow of information from the DNA through RNA to proteins, there is now enough evidence as a result of molecular biology developments over the last decade or more that this linear view is based on wrong science.
The genome itself, embedded within the epigenetic and metabolic net, is in a fluid situation of constant change, and far from stable, interacting both with the internal environment within the
micro-organism, and the external.
Many eminent molecular biologists now challenge the Mendelesian and neo-Darwinistic determinist views about the gene and its fixed and inherited characteristics. And a number of experiments have shown the dangers of horizontal gene transfers and recombinations, and that the vectors used for transferring genes, are in fact spreading microbial populations, which are becoming increasingly resistant to anti-biotics.
A team of molecular biologists and other experts brought together by the Third World Network (in the aftermath of the bio-diversity convention) identified a number of hazards and concerns to health and bio-diversity -- apart from socio-economic aspects like increased drain of genetic resources from South to North, increased marginalization of small farmers, substitution of traditional technologies and product, and the inherent genetic instability of transgenic lines resulting from
crop failures.
The various issues involved have been analyzed and spelt out in a recent book published by the TWN -- "Genetic Engineering: Dream or Nightmare", by Mae-Wan Ho, a well-known British scientist and Reader in biology at the Open University UK, and an expert at the TWN sponsored meet.
Beth Burrows of the Edmonds Institute in the US, who was in a scientists working group on bio-safety (for the biological convention), has brought out a two-volume manual for assessing ecological and human health effects of genetically engineered organisms.
In an executive summary of the views of the scientists, Burrows notes that while genetic engineering promises benefits to one or several groups, there are potential hazards to human health and environment arise from the inherently novel aspects of genetically engineered organisms and from the collective uncertainty about their short- and long-term effects and behaviour in the environment.
"Atleast some of the GEOs will pose substantial hazard to human health or the environment; while these may represent only a fraction of the GEOs released, the potential risks argue for careful scrutiny and cautious application of GEOs in the environment."
Mae-Wan Ho has listed the hazards to human and animal health as:
toxic or allergenic effects due to transgene products or products from interaction with host genes;
increase use of toxic pesticides with pesticide-resistant transgenic crops, leading to pesticide-related illnesses in farmworkers and contamination of food and drinking water;
vector-mediated spread of antibiotic resistance marker genes to gut bacteria and pathogens;
vector-mediated spread of virulence among pathogens across species by horizontal gene transfer and recombinations;
potential for vector-mediated horizontal gene transfer and recombination to create new pathogenic bacteria and viruses;
potential for vector-mediated infection of cells after ingestion of transgenic foods, to regenerate disease viruses, or for the vector to insert itself into the cell's genome causing harmful or lethal effects including cancer.
The hazards to agricultural and natural biodiversity include:
spread of transgenes to related weed species, creating superweeds (that are herbicide resistant):
increased use of toxic, non-discriminating herbicides with herbicide-resistant transgenic plants lead to large-scale elimination of indigenous agricultural and natural species;
increased use of toxic herbicides destroys soil fertility and yield;
bio-insecticidal transgenic plants accelerate the evolution of bio-pesticide resistance in major insect pests, resulting in loss of a bio-pesticide used by organic farmers for years;
vector-mediated horizontal gene transfer to unrelated species via bacteria and viruses, with potential of creating many other weed species;
vector recombination to generate new virulent strains of viruses, especially in transgenic plants engineered for viral resistance with viral genes.
Burrows points out that the potential for gene transfer is of special concern among prokaryotes (microbes), which differ from eukaryotes (e.g. crop plants) in their ability to transfer DNA between unrelated cells. Such lateral transfer of genetic material could allow engineered genes to move into populations other than the target populations, with serious consequences for monitoring and containment.
Lateral transfer is also known to occur among eukaryotes, perhaps by actions of transposons, but this is thought to be less frequent than in prokaryotes.
The presence of foreign or novel proteins (as a result of genetic engineering) in "familiar" foods could prove hazardous to individuals who suffer specific allergies to those proteins. And the production of toxins, even at very low levels, could have adverse effects on human health over the long-term.
A common argument used by the Monsanto and others marketing genetically engineered seeds and produce is that they are no different from the natural hybridization processes (used by farmers over long periods of time) and that the genetically engineered product (like soya) being similar to the natural, no special testing is needed. This is pushed even further in the WTO context by the US, in terms of the so called equivalence test.
Dr.Mae-Wan in her book cites the inadequacies (of the required UK testing regulations) for toxic or allergenic effects of new transgene products and their interactions with host genes. Citing her own
extensive correspondence with and responses from the concerned UK regulatory authority, Mae-Wan notes that the companies introducing new products are required to produce data from tests by independent laboratories to address concerns, and date are to be supplied on the safety of the transgene product as well as safety of the food containing the transgene, and if present, its product. Detailed descriptions of transgenes and their origins and information about the entire DNA sequence transferred into the host are required.
And when "substantial equivalence" is claimed - for e.g. for an oil from oilseed rape - screening is to be carried out on a number of samples for any toxic components known to be produced by the host to ensure that levels are not increased as a result of the genetic modification.
"However," points out Dr. Mae-Wan, "there are no data required on any previously unknown products that may have been produced by gene interactions. And the claim of 'substantial equivalence' is sufficiently vague that regulation is even weaker than it appears."
Over the last 10 or 15 years, the medical profession has been finding a dramatic increase in virulent infections and anti-biotic resistance. This is commonly attributed to the profligate use of antibiotics in intensive farming and in medicine itself.
But some recent research notes that the dramatic increase in virulent infections and anti-biotic resistance has taken place since commercial scale genetic engineering bio-technology began, and some of the generation of new pathogenic strains of bacteria and viruses cannot be attributed merely to overuse and abuse of anti-biotics.
And while there is no direct evidence linking genetic engineering biotechnology to the spread of virulence and anti-biotic resistance, there is clear evidence says Dr. Mae-Wan that horizontal gene transfer is responsible for both. "And the raison d'etre and aspiration of genetic engineering is to increase the facility of horizontal gene transfer, so as to create ever-more exotic transgenic organisms"
Shiva, in reference to the Monsanto experiments in India, points out that nothing is yet known of the impact on human health when toxic producing Bt crops such as potato and corn are eaten or on animal health when oil-cake from Bt-cotton or fodder from Bt-corn is consumed as cattle feed.
Genetically engineered Bt crops continuously express the Bt toxin through a growing season, and long-term exposure to such toxins promotes development of resistance in insect populations. Due to this, the US Environment Protection Agency (EPA) offers only conditional and temporary registration of Bt varieties.
The ecological impact of Monsanto's Bt-cotton, she adds, cannot be assessed on the basis of a 3-month trial, but the trials needs to be carried out over 2-3 growing seasons and the impact assessed on all organisms, including soil micro-organisms which have been known to be killed in Bt-crops. None of the essential steps for ecological risks of the Monsanto trials have been carried out, and the success rate claimed by them relate to agronomic performance and not ecological safety.
And while Monsanto in its advertisements claims that the use of its Bt cotton precludes the need for use of pesticides, in Texas (USA) farmers are suing Monsanto over Bt cotton planted on 18000 acres of their land which suffered cotton bollworm damage and on which farmers had to use pesticides.
Underscoring the need for adequate regulatory frameworks for genetic engineering, Vandana Shiva such a framework is inadequate not merely in India, but world-wide.
In the US for e.g. such trials do not have ecological dimensions, only agronomic performance. The US data, she adds, are thus "non-data from non-trials" in the ecological context.
The entire biotech and genetic engineering in agriculture is evolving in a total regulatory vacuum, and Monsanto itself admits this when it says: "Monsanto should not have to vouchsafe the safety of biotech food.... Our interest is in selling as much of it as possible. Assuring safety is FDA's job."
In the US, the FDA does not look at safety of Bt crops since they are treated as pesticide. And EPA supposed to look at safety of pesticides, treats genetically engineered crops which produce pesticides as conventional crops and does not look for safety either.
"There is no agency guaranteeing the safety of genetically engineered crops and it is to fill this policy vacuum for environmental safeguards that citizens worldwide are calling for a five-year moratorium on genetic engineering in agriculture," adds Shiva.