tagged w/ horizontal gene transfer
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The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced on Thursday its decision to deregulate two Monsanto genetically engineered (GE) seed varieties: a corn variety engineered to resist drought conditions and an herbicide-resistant soybean engineered to produce more fatty acids than regular soybeans.
Regulators legalized the seeds after reviewing risk assessments, public comments and data provided by Monsanto.
Monsanto is planning "on-farm trials" of drought-tolerant corn, known as MON 87460, during the upcoming planting season "to give farmers experience with the product" and generate commercial data, according to a statement from the company.
The corn contains a protein gene from a bacterium that reportedly limits yield loss when corn plants are stressed by drought conditions.
Earlier this year, Truthout exposed a controversial program in five African countries that involves putting Monsanto drought-tolerant corn in the hands of farmers facing drought conditions. The program is part of an effort funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which is working to establish a "Second Green Revolution" in Africa.
Critics say such efforts could replace traditional and sustainable farming methods with American-style industrial agriculture and prevent African governments from effectively regulating GE crops.
Last week, Truthout revealed that the USDA is taking steps to speed up the approval process for GE crops after industry groups put mounting pressure on top officials in recent years.
The USDA also announced a public comment period for two additional GE crop seeds, including another Monsanto soybean that is engineered to provide omega-3 fatty acids. Regulators have submitted favorable assessments of the seeds and are expected to approve them sometime next year. The public comment period on both products runs until February 27, 2012.
More at the linkThe United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced on Thursday its decision... more
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Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) today announced commonsense legislation that would prohibit open-air cultivation of Genetically Engineered (GE) pharmaceutical and industrial crops, preventing biological contamination of our food supply. The bill would also establish a tracking system to regulate and ensure the safety of GE pharmaceutical and industrial crops.
“We must take steps to prevent genetically engineered organisms from being grown in a way that could do irreversible damage to our food supply. Under pressure from profit-minded industry, we have already allowed the spread of genetically modified crops into our agriculture at great cost to our economy and with unknown effects on our bodies,” said Kucinich.
The Department of Agriculture has allowed more than 300 outdoor field trials of plants—including feed crops including corn, soybeans, rice, safflower, barley, alfalfa, mustard greens, peas, sugarcane, tomatoes, and wheat—which are genetically engineered to produce experimental pharmaceuticals, industrial enzymes and novel proteins. Those GE substances are not intended to be incorporated into food or to be spread into the environment or our food supply. Yet there are examples of such contamination, with enormously destructive consequences.
“Many Americans are unaware that crops that are genetically engineered to produce experimental pharmaceutical drugs are being grown in this country in the open, allowing them to contaminate conventional crops without detection. We cannot rely on industry to prevent the unintended spread of genetically engineered organisms,” said Kucinich.
H.R. 3554, The Genetically Engineered Safety Act, which would prohibit the open-air cultivation of genetically engineered (GE) pharmaceutical and industrial crops. The bill would prohibit the use of common human food or animal feed as the host plant for a genetically engineered pharmaceutical or industrial chemical. H.R. 3554 would also establish a tracking system to regulate the growing, handling, transportation, and disposal of pharmaceutical and industrial crops protect native ecosystems and traditional farms from the unstudied dangers of growing GE organisms. The legislation is part of a package of bills introduced by Kucinich, which includes H.R. 3553, the GE Right to Know Act.
“We have taken few steps to ensure that our own genetic experiments are kept in check. This commonsense legislation would simply ensure that our experimentation with genetic engineering and cloning do not disrupt our traditional food supply. When you are talking about the safety and stability of the food supply, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure,” said Kucinich.
More at the linkCongressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) today announced commonsense legislation that would... more
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At this site you will find action items and ways you can get involved with getting GMO labelling on the ballot in California in 2012. This will hopefully be the beginning of a nationwide effort to do what Europe did years ago due to citizen action. Labelling GMOs in our food will give us a choice in what we purchase and what we consume. Of course, Monsanto and the biotech lobby have their money, big guns and political connections, but we the consumer have the power of the purse and the voices to drown them out and it is time we used them.
More at the link.At this site you will find action items and ways you can get involved with getting GMO... more
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One year ago we saw a crime of nature unparalled committed by BP. As the Deepwater Horizon exploded sending 11 men to their deaths, a tragedy of immense proportion began to play out on our tv screens, and a twenty four hour feed of the Micondo well was made available for us to witness the killing of the Gulf and the species that live there.
This "accident" by BP in league with Transocean and Halliburton that was so much in our consciousness then has been relegated to unimportant by our media and our government. This crime, unpunished, the criminals, now left free to continue the very behavior that led to this environmental catastrophe as they also repair their image as the stories of illness and death are covered up and ignored is a crime against nature and a betrayal of our future.
And they think we have forgotten. They think we will let it go. They think they have escaped justice. I say, they are wrong.
And just like Jeffrey Smith, I too see the other more insidious spill that will affect generations to come for all time. The spill of an irresponsible science experiment already going horribly wrong. To unleash such a genetic storm upon the world with no idea how it can be reigned in if it goes wrong is not only irresponsible but criminal. But the companies involved and the biotech industry didn't and don't care about that. They knew there was much profit to be made from unleashing this on an unsuspecting global populace, and that even the ill effects could be used to profit from it.
This invasion into our ecosystems, our bodies and the generations to come can no longer go unchecked. It is grievously immoral to allow such a spill to continue especially being aware of the consequences now without knowing just how bad it will get in even ten to twenty years time. And just as with the Gulf disaster, it is government collusion with industry that has seen our futures sold to the highest bidder as our planet is used as a petrie dish!
People reading this, please understand the weight of what is being done to your world and act. We have the power, we have the tools, we have the voices. It's time for them to be heard. Our future depends on it.One year ago we saw a crime of nature unparalled committed by BP. As the Deepwater... more
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Substantial equivalence. When looking at these two words many come away with the impression that they signify fairness, safety and adequate disclosure to consumers regarding the products those words are attached to. However, regarding the marketing of transgenic foods specifically genetically modified organisms in our food that is anything but the case. I think it is crucial that consumers are aware of what is in their food and how it may affect them and their children in order for them to be able to make informed decisions about what goes into their bodies. This knowledge is essential as a preventative measure to maintaining health and also regarding informing consumers about any other effects what they buy may have on the enviroment. Therefore, in discussing substantial equivalence in regards to GMOs and the underlayer of collusion involved in pushing them into the world I think it important to begin at the beginning.
This is the standard definition of "substantial equivalence":
"Substantial equivalence is a concept developed by OECD in 1991 that maintains that a novel food should be considered the same as a conventional food if it demonstrates the same characteristics and composition as the conventional food."
This concept was pushed in regards to GMOs by the FAO and the WHO in the early 1990s. Its intent was the stripping away of years of testing of so called "novel" foods which can be prohibitively expensive and time consuming and therefore would have affected the profits of companies like Monsanto that have a virtual stranglehold on the FDA, USDA, and other regulatory agencies and governments that have afforded them special treatment in allowing them to use this planet and its species as one huge science experiment. The residual effects of applying these two words to GMOs and in allowing them to be foisted upon the world with little to no adequate testing already negates the validity of applying the substantial equivalence label to them.
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This is from a paper written in 1997:
John Fagan, Ph.D., Professor of Molecular Biology, Maharishi University of Management
"The concept of substantial equivalence has been used in Europe, North America, and elsewhere around the world as the basis of regulations designed to facilitate the rapid commercialization of genetically engineered foods. For instance, European Commission (EC) regulations concerning novel foods and food ingredients apply the concept of substantial equivalence to both the safety testing and to the labeling of genetically engineered foods. Genetically engineered foods classified as substantially equivalent are spared from extensive safety testing on the assumption that they are no more dangerous than the corresponding non-genetically engineered food (1). Using similar arguments, genetically engineered foods classified as substantially equivalent are not required to be labeled as genetically engineered (2). The effect of these regulations has been to allow genetically engineered foods to enter the market place without sufficient testing to assure safety and without sufficient labeling to allow consumers to de cide for themselves whether or not to purchase and eat these novel foods. The health of the population of Europe is thus being placed at risk.
The fundamental inadequacies of this approach have been discussed previously. For instance, one article presented in the Proceedings of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Workshop on Food Safety Evaluation (3), came to the following conclusions: (1) Because the concept of substantial equivalence has no dimensions, it cannot be used as a predictor of which novel foods will require substantial safety testing in animals. (2) Depending on the nature of the novel food, the usefulness of the concept of substantial equivalence in determining the necessity for extensive safety testing ranges from useful to negligible. (3) The number and range of safety tests required is best determined, not by the concept of substantial equivalence, but by the nature of the product under consideration.
At first glance the term substantially equivalent implies that two foods are equivalent in all characteristics that are of importance to the consumer-safety, nutrition, flavor, and texture. However, in actual practice the investigator compares only selected characteristics of the genetically engineered food to those of its non-genetically engineered counterpart. If that relatively restricted set of characteristics is not found to be significantly different in these two, the genetically engineered food is classified as substantially equivalent to the corresponding non-genetically engineered food and is required to be neither tested further nor labeled as genetically engineered.
The argument supporting this practice is that since most of the characteristics of a particular genetically engineered food are similar to those of its non-genetically engineered counterpart, it must be the case that the genetically engineered food is substantially equivalent to its non-genetically engineered counterpart with respect to all characteristics relevant to the consumer. This is obviously a fallacious argument, and should not be used as the basis for avoiding more extensive testing and for avoiding the labeling of genetically engineered foods. Most critically, if characteristics important to food safety are not evaluated directly, the safety of consumers will be in jeopardy."
end of excerpt.
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continued at the link.
Thank you for supporting this blog and for helping me get out this important information.Substantial equivalence. When looking at these two words many come away with the... more
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USDA senior scientist sends “emergency” warning to US Secretary of Agriculture
Tom Vilsack on a new plant pathogen in Roundup Ready GM soybean and corn that
may be responsible for high rates of infertility and spontaneous abortions in
livestock. Dr. Mae-Wan Ho
Please distribute widely and forward to your elected representatives
An open letter appeared on the Farm and Ranch Freedom Alliance founded and run
by Judith McGeary to save family farms in the US [1, 2]. The letter, written
by Don Huber, professor emeritus at Purdue University, to Secretary of
Agriculture Tom Vilsack, warns of a pathogen “new to science” discovered by “a
team of senior plant and animal scientists”. Huber says it should be treated as
an “emergency’’, as it could result in “a collapse of US soy and corn export
markets and significant disruption of domestic food and feed supplies.”
The letter appeared to have been written before Vilsack announced his decision
to authorize unrestricted commercial planting of GM alfalfa on 1 February, in
the hope of convincing the Secretary of Agriculture to impose a moratorium
instead on deregulation of Roundup Ready (RR) crops.
The new pathogen appears associated with serious pervasive diseases in plants -
sudden death syndrome in soybean and Goss' wilt in corn – but its suspected
effects on livestock is alarming. Huber refers to “recent reports of
infertility rates in dairy heifers of over 20%, and spontaneous abortions in
cattle as high as 45%.”
This could be the worst nightmare of genetic engineering that some scientists
including me have been warning for years [3] (see Genetic Engineering Dream or
Nightmare, ISIS publication): the unintended creation of new pathogens through
assisted horizontal gene transfer and recombination.
Huber writes in closing: “I have studied plant pathogens for more than 50 years.
We are now seeing an unprecedented trend of increasing plant and animal diseases
and disorders. This pathogen may be instrumental to understanding and solving
this problem. It deserves immediate attention with significant resources to
avoid a general collapse of our critical agricultural infrastructure.”
The complete letter is reproduced at the link.USDA senior scientist sends “emergency” warning to US Secretary of... more
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A letter from Pesticide Action Network Asia/Pacific on the application by the Malasian Institute for Medical Research to release GM mosquitoes into the wild.
We refer to the public announcement by the National Biosafety Board of Malaysia about the application by the Institute for Medical Research (IMR) for the release of genetically modified male Aedes aegypti mosquitoes in Pahang and Melaka (referred to as Living Modified Organisms or LMOs of the OX513A strain) (Reference No. NRE(S) 609-2/1). We have serious concerns and objections.
First of all, there is a lack of transparency and information about the genes involved in the genetic engineering of the mosquito. For example, how is this male LMO ‘created’? Is there not the risk of a margin of error that might allow female LMOs to be selected in the process? What are the sources of the molecular marker and the ‘lethal’ gene that will make the offspring of the LMO and a female Aedes aegypti die? This is very critical.
The technique apparently employed in this IMR project seems to be the one called “Released Insects with a Dominant Lethal” (RIDL) which is a tetracycline-repressible lethal system, utilizing the piggyBac transposon. If the key gene that confers the dominant lethal trait is tTAV, a protein, — and we do not know this for sure since the IMR refuses to release the information — then in the absence of tetracycline, the mosquito offspring of the LMO will likely die from the toxic effects of the over-production of tTAV. If such a gene is the one causing fatality to the offspring of the LMO, then what is the precise mode of action of the tTAV protein? Its mode of action and how it leads to the death of the mosquito offspring/organism exactly appear unclear and little understood. This should be clarified and investigated before any open releases are considered, as it may have environmental or health consequences as well as carry risks arising from horizontal gene transfer.
The public announcement and fact sheet do not look at the possibility of new health risks to humans and animals arising from the genetically modified mosquitoes, in particular if female LMOs are released accidentally or female progenies from the released male LMOs somehow survive. In relation to the latter, Phuc et al. [1] state that 3-4% of the first larval instar of OX513A do survive to adulthood. Thus the IMR fact sheet is not quite accurate in stating that the presence of the “conditional lethality trait” in OX513A progenies is fatal; “resulting in the death of the progenies in the absence of tetracycline”. The figure for 3-4% is given for laboratory experiments. What is the figure for field cage trials? Different conditions (biotic and abiotic stresses) need to be tested for changes in (a) the survival rate of OX513A mosquitoes and (b) phenotypic and behavioral characteristics.
Please let us briefly explain our concern regarding the use of a seemingly untested protein. As an example, Bt crops like cotton and corn are genetically engineered with the Bt-toxin gene from the soil-bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt). There are many different forms of and genes for Bt toxins—the most commonly used are Cry1Ab and Cry1Ac. Cry1Ac has been found to be a potent immunogen. It binds to gut cells and is capable of causing changes in the permeability of the gut (e.g. [2-5]). Other examples of unpredicted immunogenicity or toxicity are two food products. In the 1990s, in feeding trials with rats (and mice), genetically engineered (GE) tomatoes in the US (Clagene) as well as GE potatoes in the UK [6,7] were found to cause damage to the gut and its mucosal cell lining. In both cases, the transgenes used were coding for proteins regarded as harmless when ingested by mammals.
Another major risk in the IMR project is horizontal gene transfer of the piggyBac insert, which contains the two transgenes. According to a paper by Ho and Cummins [9], the risk of the transgenes being transferred horizontally to other species is highly increased due to their combination with the piggyBac transposon. The risks of such transposons transferring to the genomes of the mammalian hosts should be investigated, including the possible transfer to laboratory animals used as blood meal donors for female LMO mosquitoes.
This is relevant at this present stage as there will potentially be females amongst the released LMO mosquitoes. The male LMOs have to be sorted from the females, and this takes place at the pupae stage, when males are generally smaller than females. This, however, is unlikely to be 100 per cent accurate. It is obvious that transgene escape can readily occur, whether horizontally or vertically (via sexual reproduction).
The enhanced possibility of horizontal gene transfer is only one possible effect of genetic engineering. Transgenes as well as the insertion of transgenes via genetic engineering are known to give rise to other unexpected, unintended, positional, synergistical, or pleiotropic effects [10]. As an example, one study in 2005 looked at GE peas that had been genetically engineered with a bean gene. Unexpectedly, the protein product from the bean gene changed its characteristics when produced in peas and caused immune reactions and inflammation in mice, not seen with the bean [11]. This provides evidence that a gene may behave differently when transferred from one organism to another, even if the two organisms are very close from an evolutionary standpoint.
The relevance of this for the given situation is that there are likely to be changes in the GE mosquito other than the intended or expected ones. These would include changes in genoptypic, phenotypic or metabolic levels as well as behavioural levels. Genetically engineering a mosquito, which is a vector of disease, may give rise to unexpected effects that may include negative impacts on human and animal health, for example, the insect may become more virulent, aggressive or its bite might have different effects on the host.
The proposal by the IMR to do fogging after the release is also fraught with contention. Fogging with resigen (active ingredients: S-bioallethrin and permethrin) means spraying communities and the environment with poisonous pesticides. Both are pyrethroids which have been linked to toxicity in humans including carcinogenicity, reproductive and developmental toxicity, and neurotoxicity as well as acute toxic effects such as coughing, redness, burning sensation/pain in the eyes and skin, dizziness, headache, fatigue, nausea, listlessness, vomiting, epigastric pain, muscular fasciculation [12,13]. These pyrethroids can be inhaled or ingested (directly or through water). Permethrin has also been found to have potential to be an endocrine disrupter [14]. Besides this, fogging is ineffective in controlling mosquitoes because it is not targeted but simply sprayed all over the area, allowing a large proportion of mosquitoes to escape.
Last but not least, involving the communities that will be affected by the release as well as the public at large is a matter of public trust. The effects of the genetically engineered mosquito including its molecular marker and the ‘lethal’ gene (assumed to be tTAV) on fish, frogs or other organisms present in the environment that might feed on it, and its possible effects on humans or other mammals have not been tested. Before any open release, this information must be determined, especially since there is risk of survival of the GE mosquito offspring.
continuedA letter from Pesticide Action Network Asia/Pacific on the application by the Malasian... more
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