The GMO Menace

By Christian Zarro and Igor Cima, AlterNet. Posted March 25, 2005.

There is conventional wisdom that genetic engineering will tremendously affect life in the 21st century. This technology, in fact, carries implications and impacts that are unprecedented in human history. It will permeate more and more aspects of human life, from reproduction and the cure of diseases, to solutions for the environment, to name but a few. Yet genetic engineering does not only comprise benefits, such as the opportunity to combat incurable illnesses, but also threats that, perhaps with the exception of nuclear energy, are unparalleled within today's society.

These menaces are primarily represented by the transgenic agriculture and the breeding of genetically engineered animals for nutritional purposes. Such kinds of practices are to be prevented for reasons that range from risks to human health and to the environment, to socio-economic aspects and to the fight against world hunger. In this article, we will examine the first two: the dangers to health and to the environment.

In spite of the constant reassurances provided by part of the scientific world and the political establishment on the harmlessness of GE foodstuffs, the consequences for human health still remain obscure.

Transgenesis – the process to create a genetically-modified organism (GMO) – consists of lab interventions which, through the insertion of genes and other hereditary sequences, aim to modify the organisms' genetic makeup. While this technique is relatively simple – it is widely used in scientific circles – it could lead to destabilizing effects for the modified organism. In contrast with what is generally sustained by the GMOs' supporters, the introduction of genes in fact triggers profound changes within the plant or animal species. The latter could react to the modification with unpredictable effects.

According to Gianni Tamino, biology professor at the University of Padua-Italy, through the random insertion of genes into the organism, transgenesis can alter the functioning of the genes that are already embedded within the living organism. The genes, explains the scholar, are interrelated with each other in a complex way, and when a new one is introduced, the functioning of all genes could result in being unsettled.

Referring to an important report released by the British General Medical Council in the first half of 2003, Michael Meacher, Great Britain's minister for the environment from 1997 to the beginning of 2003, asserts that such genetic material could activate silent genes present in the organism whose effects are unknown or, at worst, could even be toxic.

Potatoes and Lab Rats

With the benefit of hindsight, that is what may have occurred in Arpad Pusztai's highly controversial study. The well-known Hungarian biologist and his staff administered genetically engineered potatoes to lab rats. In the genetic makeup of the potatoes a gene was inserted that was destined to produce an insecticide. This resulted in the potatoes' DNA experiencing a deep transformation. At the same time, a second group of rats was fed with regular potatoes in which the same insecticide was mixed. In this case, without genetic manipulation.

The group fed with GE potatoes was found to have abnormalities on parts of the stomach as well as in the small and large intestine. In the second group, none whatsoever. It was not the insecticide that caused these abnormalities, but the process itself to modify the organism's genetic makeup – in short, the transgenesis – whose effect consisted of modifying the regular functioning of the hereditary makeup of the potatoes, which in turn brought up a toxic reaction for the rats.

Although Pusztai's experiment was strongly criticized by both biotech industry and a component of the British scientific establishment (mainly by scientists who had strong stakes in the biotech field), it identified the GMOs' problem very well. At issue is not the transgenesis per se, but the organism's reaction to it. How will the existing genes react to the newly inserted gene? Will there be any consequences for the organism? If yes, what kind of impact will result?

In addition to the possible afore-mentioned risks, there are two that deserve the greatest scrutiny. The first one consists of the possibility that the consumption of genetically modified foodstuffs by humans may transmit ever-growing resistances towards antibiotics. Aside from containing genes for the resistance against diseases or insecticides, GMOs are simultaneously designed with special genetic sequences to resist antibiotics.

Christian Zarro is a candidate for a MSc. in media and communications at the London School of Economics. Igor Cima graduated from the University of Bern-Switzerland with a Ph.D. in immunology.

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