Sandra B. Jónsdóttir writes on GM Food

GM crops are the product of a powerful new technology which enables plants to be altered with genes from species as distant as fish, animal or even human. Plant breeding to date has used natural sexual reproduction to cross-breed plants from the same or related species.  Publicists for the biotech industry often try to soften the image of this radical technology by claiming it is merely an ‘extension’ or ‘continuation’ of man´s on-going development of new plant varieties. This is deeply misleading.  Any scientific debate about the safety of GM crops must start from the recognition that redesigning nature at a genetic level is new and involves new risks. 

Effects of GM unpredictable

The greatest risk from GM technology is that it is being used to alter the global food supply in the absence of enough science to guarantee safety. Scientists do not yet understand how genes behave in the organisms from which they originally come - and yet GM technology operates on the assumption that a gene which performs a certain function in one organism will perform the same function when inserted into another organism.

Genes are not that simple. They have many functions which are governed by their interactions with each other, the chemical environment within the organism they are part of, and the environment outside the organism.  When a gene from an arctic fish is inserted into a potato to give it anti-freeze properties, it may modify the potato so that it can be grown in colder conditions, but scientists cannot predict what other ‘alterations’ that foreign gene might make to the plant. Plants that survive the process of genetic modification, (most die), are called ‘successes’ and planted as crops –without being tested for genetic abnormalities which could cause long term damage to the natural environment and human and animal health. 
 
"Completely unacceptable risk"

GM technology is not precise or predictable. Because plants will not naturally breed with foreign species, scientists have to use what is called a ‘gene construct’ to insert the foreign gene into the plant. This ‘construct’ involves a bacteria, a virus, and an anti-biotic resistant gene – all of which ‘modify’ the plant in unstable ways. (see www. erfdabreytt.net, GM technology ). The act of physically bombarding the plant with this ‘construct’ has been shown to ‘scramble’ the plants natural gene structure. What is more, the ‘construct’ cannot regulate how many ‘foreign’ genes are thrust into the plant or where on the plant´s DNA chain the ‘foreign’ genes are located.  Scientists fear the ‘marker’ genes in GM food could be transferred to gut bacteria causing them to become ‘superbugs’ which would be resistant to antibiotic drugs used in medicine. 

The British Medical Association has stated that, “the BMA believes the use of antibiotic-resistant marker genes in GM food stuffs is a completely unacceptable risk, however slight, to human health.”

The US government allowed its biotech industry to avoid the normal environmental and health tests required of all new technologies by accepting the biotech industry’s supposition that GM crops are ‘substantially equivalent’ to conventional crops - and therefore ‘nothing new’. Assessments of GM foods in the USA are the same as for conventional foods – new and unintended toxins or allergens which might be a result of gene modification are not tested for. This has amounted to a ‘Don’t look and you won’t find’ policy.

Most dangerous GM crops allowed in Iceland - Europe rejects them

Concerned about unaddressed safety issues, the EU imposed a 5 year moratorium on GM crops and food, put in place labelling and tractability laws, and set up regulations to control co-existence and liability matters. GM free regions exist in most EU countries and are increasing in size and number.

The Environment Institute in Iceland has granted one license (and may grant a second) to ORF biotech company to use the Icelandic ecosystem to grow the most dangerous of all GM crops – GM medicine crops. Sadly questions posed by groups here who wish to generate a scientific debate about this issue have been answered with unsubstantiated slogans – such as (a) ‘We eat genes everyday’ (scientifically meaningless); (b) ‘GM crops pose no more danger to the environment or human health than conventional crops’, this article explains only some of the scientific considerations that make this statement unsound; (c) ‘GM crops in no way threaten the safety of the food supply’, (see www.erfdabreytt.net for a long list of contamination crises in the USA); and (d) that GM material ‘cannot accumulate in soil or water’, contrary to the view of many scientists including the Union of Concerned Scientists in the USA, www.ucsusa.org).

Call for government responsibility - And public debate

Some large organisations, including the Consumers´ Association and Landvernd, have passed resolutions about the need for scientific debate and recently the Regional Farmers Organisation in south Iceland overwhelmingly passed a resolution calling for a scientific debate on the risks associated with growing GM crops in Iceland before further licenses are granted.  Which will come first, the licenses or the debate?

The author is a freelance writer on food issues.
(The article was first published in the Morgunblaðið daily 28 of May 2005. Published here with the author´s kind permission.)