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GMOs and Human Health by Dr. Mae-Wan Ho
Dr. Mae-Wan Ho told the People's Health Assembly that GM is proving bad for health because it
goes against the grain of the new genetics science
A GMO or genetically modified organism is one whose natural genetic material has been modified
by having synthetic genetic material inserted into it. That is how we have GM crops grown for food
and feed, for fibre and for a range of pharmaceuticals and industrial products in the latest offering,
if we don't manage to stop it.
Maybe you have heard the mantra from certain scientists that GM food is perfectly safe because
the technology is so very precise and wonderful and the regulation the strictest in the world; that
GM is good for biodiversity, increases yield, reduces pesticide use, and so on. All of the claims
have been falsified, with data collected by the US Department of Agriculture and by independent
scientists .
The World Health Organization has just issued a report, Modern food biotechnology, human health
and development: an evidence-based study (23 June 2005) claiming that although there may be
potential risks involved in the use of GMOs, the GM crops that are grown today are not likely to
present health risks.
Yet there has been a string of incidents indicating GM food and feed are far from safe. These
include studies carried out by biotech companies producing the GM crops, which they have kept
secret under confidential business information.
--Kidney and blood abnormalities in rats fed one of Monsanto's GM maize in Monsanto's secret
dossier.
--Villagers in the south of the Philippines who suffered mysterious illnesses when another GM maize
came into flower in a nearby field two years in a row. Antibodies to the Bt protein inserted into the
GM maize were found in the villagers.
-- A dozen cows that died after eating a third GM maize made by Syngenta, and others in the herd
had to be slaughtered because of mysterious illnesses. Autopsies failed to be carried out, which
is why Greenpeace and farmers are demonstrating in front of the Robert Koch Institute
--Senior scientist Arpad Pusztai and colleagues in Scotland found young rats fed GM potatoes
ended up with damage in every organ system; the most dramatic being an increase in thickness
of the stomach lining to twice that in controls. Scientists in Egypt found similar effects in mice fed
GM potatoes with another gene.
--The US Food and Drug Administration had data dating back to early 1990s that rats fed GM
tomatoes had developed small holes in their stomach.
To cut a long story short, different species of GM food and feed crops with different genes had
adversely affected several species of animals. You don't have to be a scientific genius to see that
there may be something in the genetic engineering process itself that's harmful .
So what's wrong with GMOs?
First, new genes and combinations of genes made in the laboratory, which have never existed in
billions of years of evolution, are being introduced into our food chain.
Allergies and other toxicities come to mind. In fact, 22 out of 33 proteins incorporated into GM crops
were found to have similarities to known allergens, and are therefore suspected allergens.
The synthetic genetic material are introduced into the cells of organisms with invasive methods that
are uncontrollable, unreliable and unpredictable, and far from precise.
It ends up damaging the natural genetic material of the organism with many unpredictable,
unintended effects, including gross abnormalities that you can see, and metabolic changes that
may be toxic that you can't see.
Many foreign synthetic genes are copies of those from bacteria and viruses that cause diseases.
They also contain antibiotic resistance marker genes to help track the movements of the foreign
gene inserts and select for cells that have taken up the foreign genes.
Right from the beginning, in the mid1970s, geneticists themselves have worried that releasing
those synthetic genetic material runs the risk of creating new viruses and bacteria that cause
diseases, and spreading antibiotic resistance to make infections untreatable. As the result of the
Asilomar Declaration, a moratorium was imposed. Unfortunately, the moratorium was short-lived, as
geneticists were in a hurry for commercial exploitation of genetic engineering.
The dangers arise because the genetic material persists long after the cells or organism is dead,
and can be taken up by bacteria and viruses that are in all environments.
This process - called horizontal gene transfer and recombination - is the main route to creating
dangerous pathogens.
Genetic engineering is nothing if not greatly enhanced horizontal gene transfer and recombination,
and nasty surprises have already been sprung.
Researchers in Australia ‘accidentally' transformed a harmless mousepox virus into a lethal
pathogen that killed all the mice, even those that were supposed to be resistant to the virus.
Headlines in the New Scientist editorial: “The Genie is out, Biotech has just sprung a nasty surprise.
Next time, it could be catastrophic.”
The lead article continued in the same vein: “Disaster in the making. An engineered mouse virus
leaves us one step away from the ultimate bioweapon.”
The researchers added a gene coding for an immune signalling molecule to the virus, which they
thought would boost antibody production; instead, it suppressed immune responses. The
researchers had previously put the same gene into a vaccinia virus and found it delayed the
clearance of virus from the animals, so it may well have the same immune suppressive effects for all
viruses. Imagine what would happen if this gene ever got into a smallpox virus!
More surprisingly, researchers at the University of California in Berkeley found that disrupting a set
of disease-causing genes in Mycobacterium tuberculosis , the tuberculosis bacterium, resulted in a
hyper-virulent mutant strain that killed all the mice by 41 weeks, while all the control mice exposed
to the unmodified bacterium survived.
There is yet another insidious danger
The synthetic genes created for genetic modification are designed to cross species barriers and to
jump into the natural genetic material of cells. Such constructs jumping into the natural genetic
material of human cells can trigger cancer.
This is not just a theoretical possibility. It has happened in gene therapy, which is genetic
modification of human cells.
In 2000, researchers in the Neckar Hospital in Paris, France treated infants with X- linked Severe
Combined Immune Deficiency apparently successfully by isolating bone marrow cells from the
patients, applying gene therapy, and then injecting the genetically modified cells back into the
patients. But since 2002, 3 infants have developed leukaemia. One child has died. The foreign
synthetic gene has inserted near a human gene that controls cell division, making it overactive,
resulting in uncontrollable multiplication of the white blood cells.
I have only scratched the surface of the problems and hazards of genetic modification. But you can
already see that there has been a massive campaign of misinformation and disinformation on the
part of the GM proponents.
The greatest danger, I think, is the mindset of the GM proponents Genetic engineering of plants
and animals began in the mid 1970s under the illusion that the genetic material is constant and
static and the characteristics of organisms are hardwired in their genes. One gene determines one
characteristic. But geneticists soon discovered to their great surprise that the genetic material is
dynamic and fluid, in that both the expression and structure of genes are constantly changing
under the influence of the environment. Geneticists have coined the term, “the fluid genome”, which
encapsulated this major paradigm change. The genome is the totality of all the genetic material in
an organism.
The processes responsible for the fluid genome are precisely orchestrated by the organism as a
whole in a dance of life that's necessary for survival. In contrast, genetic engineering in the lab is
crude, imprecise and invasive. The rogue genes inserted into a genome to make a GMO can land
anywhere in any form and has a tendency to be unstable, basically because these rogue genes do
not know the language of the dance. Genetic engineers haven't learned to dance with life.
That is why dozens of prominent scientists from seven countries launched ourselves as the
Independent Science Panel, to overcome the campaign of disinformation from pro-GM scientists
who are working to promote the corporate agenda, and to reclaim science for the public good. We
compiled all the evidence against GM crops as well as the evidence on the successes and benefits
of all forms of sustainable non-GM agriculture. Based on this evidence, we are calling for a ban on
the environmental releases of GM crops and a comprehensive shift to sustainable agriculture. I
hope the Assembly will support this call!
Plenary lecture to the People's Health Assembly 2, 17-22 July 2005, Cuenca, Ecuador. For further
information please visit the Institute of Science in Society website: www.i-sis.org.uk
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This article can be found on the I-SIS website at http://www.i-sis.org.uk/
Date: 8/19/05
Author: Dr. Mae-Wan Ho
Source: The Institute of Science in Society
goes against the grain of the new genetics science
A GMO or genetically modified organism is one whose natural genetic material has been modified
by having synthetic genetic material inserted into it. That is how we have GM crops grown for food
and feed, for fibre and for a range of pharmaceuticals and industrial products in the latest offering,
if we don't manage to stop it.
Maybe you have heard the mantra from certain scientists that GM food is perfectly safe because
the technology is so very precise and wonderful and the regulation the strictest in the world; that
GM is good for biodiversity, increases yield, reduces pesticide use, and so on. All of the claims
have been falsified, with data collected by the US Department of Agriculture and by independent
scientists .
The World Health Organization has just issued a report, Modern food biotechnology, human health
and development: an evidence-based study (23 June 2005) claiming that although there may be
potential risks involved in the use of GMOs, the GM crops that are grown today are not likely to
present health risks.
Yet there has been a string of incidents indicating GM food and feed are far from safe. These
include studies carried out by biotech companies producing the GM crops, which they have kept
secret under confidential business information.
--Kidney and blood abnormalities in rats fed one of Monsanto's GM maize in Monsanto's secret
dossier.
--Villagers in the south of the Philippines who suffered mysterious illnesses when another GM maize
came into flower in a nearby field two years in a row. Antibodies to the Bt protein inserted into the
GM maize were found in the villagers.
-- A dozen cows that died after eating a third GM maize made by Syngenta, and others in the herd
had to be slaughtered because of mysterious illnesses. Autopsies failed to be carried out, which
is why Greenpeace and farmers are demonstrating in front of the Robert Koch Institute
--Senior scientist Arpad Pusztai and colleagues in Scotland found young rats fed GM potatoes
ended up with damage in every organ system; the most dramatic being an increase in thickness
of the stomach lining to twice that in controls. Scientists in Egypt found similar effects in mice fed
GM potatoes with another gene.
--The US Food and Drug Administration had data dating back to early 1990s that rats fed GM
tomatoes had developed small holes in their stomach.
To cut a long story short, different species of GM food and feed crops with different genes had
adversely affected several species of animals. You don't have to be a scientific genius to see that
there may be something in the genetic engineering process itself that's harmful .
So what's wrong with GMOs?
First, new genes and combinations of genes made in the laboratory, which have never existed in
billions of years of evolution, are being introduced into our food chain.
Allergies and other toxicities come to mind. In fact, 22 out of 33 proteins incorporated into GM crops
were found to have similarities to known allergens, and are therefore suspected allergens.
The synthetic genetic material are introduced into the cells of organisms with invasive methods that
are uncontrollable, unreliable and unpredictable, and far from precise.
It ends up damaging the natural genetic material of the organism with many unpredictable,
unintended effects, including gross abnormalities that you can see, and metabolic changes that
may be toxic that you can't see.
Many foreign synthetic genes are copies of those from bacteria and viruses that cause diseases.
They also contain antibiotic resistance marker genes to help track the movements of the foreign
gene inserts and select for cells that have taken up the foreign genes.
Right from the beginning, in the mid1970s, geneticists themselves have worried that releasing
those synthetic genetic material runs the risk of creating new viruses and bacteria that cause
diseases, and spreading antibiotic resistance to make infections untreatable. As the result of the
Asilomar Declaration, a moratorium was imposed. Unfortunately, the moratorium was short-lived, as
geneticists were in a hurry for commercial exploitation of genetic engineering.
The dangers arise because the genetic material persists long after the cells or organism is dead,
and can be taken up by bacteria and viruses that are in all environments.
This process - called horizontal gene transfer and recombination - is the main route to creating
dangerous pathogens.
Genetic engineering is nothing if not greatly enhanced horizontal gene transfer and recombination,
and nasty surprises have already been sprung.
Researchers in Australia ‘accidentally' transformed a harmless mousepox virus into a lethal
pathogen that killed all the mice, even those that were supposed to be resistant to the virus.
Headlines in the New Scientist editorial: “The Genie is out, Biotech has just sprung a nasty surprise.
Next time, it could be catastrophic.”
The lead article continued in the same vein: “Disaster in the making. An engineered mouse virus
leaves us one step away from the ultimate bioweapon.”
The researchers added a gene coding for an immune signalling molecule to the virus, which they
thought would boost antibody production; instead, it suppressed immune responses. The
researchers had previously put the same gene into a vaccinia virus and found it delayed the
clearance of virus from the animals, so it may well have the same immune suppressive effects for all
viruses. Imagine what would happen if this gene ever got into a smallpox virus!
More surprisingly, researchers at the University of California in Berkeley found that disrupting a set
of disease-causing genes in Mycobacterium tuberculosis , the tuberculosis bacterium, resulted in a
hyper-virulent mutant strain that killed all the mice by 41 weeks, while all the control mice exposed
to the unmodified bacterium survived.
There is yet another insidious danger
The synthetic genes created for genetic modification are designed to cross species barriers and to
jump into the natural genetic material of cells. Such constructs jumping into the natural genetic
material of human cells can trigger cancer.
This is not just a theoretical possibility. It has happened in gene therapy, which is genetic
modification of human cells.
In 2000, researchers in the Neckar Hospital in Paris, France treated infants with X- linked Severe
Combined Immune Deficiency apparently successfully by isolating bone marrow cells from the
patients, applying gene therapy, and then injecting the genetically modified cells back into the
patients. But since 2002, 3 infants have developed leukaemia. One child has died. The foreign
synthetic gene has inserted near a human gene that controls cell division, making it overactive,
resulting in uncontrollable multiplication of the white blood cells.
I have only scratched the surface of the problems and hazards of genetic modification. But you can
already see that there has been a massive campaign of misinformation and disinformation on the
part of the GM proponents.
The greatest danger, I think, is the mindset of the GM proponents Genetic engineering of plants
and animals began in the mid 1970s under the illusion that the genetic material is constant and
static and the characteristics of organisms are hardwired in their genes. One gene determines one
characteristic. But geneticists soon discovered to their great surprise that the genetic material is
dynamic and fluid, in that both the expression and structure of genes are constantly changing
under the influence of the environment. Geneticists have coined the term, “the fluid genome”, which
encapsulated this major paradigm change. The genome is the totality of all the genetic material in
an organism.
The processes responsible for the fluid genome are precisely orchestrated by the organism as a
whole in a dance of life that's necessary for survival. In contrast, genetic engineering in the lab is
crude, imprecise and invasive. The rogue genes inserted into a genome to make a GMO can land
anywhere in any form and has a tendency to be unstable, basically because these rogue genes do
not know the language of the dance. Genetic engineers haven't learned to dance with life.
That is why dozens of prominent scientists from seven countries launched ourselves as the
Independent Science Panel, to overcome the campaign of disinformation from pro-GM scientists
who are working to promote the corporate agenda, and to reclaim science for the public good. We
compiled all the evidence against GM crops as well as the evidence on the successes and benefits
of all forms of sustainable non-GM agriculture. Based on this evidence, we are calling for a ban on
the environmental releases of GM crops and a comprehensive shift to sustainable agriculture. I
hope the Assembly will support this call!
Plenary lecture to the People's Health Assembly 2, 17-22 July 2005, Cuenca, Ecuador. For further
information please visit the Institute of Science in Society website: www.i-sis.org.uk
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This article can be found on the I-SIS website at http://www.i-sis.org.uk/
Date: 8/19/05
Author: Dr. Mae-Wan Ho
Source: The Institute of Science in Society