Monsanto's Really needs to be STOPPED HELP

[mriko]

So this discussion is really more of an anti-corporate blah blah that often degrades into hate speech that helps demonize the term altogether

Nope, no hatespeech (hate is so bad feeling, no point going there unless one wants to go crazy), just plain ol'common sense, pure logic, like 2+2=4. Get them !

Irie !

 

[elmanito]

UGH! I would grow GM cannabis tomorrow if it was properly made and tested.

Since the introduction of GMO food crops in 1992 you're a guinea pig, so be my guest.Question to you is for what purpose will there be for Cannabis to be genetic modified???

Namaste

 

[medmaker420]

I think people are confused as to the fact of the "gm" versions. Can their be good genetically modded food and plants? sure there can be but most of the time their modification has zero to do with actually making the plant better but rather to simply fit a specific profile WHILE taking out the fuckin competition.

What I can't wait for is those who are ok with gmo cannabis to wait until monsanto pollen chucks their monsanto male pollen which impregnates fuckin everything and able to claim rights to everything you grow and any potential seeds from those crops WHICH odds are won't be viable except for the monsanto genetics.

there are great advances in modifying for better results but monsanto could care less about results and instead cornering the largest market in the world (food supply) while destroying the small growers along the way.

fuck them.

you want genetically modded beans? make some colloidal silver and call yourself a scientist.

 

[mean mr.mustard]

Scientists?? Maybe. But when I see key words like "can cross-pollinate", "may mislead", "could be harmful", "Scientists estimate", "may damage the local ecology", and "are vulnerable", it shows this to be complete BULLSHIT.

Just like global warming, except maybe worse.

You just said "maybe".

Get over it people... there are some of us that love the idea that we're going in the right direction... and it's fine for you to think that.

For others, it's not a direction that seems like a good bet in the long run.

If we worked on sustainablitiy more than Frankenscience perhaps I'd support the industry a little bit more. When the best solution to feed the people is terminator genes, I can't support any "logic" coming from that corporation no matter how large or how small.

GiTT - What constitutes proper testing?

 

[whodare]

^^^ gm crops wont go away until the demand has gone away. they in decade have done to crops what would have taken a century to do. some people are bound to think that is a good thing. and in some ways it is, some of the crops have been beneficial to humanity, but its the cut throat tactics and heartless attitude displayed by the company that makes me sick.

you still have the option to go local.

 

[mean mr.mustard]

We need to find terminator genes for us.

 

[whodare]

We need to find terminator genes for us.

i know right
i could get like a million dollars a gram for some terminator genes

 

[mean mr.mustard]

Now that would be advanced science!

 

[Thomkal Vwalaa]

Those of you still scared of GMO foods, there is a good list on Wikipedia that shows what has been done to each type of crop. Is it so bad to put extra vitamin A into rice?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetically_modified_food

I would copy the table but it won't paste with the formatting intact.

Oh man, that's so funny you would bring up "golden rice" because I went to an organic farm school and did a whole report on that. Golden rice is not as great as you would like to think. It is harder to grow and yields negligible nutrition when you consider the extra fertilizer, pesticides, and water it needs.

The genetically modified strain of rice, called "Golden Rice", beind developed by the IRRI with a view to providing a Vitamin A supplemented rice for the welfare of those people who are suffering from vital Vitamin A deficiency in te third world has created quite a lot of noise from opposing camps like GreenPeace who refer to it as a "Trojan Horse" which will open the doors to a more widespread use of GMO's.

The research that led to golden rice was conducted with the goal of helping children who suffer from Vitamin A deficiency (VAD). At the beginning of the 21st century, 124 million people, in 118 countries in Africa and South East Asia, were estimated to be affected by VAD. VAD is responsible for 1-2 million deaths, 500,000 cases of irreversible blindness and millions of cases of xerophthalmia annually. Children and pregnant women are at highest risk.

Vitamin A is supplemented orally and by injection in areas where the diet is deficient in Vitamin A. As of 1999 there were 43 countries that had vitamin A supplementation programs for children under 5; in 10 of these countries, two high dose supplements are available per year, which according to UNICEF could effectively elimiate VAD.

However UNICEF and a number of NGOs involved in supplementation note that more frequent low-dose supplementation should be a goal where feasible.

Because many children in countries where there is a dietary deficiency in Vitamin A rely on rice as a staple food, the genetic modification to make rice produce provitamin A (beta-carotene) is seen as a simple and less expensive alternative to vitamin supplements or an increase in the consumption of green vegetables or animal products. It can be considered as the genetically engineered equivalent of fluoridated water or iodized salt.

Theoretical analyses of the potential nutritional benefits of golden rice show that consumption of golden rice would not eliminate the problems of blindness and increased mortality, but should be seen as a complement to other methods of Vitamin A supplementation.[12] Golden rice and Golden rice 2 have not yet undergone nutritional testing.

Critics of genetically engineered crops, such as Greenpeace, raised various concerns, one of which was the low amount of Vitamin A in golden rice.

The first strains developed had only 1.6 micrograms of beta-carotene per gram of rice, which would mean that a person would have to eat 1.5–2 kg of the rice per day to get the recommended daily allowance of provitamin A. With this apparently solved by the development of lines with increased beta carotene the other objections are still standing. Greenpeace for instance opposes all genetically modified organisms, and is concerned that golden rice is a Trojan horse that will open the door to more widespread use of GMOs.

Vandana Shiva, an Indian anti-GMO activist, argued that the problem was not particular deficiencies in the crops themselves, but problems with poverty and loss of biodiversity in food crops.

These problems are aggravated by the corporate control of agriculture based on genetically modified foods. By focusing on a narrow problem (vitamin A deficiency), Shiva argued, the golden rice proponents were obscuring the larger issue of a lack of broad availability of diverse and nutritionally adequate sources of food.

Similarly other groups have argued that a varied diet containing vitamin A rich foods like sweet potato, leafy green vegetables and fruit (mango) would provide children with sufficient vitamin A.

While this is true, others also contend that a varied diet is beyond the means of many of the poor, which they say is why they subsist on a diet of rice. To suggest a more varied diet for the poorest to combat micronutrient deficiencies is the present equivalent of "Let them eat cake".

The aleurone layer that surrounds the rice endosperm is removed by a process called milling or polishing in most countries, to improve the shelf life of the rice. Brown rice with the aleurone intact contains more B vitamins, iron, manganese, selenium, zinc and phosphorus than milled rice. The Institute of Science in Society claims that if rice was not milled that supplementation would not be necessary.

However USDA data shows that brown rice does not contain any more beta carotene than milled rice.

Scientists at the International Rice Research Institute are screening rice germplasm, and trying conventional breeding approaches for breeding varieties with increased beta carotene in the aleurone.

GreenPeace activists are campaigning vehemently against the effort, time and money being spent on Golden Rice claiming that the risk of unknown factors related to this strain could be chatastrophic if the mutation spreads across the globe and eradicates normal rice.

The GreenPeace view can be seen here:

<a href="http://www.greenpeace.org/international/news/failures-of-golden-rice" title="http://www.greenpeace.org/international/news/failures-of-golden-rice" target="_blank">http://www.greenpeace.org/international/news/failu...</a>

 

[Thomkal Vwalaa]

Most of the countries in Europe do not allow GMO.

For good reason. BUMP that.

 

[Thomkal Vwalaa]

More on golden rice, the (un)champion of GMOs...

http://www.i-sis.org.uk/rice.php

Golden rice’ exhibits all the undesirable, hazardous characteristics of existing GM plants, and in added measure on account of the increased complexity of the constructs and the sources of genetic material used. The hazards are highlighted below.

It is made with a combination of genes and genetic material from viruses and bacteria, associated with diseases in plants, and from other non-food species.

The gene constructs are new, and have never existed in billions of years of evolution

Unpredictable by-products have been generated due to random gene insertion and functional interaction with host genes, which will differ from one plant to another.

Over-expression of transgenes linked to viral promoters, such as that from CaMV, exacerbates unintended metabolic effects as well as instability (see below). There are at least two CaMV promoters in each transgenic plant of the ‘golden rice’, one of which is linked to the antibiotic resistance marker gene.

The transgenic DNA is structurally unstable, leading to instability of the GM plants in subsequent generations, multiplying unintended, random effects.

Structural instability of transgenic DNA increases the likelihood of horizontal gene transfer and recombination.

Instability of transgenic DNA is enhanced by the CaMV promoter, which has a recombination hotspot, thereby further increasing the potential for horizontal gene transfer.

The CaMV promoter is promicuous in function and works efficiently in all plants, in green algae, yeast and E. coli. The spread of genes linked to this promoter by ordinary cross-pollination or by horizontal gene transfer will have enormous impacts on health and biodiversity. In particular, the hygromycin resistance gene linked to it may be able to function in bacteria associated with infectious diseases.

Horizontal transfer of transgenic DNA from GM plants into soil fungi and bacteria has been demonstrated in laboratory experiments. Recent evidence suggests that it has also taken place in a field-trial site for GM sugar-beets, in which transgenic DNA persisted in the soil for at least two years afterwards.

Prof. Hans-Hinrich Kaatz from the University of Jena, has just presented new evidence of horizontal gene transfer within the gut of bee larvae. Pollen from GM rapeseed tolerant to the herbicide glufosinate were fed to immature bee larvae. When the microorganisms were isolated from the gut of the larvae and examined for the presence of the gene conferring glufosinate resistance, it was found in some of the bacteria as well yeast cells.

All cells including those of human beings are now known to take up genetic material. While natural (unmanipulated) genetic material is simply broken down to supply energy, invasive pieces of genetic material may jump into the genome to mutate genes. Some insertions of foreign genetic material may also be associated with cancer.

Horizontal transfer of genes and constructs from the ‘golden rice’ will spread transgenes, including antibiotic resistance genes to bacterial pathogens, and also has the potential to create new viruses and bacteria associated with diseases.

In conclusion, the ‘golden rice’ project was a useless application, a drain on public finance and a threat to health and biodiversity. It is being promoted in order to salvage a morally as well as financially bankrupt agricultural biotech industry, and is obstructing the essential shift to sustainable agriculture that can truly improve the health and nutrition especially of the poor in the Third World. This project should be terminated immediately before further damage is done.

The ‘golden rice’ possesses all the usual defects of first generation transgenic plants plus multiple copies of the CaMV promoter which we have strongly recommended withdrawing from use on the basis of scientific evidence indicating this promoter to be especially unsafe. A growing number of scientists (318 scientists from 39 countries to-date) are calling for a global moratorium on the environmental releases of GMOs until and unless they can be shown to be safe.

 

[Dr_Tre]

Bulgaria banned GMO corn MON810 today!
For once, it feels good to be bulgarian!

 

[medmaker420]

I think as a society we focused so much on saving a buck or two and ended up helping collapse all the mom n pop shops around the globe.

I would be happy to pay a bit more to someone versus saving a couple bucks to help close up everyone and only allow that ONE shop to monopolize.

I however am focusing on growing my own fruits/veggies and removing as much fast food and supermarket bullshit as possible.

I think I watched too many "big brother" videos on netflix or something lol.

the gerson method - about curing cancer and other diseases simply by changing what you eat and removing meds from your daily routine.

then there is the one on the monsanto b.s. which it looks like a few of you saw that vid as well. It's sad how much stuff you can miss from our history and currently simply by not constantly researching worldly news. We allow our own media (no matter what country you are from) to dictate and decide what they want to show us. Most take that as fact and simply move on whereas a few of us research beyond what is put in our face.

Whether gmo b.s. created some good or not shouldn't really matter when the end goal ends up where farmers are getting sued and losing their businesses because of it. Is a more "perfect" tomato worth that? I don't think so and would prefer those local farmers who worked on THEIR genetics for 30+ years and some even longer.

 

[DaPurps]

Bingo Medmaker !

I posted early in this thread and have not since. A debate on organics vs GM seeds is not the real issue here. While it is an issue, it is not the BIG picture.

I personally, do not need science to tell me what Monsanto is doing to India, Iraq, American farmers, etc, is wrong.

 

[MrFista]

Grapeman - all those terms like "approximately" "and appears to be" that scientists use and you call bullshit, if you knew anything about statistics and it's application you would understand the need for such 'qualifications'.

eg: 95% occurence, or 19 out of twenty times an event will occur, qualifies me to say I have some evidence that the event is more likely to occur than not. Not definate, not even strong evidence! Some, 19 out of twenty times according to the math based on the data...

Strong evidence is still not concrete, though the stats support it with 99% confidence. 99.7% confidence is still an approximation. If we studied every single farm or object under study, then we could say things absolutely. Until then, we make the best estimate we can, given the available data.

 

[StRa]

^^^ gm crops wont go away until the demand has gone away.

hope this help to understand how Monsanto spread the GMO.....

Wikileaks: GMO conspiracy reaches highest levels of US Government

Recent Wikileaks cables are typically associated with information leaks related to U.S. war strategy, and foreign policy, which has led some people to conclude that leaked information of this nature is a possible threat to national security.
But in this case, Wikileaks cables leaked information regarding global food policy as it relates to U.S. officials — in the highest levels of government — that involves a conspiracy with Monsanto to force the global sale and use of genetically-modified foods.
In 2007, then-U.S. ambassador to France Craig Stapleton conspired to retaliate against European countries for their anti-biotech policies. U.S. diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks reveal the Bush administration formulated battle plans to extract revenge against Europe for refusing to use genetically modified seeds.
In the leaked cable, Stapleton writes: “Europe is moving backwards not forwards on this issue with France playing a leading role, along with Austria, Italy and even the [European] Commission…Moving to retaliation will make clear that the current path has real costs to EU interests and could help strengthen European pro-biotech voice.”
Ambassador Stapleton goes on to write: “Country team Paris recommends that we calibrate a target retaliation list that causes some pain across the EU since this is a collective responsibility, but that also focuses in part on the worst culprits. The list should be measured rather than vicious and must be sustainable over the long term, since we should not expect an early victory,” he wrote.
Jeffrey Smith, Author of Seeds of Deception
In an interview with Amy Goodman at Democracy Now, Jeffrey Smith, executive director of the Institute for Responsible Technology notes how he’s been saying for years that the United States government is joined at the hip with Monsanto, pushing GMOs as part of Monsanto’s agenda on the rest of the world.
“This lays bare,” notes Smith, “the mechanics of that effort. We have Craig Stapleton, the former ambassador to France, specifically asking the U.S. government to retaliate and cause some harm throughout the European Union. And then, two years later, in 2009, we have a cable from the ambassador to Spain from the United States asking for intervention there, asking the government to help formulate a biotech strategy and support the government—members of the government in Spain that want to promote GMOs, as well. And here, they specifically indicate that they sat with the director of Monsanto for the region and got briefed by him about the politics of the region and created strategies with him to promote the GMO agenda.”
Although GM corn was the first seed that was approved for widespread planting in the European Union — specifically (GM) maize (NK 603, MON 810, MON 863) — individual countries stepped forward to ban these seeds. And so, in 2007, Smith claims Monsanto and the boitech industry, with the help of the U.S. Government, formulated a strategy to force these countries to accept the first of the genetically modified seeds.
Since then, there’s been more evidence — which we reported on in January of 2010 — showing that this genetically modified corn damages mice and rats, and can cause reductions of fertility, smaller litter sizes, smaller offspring, and immune responses. As Smith observes, these concerns have been ignored by both the European Food Safety Authority and the United States FDA.

Study Concludes Three Monsanto GM Corn Varieties Toxic to Mammals
The Committee for Independent Research and Information on Genetic Engineering participated in a study published in the International Journal of Biological Sciences which demonstrates the toxicity in mammals of three genetically modified corn varieties from Monsanto.
Researchers concluded that these three GMOs (GM maize NK 603, MON 810, and MON 863) are not safe enough to be distributed commercially because the kidneys and liver in rats displayed toxicity levels when exposed to all three GM corn varieties. Other effects were also noticed in the heart, adrenal glands, spleen and haematopoietic system.
Smith adds that with MON 810 corn, “they found that there was a gene that is normally silent that is switched on and now creates an allergen in corn. They found 43 different genes that were significantly up-regulated or down-regulated, meaning that there’s massive changes in these crops and they’re not being evaluated by the U.S.—by the FDA or any other regulatory authority around the world before being put onto the market.”
The Telegraph reports that in other newly released cables, US diplomats around the world are found to have pushed GM crops as a strategic government and commercial imperative.

US Embassy Lobbied Pope to Approve GM Crops
John Vidal, environment editor for the Telegraph writes: Cables from the US embassy in the Vatican show that the US believes the pope is broadly supportive of the crops after sustained lobbying of senior Holy See advisers…The US state department special adviser on biotechnology as well as government biotech advisers based in Kenya lobbied Vatican insiders to persuade the pope to declare his backing.
“A Martino deputy told us recently that the cardinal had co-operated with embassy Vatican on biotech over the past two years in part to compensate for his vocal disapproval of the Iraq war and its aftermath – to keep relations with the USG [US government] smooth. According to our source, Martino no longer feels the need to take this approach,” says the cable.

Cables Show US Diplomats Working Directly for Monsanto
Wikileaks cable reads: “In response to recent urgent requests by (Spanish rural affairs ministry) state secretary Josep Puxeu and Monsanto, post requests renewed US government support of Spain’s science-based agricultural biotechnology position through high-level US government intervention….”
As Smith points out, they’ve been — meaning US GOVT officials, Monsanto, and the biotech industry — working around the world to try and influence policy on every single continent.
Spain and the US have worked closely together to persuade the EU not to strengthen biotechnology laws. In one cable, the embassy in Madrid writes:
“Spain was the first EU country to grow genetically modified (GM) corn and now cultivates nearly 75 percent of the EU’s MON810 corn crop – nearly 200,000 acres. During a May 13 meeting with Monsanto’s Director for Biotechnology for Spain and Portugal, Embassy officials were told that Spain is increasingly becoming a target of anti-biotechnology forces within Europe and that Spain’s cultivation of MON810 corn was under serious threat. The sentiment echoed by supporters of agricultural biotechnology regarding a ban on MON810 cultivation in Spain is that “If Spain falls, the rest of Europe will follow.”
As The Telegraph notes, the cables show that not only did the Spanish government ask the US to keep pressure on Brussels but that the US knew in advance how Spain would vote, even before the Spanish biotech commission had reported.

Blackwater’s Black Ops For Monsanto
In a must read article written by Jeremy Scahill for The Nation, Scahill claims Blackwater, through Total Intelligence, sought to become the “intel arm” of Monsanto, offering to provide operatives to infiltrate activist groups organizing against the multinational biotech firm.
Scahill is an American investigative journalist and author of Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army. Scahill says the coordinator of Blackwater’s covert CIA business, former CIA paramilitary officer Enrique “Ric” Prado, set up a global network of foreign operatives, offering their “deniability” as a “big plus” for potential Blackwater customers, according to company documents.

Our U.S. Food Safety Czar is a Former Monsanto Executive
If after reading these incriminating Wikileaks cables conforming that US government officials at the highest levels are working directly with Monsanto, and the biotech industry to control the world’s food supply with genetically modified foods, ask yourself why our current Food Safety Czar, Michael Taylor, is the former Monsanto executive who crafted the FDA’s GMO friendly policy while serving as the FDA’s Deputy commissioner for policy.
Taylor also wrote the FDA’s guidelines on recombinant bovine growth hormone (rBGH), banning dairies from labeling their milk “rBGH Free“.
Additionally, as Jeremy Smith points out in his interview with Amy Goodman, the person who was in charge of FDA policy in 1992, Monsanto’s former attorney, Michael Taylor, allowed GMOs on the market without any safety studies and without labeling, and the policy claimed that the agency was not aware of any information showing that GMOs were significantly different.
Seven years later, says Smith, because of a lawsuit, 44,000 secret internal FDA memos revealed that that policy was a lie. “Not only were the scientists at the FDA aware that GMOs were different, they had warned repeatedly that they might create allergies, toxins, new diseases and nutritional problems. But they were ignored, and their warnings were even denied, and the policy went forth allowing the deployment GMOs into the food supply with virtually no safety studies.”

 

[N. Accumbens]

Most of the countries in Europe do not allow GMO.

Lets hope they keep on the lighter side of the matter, this peoples Union.
Most countries dont, but some of the biggest countries have fields of GM, such as the BT corn in Spain which according to some comprises seventy percent of corn grown in the country.

Ech glad to know we still care, though. I think we all know that our skunk has already been bought out, wonder how many other genes could have patents on them already.

Wishing all a bit of peace in nature if you can find some...

Take care

 

[elmanito]

Another story why you have to be careful with GMO

The Skeleton in the GMO Closet
Did Genetic Engineering Cause the Tryptophan-EMS Disaster of 1989?

By Ingeborg Boyens

IT WAS ONE OF THOSE end-of-August days that closes the door on summer indolence.

In her office at the Unisys Corporation in the suburbs of Philadelphia, Dot Wilson laced up her sneakers for her lunchtime constitutional, unaware of what lay ahead for her.

A brisk three-mile course was routine for Wilson. At forty-four, she was in good shape, toned by an active life and time at the health club. But on this August day in 1988, halfway through the course, she was struck by a strange sensation of extreme weariness in her legs. She dismissed it as many would disregard a sudden ache or pain. But a week later, the sensation was still there: in fact, she was feeling "strange all over."

She went to see her doctor, who prescribed the normal battery of tests. When the results failed to point to an immediate diagnosis, Wilson and her mysterious symptoms were passed from one specialist to another. Her list of complaints soon grew longer: spasms, deep muscle pain, pins and needles prickling. Diagnosis, however, remained elusive. No one thought of the health food supplement, L-tryptophan, that her general practitioner had suggested that she try just three months earlier for the insomnia she suffered on her road trips. L-tryptophan was considered innocuous—after all, it had been identified as the ingredient in warm milk that brings on sleepiness.

Over the fall, the change forecast by that late summer day took an ominous turn. In December, Wilson was compelled to take short-term disability leave to spend time in hospital for more comprehensive tests. Despite those tests, doctors could not come up with a sure diagnosis or a treatment plan.

About one year to the day of her last lunch-time powerwalk, things turned even worse for Dot Wilson. Her legs gave out altogether one day in her bedroom; her arms turned leaden soon after. Suddenly, inexplicably, this once active career woman was rendered quadriplegic, unable to turn in her bed or manage the most basic of bodily functions.

Not surprisingly, television became an essential in the limited life of the newly immobilized Wilson. In November 1989, she caught an evening news report about a puzzling new disease with symptoms just like hers. Eosinophilia myalgia syndrome (EMS) was striking Americans across the country. Some had died. The connection, it seemed, was that all of the victims had taken L-tryptophan. Within a week, all of Wilson’s specialists had called her to say they had solved her puzzle.

At that time. L-tryptophan was considered a staple in health food stores in the United States. It had first become popular in the 1970s when it was heralded as a safe, nonaddictive treatment for insomnia, premenstrual syndrome and depression. Six Japanese manufacturers produced the food supplement for the U.S. market. After several months of investigation, the EMS outbreak was traced back to just one of the six producers—the Tokyo-based petrochemical giant Showa Denko K. K. The company already controlled more than half of the American market, but in 1988 and 1989, it sought to boost the efficiency of its L-tryptophan production. Showa Denko altered its normal manufacturing procedures by introducing a new, genetically engineered bacterium called Strain V.

Showa Denko was not the first company to use genetic engineering in its production system. As many as one hundred other pharmaceutical and food companies had already harnessed the reproductive capabilities of genetically manipulated organisms to produce large quantities of a desired substance. Like other food supplement manufacturers, Showa Denko had routinely used a fermentation process in which large quantities of bacteria are grown in vats and the required substance is extracted and purified. In this case, Showa Denko used Strain V in the fermentation system to convert nutrients into L-tryptophan. The technique was like using a gene-spliced bacterium as a living factory.

According to U.S. law, the company was allowed to sell the L-tryptophan produced in gene-spliced bacteria without any safety testing because it and other firms had been selling the supplement produced in non-genetically engineered bacteria for years without ill effects. The method of production was considered immaterial. What was important was that the new product was "substantially equivalent" to the L-tryptophan that had been sold for years.

"substantial equivalence"

"Substantial equivalence"—in chemical composition—to a genetically modified product's non-GM counterpart remains the standard used in Canada and the U.S. for approving GMOs (genetically modified organisms, including foods) for human or animal consumption. Typically, that determination is made by the manufacturer alone. If the company's lab tests show no significant difference, the government approves the GMO, even though needles could lurk in the "novel food's" complex chemical haystack, as they did in GE-derived tryptophan.

The Aquarian
The company must have considered this a routine change. However, this seemingly minor tinkering apparently produced a toxic brew. Tests showed that Showa Denko’s L-tryptophan was 99.6 percent pure, well within approved standards. But the tiny proportion of the compound that was considered "impure" contained between thirty and forty different contaminants. One of them, EBT, attracted particular attention from scientists because it was shown to cause some of the symptoms of EMS in rats.

That was 1989, the early years of the biotechnology revolution. No one was eager to blacken the reputation of the new industry. Showa Denko insisted genetic engineering was not responsible for producing the unexpected and toxic contaminants. Rather, it blamed another change in its production system. The company said it had coincidentally reduced the amount of activated carbon used for purification at the same time as it introduced Strain V.

The official toll in the first year of the EMS outbreak in the United States numbered 37 dead, 1535 permanently disabled, and more than 5000 temporarily afflicted. It was never definitively determined if the toxic assault had been caused by slipshod production—a consequence of Showa Denko cutting back on the level of its filtration—or on genetic engineering gone wrong.
The company’s claims, however, could not be corroborated. When U.S. Food and Drug Administration inspectors went to Japan to check out the production plant, they discovered Showa Denko had erased all traces of the L-tryptophan production line. Despite repeated requests, the company refused to release samples of the genetically engineered bacteria. The FDA officials reported: "The team encountered refusals to provide information, access to records and areas routinely inspected." By destroying all stocks of the modified bacteria, Showa Denko eliminated data and destroyed possible evidence that could have been useful in solving the puzzle and perhaps finding an answer for those suffering the toxic effects of L-tryptophan.

Its frustrations aside, the FDA was no more eager to raise the specter of a deadly experiment in genetic engineering than was Showa Denko. The FDA had learned as early as November 1989 that the company had genetically engineered its bacteria. However, the agency neglected to reveal the fact until August 1990, when it was forced to respond to an article in Newsday. Another piece in Science magazine quoted scientists at the FDA as saying they were concerned about the "impact on industry" of a disclosure of the potential link between EMS and genetic engineering.

Luck was on the biotech industry’s side. The FDA scheduled hearings into the L-tryptophan deaths, but the sessions dissolved into a debate on whether food supplements should be available for sale in health food stores. The well-financed and aggressive health food industry in the U.S. dominated the hearings, arguing that the existing regulatory system that allowed the sale of supplements should remain untouched. In 1990, the FDA opted for compromise, banning L-tryptophan, but continuing to allow the sale of other food supplements in unregulated retail operations.

Canada managed to sidestep the devastating epidemic that struck just south of the border. Under Canadian law, ingestible substances are either "food" or "drugs"—there is no provision for "dietary supplements." Vitamins and herbs are unregulated, but as such are not allowed to claim therapeutic properties. (The law governing dietary supplements is currently under review.) Because of its claims of healing benefits, L-tryptophan would have been considered a drug in Canada and would have had to meet much more stringent regulations than it did in the United States. For example, the manufacturer would have been compelled to file details on its production processes and any changes it made to them. Perhaps not surprisingly, Showa Denko and the other manufacturers never bothered to apply for drug status in Canada and so L-tryptophan was not available for sale north of the U.S. boundary line. (Editor's note: In 1989 tryptophan was available by prescription in Canada from a company named ICN Canada. It still is. ICM's non-genetically-engineered product - Tryptan - has never been implicated in any cases of EMS.)

The official toll in the first year of the EMS outbreak in the United States numbered 37 dead, 1535 permanently disabled, and more than 5000 temporarily afflicted. It was never definitively determined if the toxic assault had been caused by slipshod production—a consequence of Showa Denko cutting back on the level of its filtration—or on genetic engineering gone wrong. More than two hundred scientific studies tried to determine what happened. Based on fundamental chemical and biochemical principles, scientists deduced that the EBT contaminant was probably generated when the concentration of L-tryptophan within the bacteria reached such high levels that the molecules or their precursors began to react with each other. Richard Hinds, a Washington lawyer who represented Showa Denko, seemed to throw cold water on the notion that inadequate filtration was to blame for the toxic brew. He told Science magazine that the amount of powdered carbon used for filtration had varied before, dipping as low as it had f or the virulent L-tryptophan, without ill effect.



metabolic monkey wrenches

The normal metabolism of tryptophan includes several chemicals that are toxic or even carcinogenic in unusually high concentrations. In a healthy, well-nourished organism, enzymes—and coenzymes derived from nutrients like vitamin B6—prevent these chemicals from building up. But pinpoint genetic engineering (changing just one gene, as is the norm) probably left Showa Denko's tryptophan-producing bacterium short of these other protective chemicals—chemicals that depend on other genes for their manufacture. Theoretically, such shortfalls could also occur in GMOs intended for our dinner tables. Yet the differences might prove so slight or subtle that the food would still pass the regulatory requirement of "substantial equivalence."

The Aquarian
Dot Wilson has a diagnosis now, but she will likely never know what it was about the seemingly innocuous little pill she got from the health food store that so changed her life. In the late 1990s, she still used a wheelchair, suffered constant pain controlled only by an arsenal of drugs, and endured an ever increasing range of new problems, including heart, thyroid, and blood sugar disorders and a bout of breast cancer. She settled a lawsuit against Showa Denko in 1991, which has enabled her to live in relative financial comfort. Wilson is pleased that she has recovered some of her abilities-these days, she can prepare a cup of tea. However, one bitter irony remains: despite its advertised therapeutic benefits, L-tryptophan had never managed to coax her to sleep in an unfamiliar bed after a long day’s work, but the rigors of life with L-tryptophan-induced EMS always leave her exhausted and bone-tired at night.

According to a 1996 editorial in the New England Journal of Medicine, the FDA’s role "would appear to favor industry over consumer protection." And as one Canadian critic wryly remarked, Health Canada essentially says to the developers of new test-tube foods, "if your novel food kills people, let us know."
WE WILL PROBABLY never know if genetic engineering was to blame for EMS. In much the same way, we may not know definitively if the gene-spliced foods on the supermarket shelves are safe. Unless there are new stringent requirements for human testing of all genetically engineered foods, there are no assurances that history will not repeat itself. It is worth noting that Canadian and American regulators do not even talk about "food safety"; they talk about "acceptable risk." It seems there are no guarantees that what we put in our mouths today will be as good for us as the apple a day once prescribed by the family dentist and doctor.

The biotechnology industry insists there is virtually no risk in transgenic foods. It claims the changes it is making to food are miniscule, so there is no more cause for concern than there would be for naturally produced foods. Those who dare to question this logic are dismissed as cranks or fear mongers.

Corporate biotechnology likes to hold up government regulators as the ultimate police force patrolling safe food. Indeed, American and Canadian governments have a commendable record ensuring the safety of the essential nutritional staple of life.

However, in this case, government regulators have adopted a passive role in the assessment of health risks. Genetic engineering alters foods so they contain proteins and other compounds that have never been part of the human diet. The only way to tell if those new foods might be allergenic or toxic is to test them vigorously. Yet Canadian and American government agencies do not require such testing, nor are labels mandated.

There are no pre-market human tests required of "novel" foods in Canada as there would be for the introduction of a new drug. For example, the federal government determined that New Leaf potatoes, with their built-in pesticide, were safe to eat on the basis of lab tests in which mice, rats, and quails were fed the potatoes or protein extracts from them. "Treatment related effects were not observed," says the decision document release by the Food Production and Inspection Branch.

In North America, both Canadian and American governments have largely delegated the responsibility for test-tube food safety to the very corporations bringing those foods forward. According to a 1996 editorial in the New England Journal of Medicine, the FDA’s role "would appear to favor industry over consumer protection." And as one Canadian critic wryly remarked, Health Canada essentially says to the developers of new test-tube foods, "if your novel food kills people, let us know."

Even full-scale safety testing cannot guarantee one hundred percent certainty that a genetically engineered food is safe. For example, testing on volunteer human subjects for three years might not reveal longer-term effects. But at least this much caution seems the bare minimum of responsible science.

The final years of this century could be characterized as a period of food scares. hamburger disease, chicken virus, mad cow disease—they are enough to make one yearn for the simplicity of the apple-a-day era. It is puzzling that Canadian and U.S. governments have, in essence, given the biotechnology industry carte blanche. The industry is using its regulatory freedom to roll out transgenic foods in what has to be seen as a giant nutritional experiment. Are the health risks so remote as to warrant these remarkably lax regulations? The story of L-tryptophan illustrates that even minor genetic alterations can be risky.

Dot Wilson has no confidence in the ability of government or industry to regulate a genetically engineered future. She shudders at the thought of her supermarket shelves swelling with products manipulated for profit, and without any labeling to let her avoid them.

These days, Wilson is struggling to find some meaning in her experience. She is an activist prepared to speak out against test-tube foods. She works on the executive of the National EMS Network, a nonprofit group that still remembers the L-tryptophan assault on health. About one thousand Americans belong to the group, a number that is shrinking every month as more victims finally succumb to the disease.

Wilson is convinced there will be more victims of illnesses created by genetic engineering, but fears her words of caution fall on deaf ears. "There just are not enough of us. People think we are a bunch of fanatics." For now, it seems North American governments are prepared to place corporate biotechnology, with its promise of jobs and economic wealth, ahead of the Dot Wilsons of the world.

 

[harold]

get out of america while you still can...

big move, but america is going to hell!

 

[elmanito]

get out of america while you still can...

You sound like Walter from Jeff Dunham

Durood Bar Shoma