In attempting to unravel the risks and potentials for GM food, McHughen (2000) identifies that ‘safety’ in relation to food is a subjective term. He asks what is meant by GM food safety and whether it is‘relative to other foods currently on the market. Is safety absolute?’ (2000: 19). Clearly this a valid question, and it is important to remember that issues about the production, trade and safety of GM products are a part of a broader debate about food per se. There is a danger that a discussion that focuses exclusively on GM food fails to adequately acknowledge a whole host of serious concerns about non-GM contamination, exploitation and misrepresentation. For example, in Britain alone, 5.5 million people suffer annually from food poisoning at a cost of £350 million to the economy (Food Standards Agency, 2002). Therefore, McHughen’s work, notwithstanding the legitimate anxieties about GM food, serves as an important reminder that politicised debates about GM foodstuffs must not colonise all discourses on food security and sustainable development. That said, there are several safety concerns that are unique to genetically modified foods. For example, Weaver and Morris’ extensive annotated bibliography of all available published scientific literature systhensises a range of concerns that requires further examination as well as promoting a range of issues for regulatory authorities. They conclude:
risks associated with the expression of the transgenic material include concerns over resistance and non-target effects of crops expressing Bt toxins, consequences of herbicide use associated with genetically
modified herbicide-tolerant plants, and transfer of gene expression from genetically modified crops through vertical and horizontal gene transfer. These come about because of the unstable nature of the transgene and vectors used to insert it and because of unpredictable interactions between the transgene and the host genome.
(2005: 157) Such studies have raised a variety of concerns about health and safety that necessitate further examination. In doing so, they require us to ask what is risk? And how much risk can we risk? (cf. Caruso, 2006, discussed later). Health issues
On the one hand, advocates for GM food propose that it provides a solution to world hunger while providing greater nutritional and health benefits to consumers. On the other hand, international concerns have been raised about the possible risks to human health, including toxicity, allergenicity, antibiotic immunity, chemical reactions to human cell structure, illness and whether deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) in GM foods can invade human genetic structures. Issues about GM food and human health received inter- national attention in 1989 after 37 people died and 1,500 suffered long-term disabilities in the US after consuming a food supplement (L-Trytophan) derived from genetically modified bacteria. While some commentators have suggested that the fatalities and illnesses were associated with non-GM processes (Anderson, 1999), the incident provoked much needed research and debate into the safety of GM food products. In another widely cited study, Arpad Pusztai found that rats fed genetically modified potatoes suffered organ and immune system impairment. While subject to sustained criticism, the work of Ewen and Puzstai (1999) has sparked international concern about the negative impact on human health from consuming GM food products. Other studies identify various unintended and unknown human health consequences that require further investigation (Cellini et al., 2004).
In Argentina, where GM crops provide the government with $US 5 billion per year, a legal application has been lodged with the Supreme Court that, if successful, will halt the production of all GM agriculture for six months. The pending legal case emerged from Argentine research identified embryonic defects in frogs consuming GM seeds and the coinciding higher birth defects and cancers in people living near to farms spraying the GM herbicides on GM crops (Webber and Weitzman, 2009).
In an unusual move, general practitioners in Ireland have called for a ban on GM foods claiming that potential risks pose problems stating,‘Doctors have an ethical and moral duty to highlight concerns in relation to these issues and in the interest of the health of present and future generations.
Permission to grow or consume genetically engineered foods in Ireland should be denied’ (Irish Medical Times, 2009).
Nutrition, hunger and gene transfer
A synthesis of available scientific evidence identifies that health related benefits from consuming GM food is either exaggerated or inconclusive. Indeed some authors have pointed to the‘weak science’, notably in the United States, that ‘conceals value-laden features of safety claims’ about GM crops (Levidon and Carrs, 2000: 257). That said, some studies report that GM foods provide improved fat, protein and carbohydrate quality, while demonstrating no adverse genetic or reproductive side effects (Uzogara 2000; Bakshi, 2003; Rhee et al., 2005). Monsanto argues that their products provide consumer benefits ‘such as increased protein or oil, improved fatty-acid balance, or carbohydrate enhancements’ (Monsanto, 2006). Scientific staff working for Monsanto have conducted extensive research and published the results in reputable academic journals. Cockburn’s analysis of dozens of varieties of GM food products concluded that:
the evaluation of more than 50 GM crops which have been approved worldwide, the conclusion has been that food and feeds derived from genetically modified crops are as safe and nutritious as those derived from traditional crops. The lack of any adverse affects resulting from the production and consumption of GM crops grown on more than 300 million acres over the lastfive years supports these safety conclusions.
(2002: 79) Some pro-GM scientists acknowledge that toxicity in food production can result in harm to humans but conclude that there is no evidence that tech- nologies used for GM foods ‘poses an allergic threat per se compared to other methodologies widely accepted in the food industry’ (Lack, 2002: 337). Without doubt, the most widely acclaimed health benefit from the propo- nents of GM food is its ‘remedy to world hunger’, to vitamin A deficiency and food shortages (see Borlaug, 2000; Guerinot, 2000; Trewavas, 2002). In addition, there has been no shortage of media commentators arguing that we ‘must go GM’ if we are to feed the world’s hungry (Bridges, 2008). Research in China has revealed increased rice yields with lower amounts of insecticide, a reported breakthrough for food shortages (Huang et al., 2005). With the world experiencing food shortages the GM debate has again been reignited in the UK. Among those advocating for GM crops are eminent scientists such as Professor Chris Leaver at Oxford University arguing that the‘earth’s population will reach 9 billion by 2040. We need crops that offer better nutritional quality, can withstand drought, use fertiliser more effi- ciently and resist diseases and pests. GM can contribute to achieving that’
(quoted in Leake, 2008). However, the International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD), a presti- gious intergovernmental body similar in stature to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, published a 2,500-page document in April 2008 concluding that there were adequate resources to produce the world’s food needs without pushing GM technologies. It claimed that biotechnology has a role to play in future agricultural security but GM crops were not the answer to world hunger (IAASTD, 2008). It reified the position that GM food is not the answer for future food shortages; instead the solutions lie in reducing poverty, disease, war and economic exploitation while increasing access to technology and resources (FAO, 2006). Moreover, biotech claims that GM is a solution to world hunger is an argument that sits uncomfortably with other recognised facts about food oversupply and worldwide obesity. For example, the world’s three largest food companies, Danone, Unilever and Kraft are currently vying for the right to patent the Hoodia gordoni cactus that produces a compound known as P57 which has been used by indigenous African tribes for centuries to stave off hunger. With an estimated 300 million people worldwide clinically assessed as overweight or obese, the use of‘dietary control products’ promises to return £300 billion a year to the leading corporate franchise (Milmo, 2006). Such profitable enterprises from excess food run counter to biotech claims that the world’s food shortages will be solved with GM food products. With over a billion small subsistence farmers throughout the world, most of them living in poverty, the World Food Programme has identified that ‘efforts must be stepped up to promote broad based agricultural and rural development that will create the opportunities for sustainable exit from poverty’ (WFP, 2002: 9). It is widely acknowledged that the elimination of poverty and disease combined with the development of economic stability is the way forward for reducing hunger. The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation has argued that‘sustained economic growth leading to increased productivity and pros- perity at the national level will result in reduced hunger’ (2006: 10). If hunger is an economic and developmental issue and not a food shortage issue (WHES, 2006), it must be questioned how GM food with its corporate patents and licence-dependent farmers/clients can be an answer. If the biotech industry is concerned with solving problems of world hunger, how will patented seeds being sold to the world’s poorest people provide a long-term solution?
From a nutritional perspective, advocates of GM food have also pointed to‘golden rice’ to reduce vitamin A deficiencies. Rice is the staple diet of two billion people, and GM golden rice created by Dr Ingo Potrykus contains increased levels of b-carotene and iron. In the majority world, an estimated 140 million children are affected annually by vitamin A deficiency resulting in death, disease and blindness (World Food Programme, 2006). However, the Rockefeller Foundation which was funding developments in golden rice denounced the actions of public relations companies for exaggerating the claims of the product and admitted that golden rice was a mere‘supplement’
vitamin A to a healthy diet of fruit and vegetables and not a panacea to world health problems (Conway, 2001; Brown, 2001). The response by Gordon Conway of the Rockefeller Foundation came after Dr Vandana Shiva had called golden rice a ‘hoax’ manufactured by PR campaigns representing the biotech industries to maximise profits and not scientific research (Shiva, 2001). Subsequent views in the scientific community have supported the notion that the rice is incapable of redressing the majority world’s shortage of vitamin A (Nestle, 2001).
The case against GM food on the grounds of health related concerns includes the possibilities of gene transfer, the risks of antibiotics immunity, the creation of new food toxins and allergens and the potential carcinogenic side-effects. Such concerns are supported by a corpus of reputable scientific evidence including some of the world’s most eminent geneticists and biophysicists (see Wan-Ho, 1997, 2004 and 2006). For example, on 15 June 2003, the Independent Science Panel, an autonomous group of 26 world renowned experts from various disciplines including biomathematics, medi- cine, microbial ecology, molecular genetics, nutritional biochemistry, phy- siology, toxicology and virology released a 120-page report that synthesised all available scientific evidence. The report provides disturbing reading about the lack of regulation, the manipulation of scientific research, the lobbying activities of biotech companies as well as stating that GM foods pose serious health and environmental dangers. Numerous scientists identified that anti- biotic resistance in humans could be acquired through ingestion of resistant microorganisms from animals or soil contaminating food or water. The summaryfindings of the IPS final report conclude that:
Transgenic DNA from plants has been taken up by bacteria both in the soil and in the gut of human volunteers; antibiotic resistance marker genes can spread from transgenic food to pathogenic bacteria, making infections very difficult to treat.
(Institute of Science in Society, 2003) The conclusions of this highly reputable and experienced group of scholars were emphatically opposed to GM food stating:
GM crops have failed to deliver the promised benefits and are posing escalating problems on the farm. Transgenic contamination is now widely acknowledged to be unavoidable, and hence there can be no co-existence of GM and non-GM agriculture. Most important of all, GM crops have not been proven safe. On the contrary, sufficient evidence has emerged to raise serious safety concerns, that if ignored could result in irreversible damage to health and the environment. GM crops should therefore befirmly rejected now.
Similar concerns over contamination, lack of GMO regulation and gaps in scientific knowledge were expressed in Frankfurt in December 2005 during an international symposium involving leading scientific experts (see Katja, 2006). As a result, there have been widespread concerns expressed about antibiotic resistant genes in food that may combine with beneficial human bacteria to form harmful virile strains (or superbugs) within the human body that are immune to existing antibiotic technologies (discussed below).
Some scientific research is not disputed. For example, it has been con- clusively established that not all foreign and reconstructed DNA in GM food is broken down during digestion. Genetically modified DNA is capable of surviving in the small intestine and bowel of various farm animals (Chowdhury et al., 2003a and b; Duggan et al., 2003). The presence of GM DNA in the gastrointestinal tracts of animals fed with GM feed products provides cause for concern, but can such traces of recombinant DNA trans- fer into the cell or tissue structures? Espanier et al. (2001) identified that GM DNA from the gut of pigs had transferred into the bloodstream of the animals that had consumed GM feed. In addition, there is evidence of GM DNA being transferred or taken up in the tissue cells (Hohlweg and Doefler, 2001; Filaci, et al., 2004) and results of attachment to genomes (Ho, 2003; de Vries and Wackernagel, 2002).
More recent and alarmingfindings were revealed by Dr Irina Ermakova at the Russian Academy of Sciences which demonstrates that unborn children could be harmed by GM food products (Bean, 2006). Her research demon- strates that 55.6 per cent of rodent offspring to mothers fed a diet of GM soya died within three weeks of birth compared with nine per cent from a control group. This study is thefirst of its kind to address issues relating to the unborn and provides justification for ongoing concern. This research supports earlierfindings that identified cell structure and functioning were altered in the organs of mice after consuming GM soya. In a comprehensive study which included a 24-month feeding programme of GM soya, Italian researchers discovered that the liver, pancreas and reproductive organs of mice were structurally rearranged, damaged or dysfunctional from consuming genetically modified soya products (Malalesta et al., 2003, 2005; Vecchio et al., 2004).
The Netherwood et al. (2004) study, funded by the Food Standard Authority (Britain’s independent food watchdog), concludes that whole epsps DNA transfer did not occur in their study involving GM soya and human ileostomists, and risk to human health was ‘unlikely’; however, they do identify that genetically modified DNA can survive in the human gut and small intestine and that low frequency gene transfer can occur. This conclusion was based on thefinding that small GM gene traces were detected in the intestinal micro- flora of subjects consuming GM soya. In another FSA funded project, Flint et al. (2002) discovered ingested, partially degraded GM DNA surviving in the small intestine and foreign gene invasion, stating that it was a‘possibility of rare acquisition of GM sequences by resident bacteria in the mouth or gut’.
In a further FSA research project that focused solely on E.coli transformation, bacterial hybridisation and antibiotic immunity, it was concluded that ‘no gene transfer from GM plant material to E.coli enterobacteriaceae component is detected’ (FSA, 2004: 4).1In sum, the Food Standard Agency’s research
programme has identified a variety of mixed results that point to ‘low level’ risks associated with GM DNA transfer and antibiotic immunity. However, a full reading of the research reports does not appear to be reflected in the media releases of the FSA. Indeed, the concerns expressed by the above mentioned studies are more significant and in some instances more forcefully stated than FSA sources would lead the public to believe. This is not com- pletely surprising; the FSA has been widely criticised for its failure to be independent by backing the US Government’s opposition to labelling and not supporting policies on traceability. Some have even suggested that the FSA is ‘pro-GM’, arguing, for instance, that its ‘GM Public Debate’ was ‘nothing short of an advertising bonanza for the biotech companies’ (Rees, 2006: 40). Antibiotic resistance, allergenicity and toxicity
In addition to concerns about GM DNA breakdown and transfer, and chemical reactions to human cell structure, widespread alarm surrounds antibiotic resistance, toxins, allergies as well as the possible carcinogenic effects of consuming GM food products.
More than a decade ago, American geneticist Ricki Lewis identified the growing increase of antibiotic resistant bacteria and the near futility of available pharmaceuticals to counteract hybrid and mutated infections. Dr Lewis attributed the reasons for the rise in untreatable diseases to drug company complacency and the overuse of antibiotics (Lewis, 1995). The United States National Health Council has re-affirmed the increasing global threat posed by fatal infections that have adapted and mutated to resistant or untreatable disease status (NHC, 2000). Millions of people worldwide die each year from infectious diseases resistant to modern medicines (WHO, 2004). The World Health Organisation has identified that the over and under use of antibiotic medicines as well as the promotion of antimicrobials in agriculture have contributed to a worldwide crisis. The use of antimicrobials for growth enhancement in animals is practised widely in commercial agri- culture. The drugs used to promote growth are similar or identical to those substances used to control human diseases and there is clinical evidence that antibiotic resistance can be passed from animals to humans (WHO, 1997 and 2003). With drug resistance already an established worldwide problem that has called for a UN global strategy (see WHO, 2001), serious concerns have been raised by the antibiotic resistant marker genes (ARMs) that are used to produce GM food. Naturally occurring food contaminants such as enterococcus cause infections that are becoming increasingly more difficult to treat because of antibiotic resistance (Eaton and Gasson, 2001), and the
threats posed by GM food threaten to exacerbate the struggles encountered by modern medicine to combat bacterial disease.
ARMs are used to identify or‘mark out’ which cells in a DNA sequence have been altered with foreign genetic material. Once the GM food is con- sumed there exists a widespread concern that the ARM will transfer into humans and agricultural livestock and produce antibiotic immunity (Lack, 2002). Moreover, research identifies that genetically modified pigs and fish created with antibiotic resistant marker genes are capable of producing new viral sequences. Kleter and Kuiper (2002: 280) argue that‘inserted retroviral sequences in animals recombine with wild type viruses giving rise to new retroviruses’ (see also Mikkelson and Pederson, 2000).
Studies that identify that antibiotic resistant gene transfer is‘remote’ and that the creation of new drug resistant bacteria is unlikely maintain that they ‘cannot entirely rule out the possibility of rare transfer events’ (Bennet et al., 2004: 418). Scientific research that reports the remoteness or rareness of ARMs to bacterial, humanoid or animal DNA maintain that transfers are possible and have occurred (Nielson et al., 1998). Moreover, high temperatures and pressurised steam used during the preparation of the marker gene is