Hope Not Hype - Third World Network

42 Hope Not Hype
Regulations cannot ensure the safety of unknown or recalled GMOs in human food.
The case study reported in Box 4.1 describes how unknown varieties can result in human
health concerns and trade disruptions (Heinemann et al., 2004). In summary:
The movement of transgenes beyond their intended destinations is a virtual certainty. It is
unlikely that transgenes can be retracted once they have escaped. Human error can foil even
the best designed strategies for risk management (Marvier and Van Acker, 2005, p. 99).
Not all GMOs are intended to be safe as food (Ellstrand, 2003; Heinemann, 2007;
Marvier and Van Acker, 2005; Schubert, 2008). The track record on containing regulated
and potentially unsafe GMOs, much less GMOs not designed to be safe, is not reassuring
(Fox, 2003; Ledford, 2007; Lee and Natesan, 2006; Vermij, 2006; Zapiola et al., 2008)
and thus, even when regulatory requirements are met, it is possible for future potentially
“unsafe” GMOs to enter the food chain (Schubert, 2008). This is the point elegantly made
by the editor of Nature Biotechnology when discussing so-called “pharma crops”, GM
food plants that produce industrial or pharmaceutical products that are not intended to be
safe in food:
The production of drugs or drug intermediates in food or feed crop species bears the potential
danger that pharmaceutical substances could find their way into the food chain through
grain admixture, or pollen-borne gene flow (in maize, at least) or some other accidental
mix-up because of the excusably human inability to distinguish between crops for food and
crops for drugs. The ‘contamination’ of soybeans and non-GM corn in 2002 with a corn
engineered by Prodigene to produce an experimental pig vaccine shows just how plausible
this is. This position is not anti-GM (something industry should appreciate) – we should be
concerned about the presence of a potentially toxic substance in food plants. After all, is this
really so different from a conventional pharmaceutical or biopharmaceutical manufacturer
packaging its pills in candy wrappers or flour bags or storing its compounds or production
batches untended outside the perimeter fence (Editor, 2004, p. 133)...Although industry
organizations, such as the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO), continue to support
The Assessment text
Synthesis Report (p. 42)
GMOs made from plants that are part of
the human food supply but developed
for animal feed or to produce
pharmaceuticals that would be unsafe as
food, might threaten human health.
(From Agriculture at a Crossroads: The
Synthesis Report by IAASTD, ed.
Copyright © 2009 IAASTD. Reproduced
by permission of Island Press,
Washington, D.C.)
food crops for PMP/PMIP [plant-made
pharmaceuticals and plant-made industrial
products] expression systems, we hold to
our original view that they pose too many
problems (Editor, 2007, p. 167).
A related reason to consider presence
comes from differences in the context of
safety testing and actual use of a GMO. A
GMO that is by design substantially
different from the same conventional
organism may be deemed safe in one context
but pose risks in another. An example of
such a case is provided by a GM variety of