The world according to Monsanto : pollution, corruption, and

150 the world according to monsantoand you therefore have to do all kinds of tests to prove that there is a reasonablecertainty that it is safe. But when you manipulate a plant genetically,which can create countless differences in the food, you’re not asked to doanything. In fact, the whole misunderstanding or confusion comes from thefact that the FDA has always refused to assess the technique of geneticmanipulation and not just the final product; it made the assumption thatbiotechnology was intrinsically neutral, even though it had received a warningsign that should have made it much more cautious.”Hansen then told me the dramatic story of L-tryptophan, which has beenthoroughly documented by Jeffrey Smith of the Institute for ResponsibleTechnology, based in Fairfield, Iowa, a rigorous critic of GMOs. 30 L-tryptophanis an amino acid found naturally in turkey, milk, brewers’ yeast, and peanutbutter, among other things. A precursor to serotonin, it was prescribed in theform of a dietary supplement as a remedy for insomnia, stress, and depression.In the late 1980s, thousands of Americans suffered from a mysteriousillness that was called eosinophilia-myalgia syndrome (EMS), because muscularpain (myalgia) was a symptom experienced by all victims. They alsosuffered from a litany of recurrent ailments: edema, coughs, skin lesions,respiratory difficulties, puckering of the skin, mouth ulcers, nausea, visualand memory problems, hair loss, and paralysis.The strange epidemic was first reported on November 7, 1989, by TamarStieber, a reporter for the Albuquerque Journal, who had learned that all thevictims had taken L-tryptophan (her reporting won her a Pulitzer Prize in1990). Four days later, 154 cases were reported to medical authorities, and theFDA requested that the public avoid taking the dietary supplement. But thenumber of victims grew: a preliminary survey in 1991 counted thirty-sevendead and fifteen hundred permanently disabled. 31 According to later estimatesby the Centers for Disease Control, EMS was fatal to one hundred patientsand caused illness or paralysis in five thousand to ten thousand people.As Jeffrey Smith reported, L-tryptophan in the United States was importedfrom Japan, where six producers shared the market. Investigation bythe health services revealed that only the product made by Showa Denkowas associated with the epidemic. Investigators then discovered that in1984 the company had modified its production process by using biotechnologyto increase yields: a gene had been introduced into the bacteria fromwhich the substance was extracted after fermentation. The manufacturergradually changed the genetic construct so that the final strain (Strain V),