More GM Smokescreen
Journalism?
The Case of the Mexican GM Maize
"David Quist and mycologist Ignacio Chapela
reported evidence that genes from genetically-engineered maize (corn) varieties had
crossed into landraces of maize in southern Mexico and had become permanently established
(introgressed) in the genome of the maize landraces they tested, and that the transgenes
were unstable and moving around in the maize genome.... Within days, numerous independent
scientists identified flaws in the Quist and Chapela report and notified the Nature
editors of the errors.... [However] None of the critical reviews of the Quist and
Chapela report disputed the possibility that transgenes may have crossed into
landraces.... Quist and Chapela have subsequently presented data that further supports the
presence of transgenes in maize landraces - a point that has not been disputed.....
Ultimately, science still must resolve whether or not the flow of transgenes into maize
landraces will have significant negative impacts on either maize genetic diversity or on
the broader environment...."
http://www.agbioworld.org/biotech_info/articles/mexmaizeresource.html
Professor C.S. Prakash, Progressive Farmer 'Man of Year' 2002
Research scientist on the development of genetically modified transgenic plants,
tissue culture, and plant genomics, and
President of the AgBioWorld Foundation, 'the leading
biotechnology-related on-line discussion services that shares news reports, scientific
research, and commentary with thousands of participants each day'
14 April 2002
British tabloid newspapers have been frequently criticised for their alleged simplistic standards of journalism when dealing with the GMO debate, particularly when it comes to vigorous attacks on the technology. But more recently reporting by the London Times suggests that accurate journalism is not guaranteed even in the broadsheets, particularly when it comes to defending the position of the GM industry.
On 5 April the London Times ran an article entitled "Attack on safety of GM crops was unfounded". The paper reported that "Nature, one of the world's most prestigious peer-reviewed journals, admitted yesterday it had been wrong to publish flawed research that claimed to prove that genes from GM maize had accidentally crossed into a traditional variety in Mexico."
Whilst it is true that Nature had made a statement indicating that the research concerned was inadequate in some areas, this concern was related to parts of the paper which included suggestions that foreign DNA had become fragmented after inadvertently entering non-GM maize plants.
Contrary to the impression given by the report in the Times the claim in relation to out-crossing has not been disputed either by Nature or the critical reviews of the paper (see ISIS report below, as well as the remarks by Professor Prakash at the top of the page). More illogically, however, the newspaper then uses this false premise to state that Nature's criticism of the research paper represented "an unprecedented step that weakens the scientific case against the technology".
Whilst getting the wrong end of the scientific stick can happen in even good journalism, it is somewhat peculiar that the Times feels the need to forcefully repeat its misinterpretation again at the end of its report in language which appears verging on the partisan. With virtually the same wording as used at the beginning of the article it finishes by seeking to remind readers of its claim that the study "has severely weakened the case against the technology." Is this repeated emphasis not rather labouring the point - especially if it is not true?
This journalistic approach is particularly remarkable because the month before the European Environment Agency had published a major report concluding that cross contamination by a variety of GM crops, including maize, is all but inevitable. The heavily referenced EEA report was co-authored by one of the UK's most respected agronomists at the National Institute of Agricultural Botany. Given that the EEA paper was widely reported in the media it is surprising that the Times was seemingly unaware of it.
Unfortunately seemingly biotech-industry led reporting by the Times on GMOs appears not to be new. As far back as the summer of 1998 it relayed at face value Monsanto's claimed environmental benefits of genetically modified sugar beet. Providing little in the way of questioning observations along side it, the Times reported an all-singing all-dancing claim by Monsanto funded scientists that "Genetically engineered crops can save farmers money, reduce chemical spraying and create a better habitat for birds and insects". The article headline, which is as far as many readers will have got, was "Modified crops 'help man and wildlife'".
These claims were subsequently revealed in October 1998 by New Scientist (as well as in later published research) to be a highly misleading smokescreen produced by Monsanto (in the event serious limitations were associated with the proffered approach meaning that it was unlikely that farmers would make use of it in the way it had been presented). The real significance of the currently controversial paper on Mexican maize turns out not to be in relation to cross contamination at all. The really contentious issue is that the scientists concerned claimed to have found evidence of the fragmentation of the genetically modified construct after it had inadvertently found its way into the genome of unmodified maize. It is in relation to this issue that the data submitted to Nature has been challenged.
However, if this issue were to be proven at any stage such a finding would (to use the type of phraseology favoured by the Times) represent "an unprecedented step that weakens the scientific case" in favour of the technology. It would show that GMOs are potentially inherently unstable.
It is possible that it is precisely for this reason that the genetic engineering industry has been so keen to kill this paper. Inadvertent cross contamination is 'old hat' and now widely accepted by both GM pros and antis. What is new in the paper is the issue of transgenic construct fragmentation. Few in the biotech industry would wish to draw the attention of the wider public to this issue even when condemning the paper.
Indeed, this issue is capable of killing the technology stone dead in the same way that Dr Pusztai's paper on the claimed toxic effects on GM potatoes on laboratory rats could have done had that paper not been crushed back in 1998. Some are now saying that the attempted discrediting of the latest paper on Mexican maize is a new Pusztai type incident - a forcible and orchestrated attempt to suppress a valid scientific issue lest it destroy the validity of the technology at its core.
The conclusion in relation to the genome fragmentation issue raised by the Mexican research seems to be that there were indeed some errors in the data. However, there may also be enough substance in the data to indicate that a valid scientific issue remains at stake here and that more research should be done. That of course would mean discussing the issue, and that is precisely what the biotech industry does not want.
Significantly when the UK government arranged for the sacking of Dr Pusztai back in 1998 after he had talked to the press about his preliminary results (scientists routinely discuss their preliminary results with the press prior to publication as is confirmed by the Monsanto sugar beet case that succeeded in hoodwinking journalists also back in 1998) the Royal Society called for the government to redo the research. Despite funding the original Pusztai work, the government refused to do so.
To refuse to redo the work indicated either that the government considered the purpose of the research unimportant, or that it wished to eliminate the newly revealed possibility of results that might be damaging to the technology. The former option is rather difficult to reconcile with the fact that the government was prepared to spend over one million pounds commissioning the research in the first place.
From time to time there is a really major fuss over some research on GMOs which produces results which raise serious questions regarding the safety of the technology. As examples of such cases both the Pusztai potatoes, and now the Mexican maize study, suggest the likelihood is that a rearguard action will usually be mounted to bury such an issue before it can gain a serious scientific foothold.
Both seem to be classic cases of 'Me thinks they do protest too much'. In the most recent case of the Mexican maize it rather looks as if it may be the construct fragmentation issue that the GM camp is trying to bury if the analysis by ISIS (below) is correct.
Contrary to the allegations in the Times of 'flawed research' Associated Press made clear in its own report published the day before that "Rather than retract the study, Nature printed two criticisms of the work, as well as a rebuttal from the authors..... The journal stopped short of declaring the research flawed. Instead, [the editor] Campbell wrote that Nature would allow its readers 'to judge the science for themselves.... The move enraged the study's authors, who concede only minor interpretive errors...".
Associated Press also clearly highlighted the most sensitive issue: "Particularly egregious, critics said, was their claim that the transgenic material, once it entered the maize's genome, scattered randomly, an entirely unpredictably effect unseen in normal DNA.... Nature arranged for three additional scientists, all unidentified, to review the criticisms and the researchers' reply.... However, only one called for a retraction unless further evidence for the claim could be provided "
Perhaps it comes as little surprise to read, therefore, that in a separate political development in the UK relating to open public discussion on the impact of GM crops, an anonymous senior ministerial source is quoted in the Independent 13 April as saying that "People who are 'pro' the technology don't want a debate".
Meanwhile the prominence given to the contamination red herring that has been incorrectly attached to reporting of the disputed elements of the Mexican maize case looks suspiciously like another biotech-industry driven media smokescreen.
Significantly in this respect Associated Press further reports that "Nature took the unusual move after Chapela and Quist's study was severely criticized by at least four groups of scientists, many with ties to Berkeley.... In 1998, the university signed a five-year, $25 million contract with Novartis, giving the Swiss chemical company first option on much of the genomic discoveries made in its plant and microbial biology department. Critics, including Chapela, alleged conflict of interest."
Novartis is one of the world's leading developers of genetically modified maize.
NATURAL LAW PARTY WESSEX
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www.btinternet.com/~nlpwessex
Top scientific journal Nature retracted a paper on transgenic pollution of Mexican landraces under pressure from pro-biotech scientists, but the authors stand by their conclusions, now firmed up by new data. Dr. Mae-Wan Ho exposes the real agenda behind the continuing attempt to confuse the public, and the significance of the scientific findings for biosafety.
If you wish to see the complete document with references, please consider becoming a member or friend of ISIS. Full details here
A paper published in Nature last November provoked a furore of responses from the pro-biotech community. The journal succumbed to pressure by issuing a retraction: "In light of ..discussions and the diverse advice received, Nature has concluded that the evidence available is not sufficient to justify the publication of the original paper." But, as the authors wish to stand by the evidence and conclusions, Nature thought it best to publish the criticisms, the authors&rsquo response and new data, and to let readers "judge the science for themselves."
The criticisms appear to hinge on the experimental techniques used by Berkeley scientists David Quist and Ignacio Chapela to support their claim that transgenic DNA has polluted the Mexican landraces. First, polymerase chain reaction (PCR) enabled them to identify the cauliflower mosaic virus (CaMV) 35S promoter in the landraces. This piece of DNA is incorporated in virtually every commercial transgenic crop. Then, inverse PCR (iPCR) was used to look for unknown DNA sequences joined to the CaMV promoter, which would give information on the structure of the transgenic DNA and its precise location in the genome. PCR is a standard technique, widely employed for amplifying and identifying specific sequences present in trace amounts. Inverse PCR, on the other hand, is a much newer technique, and not yet widely used.
The critics do not take issue with the identification of the CaMV 35S promoter, thereby implicitly acknowledging the presence of transgenic DNA in the landraces. In other words, they are not disputing that transgenic pollution has occurred.
Rather, their criticisms centre on the iPCR technique for identifying unknown DNA sequences linked to the CaMV promoter, which they regard as "suspect" and "artifactual".
Quist and Chapela have found a diversity of sequences linked to the promoter, thus giving the impression that the transgenic constructs were "fragmenting and promiscuously scattering throughout genomes", which "would be unprecedented", according to the first critique. It also denies that transgene fragments can move around the genome after integration, and does not bother to tell us that there have been no experiments done previously to address the issue.
The first critique comes from microbiologist Mathew Metz, former colleague of Quist and Chapela, now in University of Washington, Seattle, and Johannes Futterer, from Institute of Plant Science, ETH, Switzerland. The second critique comes from six colleagues of the authors in Berkeley. Berkeley&rsquos bioscience department was taken over by biotech giant Novartis in a controversial bid a few years ago, and Ignacio Chapela attracted attention as a major opponent of the take-over. There is no doubt that the attack on Chapela is at least partly motivated by politics, a charge levelled against Chapela&rsquos work by his critics from Berkeley. But fortunately, politics is irrelevant in considering what the experimental results are telling us.
PCR and iPCR both depend on short stretches of DNA, called primers, which pair up (or hybridise) with parts of the longer sequence to be amplified. This then enables the DNA copying enzyme to make the rest of the sequence. Unfortunately, the primers often have sequence similarity to other DNA, and so they could hybridise to the wrong places, leading to wrong sequences in the plant genome being amplified. The primers used do have similarities (homologies) to known plant gene sequences, and hence false priming and misidentification of sequences could have given the impression that the CaMV 35S promoter is scattered throughout the genome.
In their reply, Quist and Chapela acknowledge that some, though not all of the iPCR results could represent false priming and misidentified sequences, and point out that such problems are inherent to the technique. However, that does not alter their main conclusions.
They provide new data based on a dot-blot technique. A measured amount of DNA is transferred to a filter (in a dot), dried, and then probed with transgenic DNA; in this case, the CaMV 35S promoter.
The new data clearly show the presence of CaMV 35S promoter in four landrace samples at levels less than 5% and greater than 1%, while a historic maize sample and a maize sample from Peru both stained negative. In other words, transgenic pollution had indeed occurred as reported in their previous paper.
The real disagreement is to what extent the transgenic constructs had fragmented on entering the genome of the landraces or thereafter. The existing evidence on transgenic instability, documented in some papers cited by Quist and Chapela, does not rule out the possibility of "fragmenting and promiscuous scattering" of transgenic constructs, which could have introgressed into landraces via horizontal gene transfer as well as by cross-pollination. The significance of Quist and Chapela&rsquos work is that it is the first of its kind in attempting to address this possibility.
Once again, the scientific establishment serving the corporate agenda has been caught out taking the absence of evidence as evidence of absence. The agenda is to keep the public confused while transgenic pollution continues unabated.
Above all, corporate scientists want to avoid having to prove transgenic lines are stable by the appropriate &lsquoevent-specific&rsquo molecular data that the new European Directive requires (See "Europe&rsquos new rules could sink all GMOs", ISIS News 11/12, October 2001 http://www.i-sis.org.uk/isisnews/i-sisnews11-3.php). This involves documenting that the transgenic insert has maintained the same structure and location in the plant genome in successive generations. No such &lsquoevent-specific&rsquo molecular analysis has ever been done for any transgenic line. Significantly, Monsanto&rsquos Roundup Ready GM soya failed the test when recently analysed. Regulators should insist on this molecular data, and the data should not be hidden away from the public under "commercial confidentiality". Otherwise, regulators should be held liable for any damages caused as a result.
The only decent thing for the scientific establishment to do now is to give plenty of support to Quist and Chapela and others to extend their research. The aim is to rule out the possibility that transgenic constructs could be fragmenting and scattering, throughout the genome as well as throughout the ecosystem, by horizontal gene transfer and recombination. Meanwhile, no more transgenic crops should be released, especially those with the CaMV 35S promoter, until they could be proved stable by event-specific analyses (see "Who&rsquos afraid of horizontal gene transfer?" ISIS report, 4 March, 2002 http://www.i-sis.org.uk/hgt.php).
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This article can be found on the I-SIS website at http://www.i-sis.org.uk/dentrans.php
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www.i-sis.org.uk
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Tel: 44-20-8731-7714
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What is the CaMV 35S promoter and why is it controversial? - click here
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LAW PARTY WESSEX
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