WESSEX
NLP spokesman presents GMO briefing at Environment Agency workshop
(The internet address of this page is www.btinternet.com/~nlpwessex/Documents/eagmconf.htm )
On 28 April 1999 a GMO workshop was held on behalf of the Environment Agency (EA) for England and Wales at the Royal Horticultural Society's Horticultural Halls Conference Centre, London.
The EA (http://www.environment-agency.gov.uk) is an executive government agency responsible for various aspects of environmental protection. It's board is directly responsible to the Secretary of State for the Environment, the Secretary of State for Wales and the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food.
Below is a briefing paper for workshop delegates
prepared by Mark Griffiths, Environment spokesman for the
UK Natural Law Party, who was one of the formal speakers
during the day.
Other speakers included representatives from the EA
itself, The Department of the Environment, Tranport and
the Regions (DETR), English Nature (the government's own
statutory adviser on England's ecology), the Centre for
Exploitation of Science and Technology (a public-private
sector partnership founded by the British government),
and the Universities of Lancaster and Surrey.
Invited participants in the workshop comprised personnel
from a range of governmental and NGO bodies. The workshop
was organised on behalf of the Environment Agency by 'The
Natural Step' (http://www.naturalstep.org/).
The workshop was entitled "Genetic Modification and
Sustainability: Working Towards Consensus."
At its board meeting in March 1999 the EA strongly endorsed a precautionary approach to the use of GMOs and emphasised the need to ensure that the environment was at the centre of the debate (http://www.environment-agency.gov.uk/modules/MOD46.12.html).
'Genetic modification and
sustainability'
Environment Agency Seminar Procedings
Summary Report - released Feb 2000
The Millennium
Choice - Genetic Engineering or Natural Law?
The development of human civilisation in recent
centuries has been shaped to a large degree through the
discoveries of modern science. Science has provided an
objective, systematic means to understand the laws of
nature and to apply the knowledge it provides for the
benefit of both individuals and communities.
Agriculture and food production have been major
participants in this process. Up until now two key
technologies which have produced profound agricultural
revolutions have been the mechanisation of farming which
began in the 19th century and the chemical based paradigm
which developed chiefly after the second world war.
Both technologies represent interventions by man in the
'natural order of things', but do so at quite different
levels of natural law. The chemical approach acts at a
level which is considerably more complex than the
mechanical, and as a result requires a much more
extensive breadth of knowledge for it to be applied
without creating unintentional life-damaging effects.
Few people question the value of the mechanisation of
agriculture. However, over the years hindsight has
required the withdrawal of various agro-chemical products
from use because of their damage to health or the
environment, and even now the true effect of those that
remain in use is not fully understood. These difficulties
arise because the technology is applied at a level of
nature's functioning in respect of which science's own
knowledge base is inadequate. Additionally errors made at
the chemical level are much more pervasive and insidious
than those made at a mechanical level.
Now, as we arrive at the beginning of the third
millennium, we find sections of the scientific community
(in conjunction with powerful commercial interests)
presenting genetic engineering as the next and most
desirable step in our ability to transform our systems of
agricultural production. Higher yields, production from
otherwise unproductive land, reduced chemical usage,
improved nutritional content of food and many other hoped
for benefits are the goal of this new technology.
But genetic engineering operates on the basis of
manipulating and controlling the DNA of living organisms.
This involves intervention at a level of natural law
infinitely more complex than any previous technology
applied in the field of food and agriculture, and in
respect of which there are few reliable science-based
predictive models.
By contrast after three hundred years or more of
theoretical and empirical progress physics is a highly
developed science. It is able to tell us almost
everything there is to know about the nature of
non-living matter from sub-atomic particles through to
the behaviour of stars. It even reveals that the
behaviour of such diverse microscopic and macroscopic
systems are related and connected - something which would
have been inconceivable at the time of Newton and
certainly before the development of the unified field
theories of the twentieth century.
Above all what the new physics has told us is that to
understand the functioning of any natural system it is
not sufficient to have knowledge of its components, it is
also necessary to understand relationships within the
system. And so we have found that at nearly the most
profound level of physical functioning - the nuclear
level - powerful forces are involved which man does not
have the capacity to contain with any degree of long term
reliability.
As with genetic engineering today, nuclear technology was
presented by its proponents as having the potential to
solve vital world resource problems. Nuclear energy would
be so cheap and efficient that it would not be necessary
to meter electricity supplies. That was the promise, but
today we know better. The German government now has a
commitment, however vague, to phase out nuclear power and
in the UK the nuclear energy industry is the only public
utility the government is unable to privatise because no
one is willing to take on the costs of its long term
liabilities.
In relative terms the science underpinning genetic
engineering finds itself where physics sat three hundred
years ago. Certainly the vast majority of genetic
components and relationships are nowhere near being
identified, let alone understood.
Physics is already highly developed because it has had
the task of integrating only a handful of fundamental
components and forces, all of which ultimately are
derived from a common source. In genetic engineering the
number of components and relationships is almost
infinite.
Even in simple biological organisms like bacteria, the
total potential interactions between genetic components
run into many millions. These relationships have until
now been managed by the intelligence of the organism's
own DNA. It is now proposed that these relationships
should be 'controlled' by the same species whose own
limited intelligence has mistakenly and irretrievably
peppered the globe with unmanageable nuclear waste - man.
In traditional plant breeding it is the highly
sophisticated discriminatory intelligence of the plant
which ultimately determines which genes may be accepted
as part of the newly created organism, and it is that
same intelligence which determines their placement and
functioning within it. This process is driven by the
information and knowledge contained within the DNA of the
plant itself and exercised as an integral part of the
natural sexual breeding process.
With genetic engineering this process is completely
bypassed. Single genes are selected by the 'scientist'
and randomly inserted into the genome of the host
organism. The scientist has no control over their
placement. In fact the plant geneticist has little or no
knowledge as to where the new genes should be placed in
any case; and usually he does not know where they have
actually lodged even after his work has been completed.
He simply "hopes for the best." Furthermore the
inserted genes will frequently be taken from totally
unrelated species.
Because of the limitations of the technology, in most
cases the process will also necessarily involve the
insertion of genetic material from at least one foreign
pathogen, the most common of which (the 35S promoter) is
taken from a virus which is very similar to Hepatitis B
and related to HIV. The consequences of using such
elements have even been questioned by researchers at the
John Innes Institute, one of the UK's premier research
establishments in the field of agricultural genetic
engineering. Despite this, routine use of such
pathogen-derived elements continues.
After only 20 years or so of development genetic
engineering still involves processes which are random and
'trial and error' in nature, and in that sense they are
imprecise and unscientific. The biotechnologist has
little or no prior predictive power as to how a new gene
will behave in the host organism. Without demonstrable
predictive power it is inappropriate to refer to any
process as 'engineering' or 'science-based'. As Einstein
himself once said: "If we knew what it was we were
doing, it would not be called research, would it?
Let us be absolutely clear about this - genetic
engineering is only just at the most basic and primitive
stage of its own research.
If this somewhat alarming analysis is correct, then given
the rapid introduction of genetically engineered crops
and related technologies in the United States and
elsewhere, we would expect things to be going wrong
already - and indeed they are. Things are going badly
wrong even after supposedly rigorous statutory testing
and approval procedures. Here are some examples of the
'successes' of post-approval genetic engineering to date:
- in 1989 Showa Denko marketed an amino-acid food
supplement manufactured using a genetically modified
bacteria which produced an acutely poisonous new toxin.
37 people died and 1500 people were left permanently
disabled in the US, resulting in claims of over $2
billion.
- milk currently produced on a widespread basis in the US
utilising a genetically engineered drug (rBST)
manufactured by Monsanto is known to contain an
insulin-like growth hormone at levels associated with
breast, prostate and intestinal cancer. Approval for the
product was granted in 1993 despite evidence of toxic
effects on rats submitted to (but not reported by) the
Food and Drug Administration by the manufacturers. This
issue is now subject to parliamentary hearings in Canada,
and calls by American Senators for an investigation into
the drug's earlier approval in the US.
- Calgene's Flavr Savr tomato was heralded as a
breakthrough in genetic engineering in 1994. However, the
delayed ripening characteristics engineered into the
tomato were also accompanied by an unintended
susceptibility to bruising. This forced farmers and
processors to spend millions of dollars re-equipping
their harvesting and handling systems, and eventually to
abandon the product.
- despite claims from the biotechnology industry that
genetic engineering is necessary to feed the world and to
provide more renewable resources, yields from genetically
engineered soya, cotton, oilseed rape and sugar beet
since 1996 have proved to be lower than from traditional
varieties. Some US farmers are now starting to pull out
of these crops. Some herbicide
resistant crops are also in practice requiring multiple
applications of herbicide, rather than the single
application originally envisaged.
- despite being deemed 'substantially equivalent' to
traditional varieties by the regulatory authorities,
genetically modified soya has been shown to produce
biochemical changes in the milk of cows to which it is
fed. It is possible that these may reflect raised
estrogen levels in the beans as a result of their
treatment by the glyphosphate herbicide with which they
are engineered to be used. Elevated levels of estrogen
are known to be damaging to animal and human health.
- in 1997 and 1998 farmers in at least four states in the
US have been experiencing special problems with
Monsanto's herbicide resistant cotton. These range from
the cotton bolls falling off the plant prior to harvest
to root deformation and plant collapse. Some farmers have
experienced total crop losses and Monsanto have paid out
millions of dollars in compensation.
- in 1998 Canadian farmers have reported the arrival
by cross-pollination of genetically engineered herbicide
resistant oilseed rape plants as weeds on fields where
none had been sown. In order to control them farmers are
having to widen the range of chemicals used on their
farms because the new weeds are resistant to Monsanto's
Roundup herbicide. AgrEvo has also
acknowledged that a similar scenario is likely to emerge
in relation to its own herbicide resistant products.
Effects of this type are now the subject of
farmer-manufacturer litigation in Canada.
- in 1998 Novartis began offering financial incentives to US farmers who agree to plant up to 40% of their maize crops in non-genetically modified varieties. This is because the effectiveness of their genetically engineered Bt pesticide maize (in controlling the European Corn Borer) is collapsing almost immediately after its commercial launch.
- in 1998 Swiss research also revealed that Novartis's
genetically modified Bt maize can produce toxic effects
in non-target beneficial insects.
- since the 1980s doctors throughout the world have been
transferring people with diabetes from porcine insulin
onto genetically engineered so-called 'human' insulin.
Thousands of diabetics have since suffered serious
adverse effects from this product, including up to 50
suspected deaths. This is despite the fact that far
stricter rules than those which apply to genetically
engineered agricultural and food products govern the
testing and approval of genetically engineered drugs. The
genetically engineered insulin was claimed by one of its
manufacturers to be 'one hundred percent a safe drug'.
What these experiences tell us is that with genetic
engineering we are moving from so-called 'science' to
applied technology in a way which is invasive almost
beyond imagination, and with only a tiny fragment of the
knowledge necessary to predict the results. The chief
executive of Monsanto has himself described the effects
of genetic engineering as "unknown, and to some
degree unknowable" ; and yet we are proposing to use
this technology to irrevocably change the fundamental
molecular structure of the world's food supply utilising
un-recallable, self-replicating organisms.
What little science there is already tells us that gene
placement and inter-chromosomal relationships between
genes are important, and yet even many of the genes
themselves within the plants that we are currently
modifying have yet to be identified. There is not a
single agricultural plant which has had its gene map
completed.
Even before properly establishing this elementary
information, we are then proceeding to randomly insert
into our food foreign genetic material from viruses and
bacteria which have never been an integral part of the
human diet. In the words of Professor Philip James, the
principal advisor to the UK government on the
establishment of the proposed Food Standards Agency:
"The perception that everything is totally
straightforward and safe is utterly naive. I don't think
we fully understand the dimensions of what we're getting
into."
This scenario is far from encouraging. The scale and
penetration of what is proposed is almost beyond belief.
It is estimated by some that the majority of the world's
food supply will be genetically engineered within 5-10
years if what currently sits in the corporate pipeline is
allowed to go ahead.
What this astonishing situation reveals is not simply a
problem concerning the 'science' of genetic engineering
itself, or even of the health of the relationship between
science, commercial interests, regulatory authorities,
and government. What it demonstrates is a problem of our
own consciousness. It is essentially a problem of the way
we think, both as individuals and collectively as a
society. And what it particularly demonstrates is our
inability to learn from experience and to think and act
holistically.
As such the debate about genetic engineering raises
questions not simply about the use of the technology
itself, but about the very nature of the society that we
are trying to create at the end of the twentieth century.
Do we wish to build a society which harnesses natural
law, or one that violates it; one that nurtures life
(including our own) or one that destroys it?
These are questions of immense importance, and they are
ones not to be considered on an exclusive basis solely by
senior scientific, commercial and political
professionals. These are questions to be considered by
every man and every woman, and particularly by those who
are most directly responsible for the thought processes
and values of our society as we enter the new millennium
- our teachers and educators.
Mark Griffiths BSc FRICS FAAV
Environment Spokesman
Natural Law Party (UK)
January 1999 (Copyright Reserved)
(The Natural Law Party does not consider the risks posed
by genetically engineered crops and food to be
realistically containable, and is active in over 80
countries in seeking a permanent global ban. More
information on these risks is available at www.btinternet.com/~nlpwessex
.)
Footnote 1: For
more information on the 35S viral promoter visit
www.btinternet.com/~nlpwessex/Documents/camv.htm
Footnote 2: Bob
Shapiro, Chief Executive of Monsanto, admitting that the
effects of genetic engineering are unknown and "to
some degree" unknowable (State of the
World Forum, News interview,
San Francisco, 27 October 1998):
"But we realize that with any new and
powerful technology with unknown, and to some degree
unknowable - by definition - effects, then there
necessarily will be an appropriate level at least, and
maybe even more than that, of public debate and public
interest."
Fundamental scientific conceptual errors in the development of recombinant DNA technology
Will GM crops
deliver benefits to farmers? - some realities behind
biotechnology myths
Why millions of acres of
underperforming GM crops are being grown in the USA
Medical
problems with genetically engineered insulin
For more information on gm food
risks click here
NLP campaign to ban genetically modified foods in Wessex