Thank you, Greg, for a timely and well-written article.

"That the GM companies assume that their inserted foreign gene will only express the one intended protein is a manifestly risky assumption."

I'd be interested to see a scientific rebuttal of this, if one exists, from a disinterested scientist with experience in this particular field.

"Allergies have skyrocketed in the UK since the introduction of GM soy."

This aligns with something I read last week from a Nutritional expert whose advice past experience has taught me to respect and value highly.

"In 1995 Arpad Pusztai and wife Susan, both distinguished senior scientists, were awarded a 1.6 million pound research grant by the Scottish Government. They were chosen to create a model for testing genetically modified foods, verifying that they were safe to eat. Their testing methods were to become the standard used in Britain and likely adopted throughout the European Union. Instead, Pusztai found the GM foods were not safe for human consumption.

He began his testing with GM potatoes and found that not only were they less in protein and nutritional content, but when he fed them to the rats, the rats suffered damaged immune systems, their white blood cells responded more sluggishly, they had smaller less-developed brains, liver and testicles. Some rats had enlarged pancreases and intestines and partial atrophy of the liver. There was proliferation of cells in the stomach and intestines which signalled an increased potential for cancer.

The rats exhibited these symptoms after only ten days of consuming the GM potatoes and the affects lasted 110 days after they stopped eating them. Pusztai decided to go public with his findings and was immediately dismissed from his position and served with a gag order.

Many scientists believe the increase in allergies, autism, aspergers and other diseases which have increased in an epidemic proportion is due to the genetic modification of foods and medicines that are now being consumed. The increase in these diseases has been over the last 10 - 15 years since the introduction of GM foods."

Bronwyn: "I'd be interested to see a scientific rebuttal of this"

As far as I am aware there is no rebuttal. The statement is correct.

What is incorrect is the impression that anyone, other than perhaps media release writers, ever really believed anyone could predict what would happen when we put a foreign gene in another organism. I'd be amazed if they didn't do it in many different ways attempting to splice the gene into many different parts of the genome before finding a way that worked. In other words it was very much a case of suck it and see - not prediction.

If this worries you, try to avoid driving cars, using computers, or indeed using any complex device. They were all built by designing something, testing it, having it break, and then trying all over again. Even the Dyson vacuum cleaner took 500 prototypes.

If the idea of implanting foreign DNA into something worries you, then try to avoid vaccines. Vaccines are raw, foreign DNA injected directly into your body. If the vaccine is active, it will invade your cells and mix with your DNA.

When its all said and done, we are just emulating what viruses do for our own purposes. Unlike viruses we are a bit more selective about what we inject into the cells DNA. Viruses, particularly retroviruses, mutate rapidly. When you are infected by one of them you are having random crap mixed with your DNA. The same applies for plants, animals, fungi and anything else that gets infected by viruses - something that happens 1000's of times every second.

If vaccines don't worry you then neither should GM food crops. A GM food is consumed by humans GM foods are subject to the same rigorous tests that vaccines are. Despite all the tests I am sure something will slip through one day. When it does, it is likely to do a lot less harm than a decent virus epidemic. And despite what the article and you say, there is no evidence beyond hearsay anything has slipped through yet.

This article could've been called "The Myth of Genetic Precision".

It is disappointing that the GM industry has not yet been held accountable for creating the myth that novel genes are "inserted" into existing plant DNA, as though a scientist of renown and integrity has done it with a sharp pair of tweezers.

The Roundup Ready canola has lost and scrambled pieces of host DNA, but there may be a lot more that's happened to it that has never been evaluated. It doesn't appear that any resources have been put into looking for transcripts of these disturbed regions of the DNA, and we wouldn't know the implications if they were found.

It took 300 genetic scientists 4 years to look at the genetic products of 1% of human DNA (the ENCODE project). These sort of resources will not be spent on examining the full effects of the GM 'events'.

We don't know the effect of these random destructive GM 'events' on our food, health, and environment.

Excuse me for a bit of 'Periclean Pedantism' but that article was from 1999!

I hardly think that 'allergic reaction to gm soy' would not have more recent research results.

I can't find the original article and there a lot of 'if, maybe,could.. suspect' type words in the article and all in all it seems like more wishful activist thinking that real solid evidence.

Here is one titled

GM SOY "MAY" CAUSE ALLERGIC REACTIONS.

http://www.americanwellnessnetwork.com/index2.php?option=com_content&do_pdf=1&id=938

It also says:

<<The huge jump in childhood food allergies in the U.S. is in the news often, but most reports fail to consider a link to a
recent radical change in America’s diet. Beginning in 1996, bacteria, virus and other genes have been artificially inserted
to the DNA of soy, corn, cottonseed and canola plants.>>

NOTICE THAT?

-Soy
-Corn
-Cottonseed
-Canola

Notice also the strength of the work "most reports fail to consider a link"...

err..that's an argument from silence..and is pure speculation.

Greg, more strawmen eh? I suggest a course in plant breeding might not go astray.

1) Viruses are not used to transfer the genes in genetic engineering. It is usually done with Agrobacterium, a naturally occurring bacterium that naturally introduces it’s own genes into the DNA of plants it infects. Scientists discovered they could substitute other genes for the Agrobacterium genes and get them in. A second, less commonly used method is ballistics. A third, even less commonly used method is electroporation of protoplasts. The only piece of virus DNA usually used is a promoter, a piece of DNA that allows the genes to be transcribed.

2) Nobody “erroneously believes that their foreign gene will behave exactly as it does in its natural setting”. The gene is introduced and then the plants are tested to gather data on how they behave over several generations, first in the glasshouse, then in small field trials. Only after it has survived this testing is the crop released to market.

3) Allergies have not skyrocketed in the UK since the introduction of GM soy. This myth lies solely with a UK journalist who took a press release from York Laboratories and misreported it. The Press release from 1998 commented on an increase in allergies in 1996. No GM soy was sold in the UK in 1996.

4) You raise the L-tryptophan canard again. This was due to poor processing, not GM. You can read the reports from the US FDA and CDC http://vm.cfsan.fda.gov/~dms/ds-tryp1.html, http://vm.cfsan.fda.gov/~lrd/tp5htp.html, http://www.fda.gov/bbs/topics/NEWS/NEW00064.html, http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/~dms/ds-ltr3.html . More from GMOPundit http://gmopundit.blogspot.com/2006/02/big-shift-in-diagnosis-of-gm.html I can find you other references if you like.

And nobody, except those erecting strawmen, as GM is precise. After all it is a complete lottery as to where the introduced gene ends up in the genome. What people do say is that it is more precise than conventional plant breeding where thousands of genes are mixed around and scientists have absolutely no idea what is happening.

rstuart

"If this worries you, try to avoid driving cars, using computers, or indeed using any complex device."

Thanks for the advice, I'll make sure I avoid eating cars and computers! What a ludicrous comparison. These examples of yours can't be validly compared to substances that are injested and absorbed by the body.

"If the idea of implanting foreign DNA into something worries you, then try to avoid vaccines."

I do.

"And despite what the article and you say, there is no evidence beyond hearsay anything has slipped through yet."

I'm not worried about 'anything slipping through' as you say. I'm concerned about the unknown incremental and long-term effects that producing and injesting genetically modified food will have on our environment and our health.

Agronomist

"Allergies have not skyrocketed in the UK since the introduction of GM soy. This myth lies solely with a UK journalist who took a press release from York Laboratories and misreported it. The Press release from 1998 commented on an increase in allergies in 1996. No GM soy was sold in the UK in 1996."

Can you state categorically, preferrably with supporting evidence, that absolutely no GM foods, or additives derived from GM foods, were being consumed in the UK prior to 1998?