I am bemused by all this fuss over GM food. Insulin dependant diabetics have been injecting themselves with human insulin made by a genetically modified and potentially pathogenic bacterium inhabiting the human large bowell (E. coli, if my memory serves me correctly,) for years without any unwanted side effcts and without any protests from the anti GM lobby, or haven't they noticed? Boethius.

Thanks for the article, it provides an angle in the GM debate that needs further debate.
All GM methods seem to have major problems and this is evident in the fact that only one in a million attempts work and that there are so many visual mutations that are required to be weeded out before the plant is considered "safe" and "normal". Naturally those not visually mutated, could have other problems.
One method is firing tungsten bullets into the DNA that are coated with isolated genes and promoter genes.
This technique is very aggressive and can easily result in damaging existing genes and inserting multiple genes in different locations and even upside down or partial sequences can be inserted.
Considering one bent gene in a human results in Downes syndrome, we need to take more care.
Originally scientists felt that this aggressive techique could result in the release of toxins as a plant response.
It is of no surprise that the findings on health testing confirms what would be expected if toxins are released.
Allergies would be a typical response to this. Increased liver weights are also another result (similar to a lifetime of drinking alcohol but results in only a few weeks feeding trial). Problems with development of offspring is also a serious consequence. Surprise surprise... these findings are appearing in GM trials.
Why not do the independent health trials that consumers want before irreversibly contaminating the world food supply? What are the pro-GM activists so afraid of?

“Hang on a minute, didn't global tempatures spike in 1998, not long after the introduction of commercial GM plants?
Agronomist can you categorically deny GM had anything to do with that while you're at it?

No, I'm not serious.”

Ha, ha, rojo, very funny. You for one obviously haven’t any evidence to support Agronomist’s scathing dismissal of Greg’s claim that allergies have increased in the UK since the introduction of GM food there.

You can ridicule me all you like, but posters who dismiss the legitimate claims of writers’ as ‘myths,’ and provide no hard evidence for doing so, need to be made to substantiate their claim. Agronomist has since attempted to do so. He could well be right about that particular news report and the test on which it was based. Irrespective of whether or not he is, I’m still not at all convinced that there is absolutely no link between the increase in GMO in our food supply and the increase in the incidence of allergy problems in the general population.

According to the National Centre for Biotechnology Education in the UK, three genetically modified foods were introduced into the UK for the first time in 1996 – tomato puree, maize and soya. Soya is used in over 60% of foods such as bakery products, margarines and spreads, baby and dietetic foods and animal feed.

Food ingredients made from genetically modified soya or maize weren’t legally required to be labelled in the UK until 1st September 1998, so I doubt very much whether anyone would really know how much GM soya or maize UK residents were ingesting prior to that.

http://www.ncbe.reading.ac.uk/NCBE/GMFOOD/igdwhatis.html

Agronomist,

Your pseudonym suggests that your field of expertise is not human health.

The word limit prevented me from saying that Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ) has sent me the reports submitted by Monsanto to support their application for Roundup Ready Canola, and subsequent follow up information.

I know exactly what has and hasn’t been done to test the safety of this product. As a declared person of science I would expect that you would be very interested in going through all this material yourself.

If you, or anyone else would like to see it (available in digital form), or would like to discuss these issues more, or would like MADGE (Mothers are Demystifying Genetic Engineering) to present to a group on our own or in a forum, my direct email is mclove@dodo.com.au. The MADGE website is www.madge.org.au

To answer your question: “So where is this evidence that crop developers don’t know what proteins are produced?”

This information is in many of the reports but a specific one is Monsanto Report No.: MSL-12676, p19

"Assessment of the N-terminal sequence of GOX from GTC [glyphosate tolerant canola] seeds was unsuccessful despite numerous attempts.” [no reference]

This statement referenced no material. We don’t know what they tried nor what they did or didn’t find - not even a reference to a Monsanto notebook. Note also that this statement was about GOX – this is not the GOXv247 protein which was intended to be in the plant. They made no report of trying to identify the N-terminal sequence of the GOXv247.

Furthermore it seems to have been a practice at the time to only attempt to identify the leading 15 or so amino acids in a protein. Even in this short length they had trouble identifying amino acids. Sequence homology tests? – verify a sequence first!

In recent GM application submitted by Syngenta (COT67B) cotton (A615) only 16% of the amino acids of the intended protein were identified (I have the data for this application too).

Limited by word numbers again, I encourage you to make contact

rstuart raises the important question of how much risk we as individuals and society are willing to take...he is willing to risk GM - but perhaps it is because he incorrectly believes that GM foods are tested to the same extent as vaccines. Vaccines are subject to multiple tests - beginning in the lab, then animals tests and culminating in tests on humans...And even with this process, we often get medicines/pharmaceuticals horribly wrong. GM foods, however, are not subject to anything remotely close to the same rigour. Regulators are permitted and do rely exclusively on the data provided by the companies/applicants (and there is a mountain of science that says what a dumb idea that is). No animal or human testing is required. Regulators are permitted to undertake testing, but don't. Our more than useless Food Standards folks have never said no to a gm plant. If you get a medicine wrong the impacts can generally be contained and medicines recalled. Try doing that with a plant - particularly one like canola that is highly promiscuous (and has over 130 related plants in Australia) and has miniscule seeds that can blow vast distances and remain viable in the soil for up to 16 years. So, in this case there is not only the risk of harm but the risks of being unable to undo any harm that occurs.

There is an assumption that GM insulin is safe therefore GM food is safe. This is obviously daft. Each must be proved to be safe independently. Furthermore it appears that some diabetics have negative reations to GM insulin.

This report in The Observer http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2000/may/07/antonybarnett.theobserver recounted one diabetic having a car crash due to GM insulin not controlling his diabetes. The crash killed his passenger. It also referred to a man acquitted of murder as he had no memory of the event and this was also put down to GM insulin failing to control his diabetes. It also reports that the British Diabetic Association suppressed part of a report on the problems suffered by those using GM insulin as they considered it "too alarmist".

Two diabetics in South Gippsland wrote to the Sentinal Times in September this year on the negative effects they found with GM (human) insulin. The side effects included:
- severe tiredness
- poor control of their blood sugar levels
- not knowing when their blood sugar was reaching dangerous levels and therefore having greater risk of coma etc
- memory loss
- joint pain
- constantly feeling unwell
You can read their letters here http://www.grassrootsnetroots.org/articles/article_15105.cf