Fwd: Contraception for biotech plants + ACTION ALERT reminder

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Wed, 7 May 2003 04:04:22 -0700

 

News Update from The Campaign

Contraception for biotech plants + ACTION ALERT reminder

 

News Update From The Campaign to Label Genetically Engineered Foods

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Dear News Update Subscribers,

 

In yet another attempt to fool mother nature, biotech scientists in

Canada are attempting to create a form of agricultural contraception for

genetically engineered crops.

 

They hope this approach will be less controversial than the sterile

" terminator " seeds that were previously being developed. However, there

is no assurance that this new contraceptive approach won't bring its own

set of problems as the technology develops. It is still in the

experimental stage.

 

Posted below are two articles that discuss this new contraceptive

approach to try and keep genetically engineered crops from polluting

other crops and creating superweeds.

 

ACTION ALERT REMINDER: E-MAIL THE USDA BY FRIDAY

 

The public comment period on the Proposed Rules by the USDA Animal and

Plant Health Inspection Service on pharmaceutical crops ends on Friday,

May 9th. If you have not already send in an e-mail to the USDA

complaining about their Proposed Rules, please do so before Friday

evening. Here is a link to this ACTION ALERT on The Campaign's web site:

http://www.thecampaign.org/alert-APHIS.php

 

Before the two articles on the contraceptive for genetically engineered

crops, I am posting a recent article from the Denver Post that discusses

the pharmaceutical crops and the USDA's lax regulations. The article is

called " Bio-pharming: Is cure worse than diseases? "

 

Craig Winters

Executive Director

The Campaign to Label Genetically Engineered Foods

 

The Campaign

PO Box 55699

Seattle, WA 98155

Tel: 425-771-4049

Fax: 603-825-5841

E-mail: label

Web Site: http://www.thecampaign.org

 

Mission Statement: " To create a national grassroots consumer campaign

for the purpose of lobbying Congress and the President to pass

legislation that will require the labeling of genetically engineered

foods in the United States. "

 

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Bio-pharming: Is cure worse than diseases?

By Diane Carman

Denver Post Columnist

 

Thursday, May 01, 2003 - It's a deal with the devil, and you probably

don't even know that you've made it. Wheat, soybeans, canola, corn and

many other food crops are being genetically engineered to improve

productivity and increase profits.

 

It's no big deal, proponents say. For eons, plant hybrids have been

developed to improve taste, appearance and yields. Genetic modification

simply speeds that hybridization process.

 

Sure, people around the world call it " Frankenfood " and react with

revulsion, but the folks at Missouri agriculture giant Monsanto and Dow

Chemical say we shouldn't worry, it's safe.

 

The most common gene-tweaked plants are grown under the trademark

" Roundup Ready. " This means their DNA has been altered so that they can

be treated with Monsanto's best-selling weedkiller, Roundup, and not

die.

 

They've become ubiquitous, said Peter Crowell of the Uncompahgre Valley

Association in Montrose. " You and I are probably Roundup Ready by now. "

 

But Roundup Ready is just the beginning. The brave new world of genetic

engineering goes way beyond manipulating crops to make them bigger,

hardier or resistant to disease.

 

The next big thing is bio-pharming. And it may be coming soon to a

cornfield near you.

 

Two companies, ProdiGene Inc. of Texas and Maristem Therapeutics of

France, have approached Colorado farmers about growing genetically

altered corn to produce proteins and enzymes for use in the production

of insulin and other pharmaceuticals.

 

Jim Miller, spokesman for the Colorado Department of Agriculture, said

he expects to receive an application " before too long " from Maristem to

produce the pharmaceutical corn crop in eastern Colorado.

 

The exact location is a secret.

 

While the likelihood of the bio-pharm crop getting in the ground in time

for the 2003 growing season is diminishing with each day, the anxiety of

farmers across the state has spread like ragweed pollen on a stiff wind.

 

Bio-pharming threatens the livelihood of every farmer, said David

Dechant, who raises corn, wheat, alfalfa and barley near Hudson. " Our

export customers as well as food processors like Kraft and others have

said they have zero tolerance for the drug corn. One kernel in an entire

shipment will disrupt the export supply and cripple the industry, " he

said.

 

Doug Wiley, an organic farmer 20 miles east of Pueblo, agreed.

 

" The idea that they can contain this is ridiculous, " he said. " Corn is

very promiscuous. Gene drift will happen. I guarantee it. "

 

USDA regulations require that pharmaceutical crops be planted no closer

than one-half mile from plants grown for human or animal consumption - a

measure considered laughable by farmers and biologists.

 

You have to wonder, they say, if anybody has told the USDA about the

birds and the bees.

 

Jane Bock, a professor of plant ecology and evolution at the University

of Colorado, said a conservative estimate of the typical range for corn

pollen would be " a few miles. " All it takes is a flock of crows or a few

insects landing in the field to disperse it widely.

 

Add to that the likelihood that farm machinery, farmers, dogs and

assorted wildlife would have contact with both crops, and the notion of

containing the genetic material on one corner of fertile Mother Earth is

absurd.

 

Last year, farmers in Iowa and Nebraska discovered just how preposterous

it is.

 

In Iowa, 100 acres of contaminated cropland were quarantined after a

ProdiGene test went awry. In Nebraska, 500,000 bushels of soybeans had

to be destroyed when errant bio-pharm corn turned up in the crop.

 

That's one reason the bio-pharming industry became interested in

drought-plagued Colorado. It's no longer welcome in Iowa and Nebraska.

 

Even if state officials are willing to take a chance on bio-pharming,

the agricultural community is deeply skeptical.

 

" How do you get compensated when your customers lose faith in your

product? " Wiley asked. " Who is going to be liable when we lose our

markets? "

 

Those are questions Dechant already has had to face.

 

Two years ago, when StarLink genetically modified feed corn found its

way into tortillas sold to Taco Bell, corn growers got slammed.

 

The tortillas were deemed unfit for human consumption. People who ate

them were at risk for potentially fatal allergic reactions.

 

Corn prices plummeted.

 

" We lost more than 100 million bushels a year in exports, " Dechant said.

He figures his share of the $110 million settlement to injured farmers

will amount to " maybe a dollar or two per acre. And the export market

may never recover. "

 

For farmers, " it's really scary, " Crowell said. " It needs to be studied

carefully.

 

" And it needs to be studied before anybody lets the genie out of the

bottle. "

 

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Contraception for bioengineered crops

UPI Science News

From the Science & Technology Desk

Published 5/5/2003 7:28 PM

 

OTTAWA, May 5 (UPI) -- Canadian scientists have developed a new

technique of bioengineered contraception that could someday prevent the

uncontrolled spread of genetically engineered crops while still allowing

farmers to reseed their crops year after year.

 

The novel approach could thereby avoid the controversy surrounding the

" terminator " scheme, involving genes that would make bioengineered

plants infertile. The terminator method compels farmers to buy seeds

every year instead of simply cultivating them from past harvests.

 

" All growers are environmental stewards whose livelihood depends on the

protection of their resources, " molecular geneticist Johann Schernthaner

of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada in Ottawa, Canada, told United Press

International. " This method represents a simple and easy tool for the

effective management of the production of certain specialty crops

without the need of chemical or other intervention. "

 

Some 145 million acres of genetically modified -- GM -- crops are now

planted in the world. Environmentalists and scientists remain concerned

over these crops since they could breed with related species or their

wild cousins resulting in the unwanted spread of engineered traits.

Plants engineered to produce beneficial drugs, for example, could

potentially cross-pollinate with natural crops leading inadvertently to

drug-laced cereal and other problems.

 

Schernthaner and colleagues wanted to create a method to block genetic

contamination from plants known to readily breed with relatives, such as

maize. The method they came up with is fundamentally linked to sex.

 

" Every higher organism has two sets of nearly identical genetic

information, one from each parent, " Schernthaner said. Essentially, the

researchers designed the plants so these pairs of genes worked as locks

and keys for one another, leading to sterile plants if separated in

progeny.

 

The scientists first inserted a gene for seed lethality, or SL, into

tobacco plants. These plants grew normally, but their seeds failed to

sprout because they overproduced the plant growth hormone auxin.

 

" Auxin is not toxic. It's a natural component, " Schernthaner said.

 

They also engineered tobacco plants containing a repressor -- R -- gene

that suppressed the auxin-related gene. In findings made public Monday

from the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, when both

these bioengineered plants were bred together, crops with viable seeds

resulted. These plants could in theory be raised generation after

generation through self-pollination.

 

However, when tobacco possessing both SL and R genes were bred with

normal tobacco plants -- as might happen accidentally in the field --

the SL and R genes became separated among the progeny. Seeds possessing

the SL gene only failed to sprout.

 

Obviously, Schernthaner said this remained experimental because seeds

possessing the R gene survived.

 

" It is not a perfect system yet and improvements to it would be the next

stage, " Schernthaner noted.

 

He explained one logical next step would be to engineer plants with two

sets of SL and R genes. Males would contribute one collection of SL and

R genes, while females would have their own pair of SL and R genes. The

male R gene would only suppress the female SL gene, and vice versa.

 

Plant molecular biologist Henry Daniell of the University of Central

Florida in Orlando cautioned the repressor gene used in these

experiments was " leaky, " since it did not work every time.

 

" To be applied in the field, the repressor will have to be made

watertight, " Schernthaner admitted.

 

Daniell added a number of other problems exist. For instance, with

current biotechnology, it is not possible to control the number of SL or

R genes scientists can implant in plants. " Thus, the system in not yet

ready for implementation, " Daniell said.

 

(Reported by Charles Choi, UPI Science News, in New York.)

 

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Canadian scientists develop contraception for genetically modified

plants

 

By NANCY CARR

 

TORONTO (CP) - A group of Canadian scientists has developed a form of

agricultural contraception that could prevent genetically modified

plants from crossbreeding with their wild relatives, reducing the

unwanted spread of genetically modified crops.

 

Johann Schernthaner, an Ottawa research scientist with Agriculture and

Agri-Food Canada, worked with a team to make genetically engineered

tobacco plants sterile only when they interact with wild tobacco plants.

The team's findings were to be published Monday in the journal

Proceedings of the Natural Academy of Sciences of the United States of

America.

 

" What we have presented in that paper is the concept of how you could

manage transgenic crops, " Schernthaner said from Ottawa.

 

" Eventually it's meant to be a method to prevent transgenes from getting

away either into wild relatives or getting away into related crops where

they're not supposed to go. "

 

Schernthaner's breakthrough comes from inserting a sterility gene and

sterility represser gene into the laboratory tobacco plants. The

engineered plants can fertilize each other and create viable new seeds

and plants because the represser gene negates the sterility gene.

 

" But as soon as there's mixture with other plants, the sterility gene

kicks in and prevents the seed from germinating, " Schernthaner said.

 

Although tests were done only on tobacco, which is to plant researchers

what the laboratory mouse is to animal researchers, Schernthaner was

optimistic the technology could be used in other plants as well.

Currently, genetic contraception tests are being done on canola at a

federal facility in Saskatoon.

 

" (The method) is still very experimental but everybody so far likes the

concept because it is very simple and does not have the problems that

other technologies have that were developed along the same line, "

Schernthaner said.

 

Genetically modified plants, such as Roundup Ready canola sold by

biotech giant Monsanto, are designed to flourish while being doused by

strong herbicides and pesticides.

 

But opponents of genetic modification of plants argue that, among other

things, not enough safeguards are in place to stop the laboratory-made

plants from mixing with other plants, potentially creating unstoppable

mutant plants.

 

Greenpeace's Patrick Venditti, who first heard of the genetic

contraception plans Monday, didn't like the idea, calling genetic

engineering a " highly complex and unpredictable science. "

 

" The government has absolutely no handle on these mutant genes, "

Venditti said.

 

" We feel the best solution is to not release it until we have a much

clearer idea of what the impacts are going to be. "

 

Specifically, Venditti said he was concerned the genetically sterilized

plants might be able to sterilize other plants - something Schernthaner

disputed.

 

" It's going to be impossible to get 100 per cent sterility from seeds. .

.. You're going to be spreading sterile genes throughout food crops. "

 

Schernthaner's method doesn't mark the first time scientists have come

up with a possible method to prevent genetically modified plants from

spreading beyond where a farmer intends for them to be.

 

Terminator technology has been touted as a method to prevent cross

breeding by genetically switching off a plant's ability to germinate a

second time.

 

The downside to terminator technology, however, is that seeds have to be

treated with a chemical to trigger sterility and that the seeds could

not be harvested and reused.

 

Schernthaner contends his genetic contraception has no such downside.

 

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If you would like to comment on this News Update, you can do so at the

forum section of our web site at: http://www.thecampaign.org/forums

 

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