Spermicidal Breakfast Cereal

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http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=18154

 

Spermicidal Breakfast Cereal

 

By Carmelo Ruiz, ZNet

March 17, 2004

 

This article was translated from the Spanish by Miguel Alvarado.

 

 

 

Just when the global diatribe over food and genetically modified crops (GM) is

heating up in tone and breadth, the corporations that create them are staging a

showcase for a fresh batch of transgenics.

 

 

 

These new GM crops, known as biopharmaceuticals, or biopharms for short, produce

industrial and pharmaceutical chemicals within their tissues. The plants,

including soy, rice, corn and tobacco, are genetically altered to produce

substances such as growth hormones, curdling agents (coagulants), vaccines for

humans (as well as farm animals), human antibodies, industrial enzymes,

contraceptives and even pregnancy deterrents.

 

 

 

Scientists and corporations alike embrace biopharmaceuticals with glee: " Imagine

being able to harvest enough globulin (a compound that fights arthritis) for the

whole world in all of fifty acres? " writes Dr. William O. Robertson for the

Seattle Post-Intelligencer. " Imagine being able to find the protein healthy

people use to prevent arthritis or breast cancer and being able to produce it in

large quantities in rice and tobacco. "

 

 

 

ProdiGene, a leader in the field, calculates that by the end of this decade, 10%

of the corn produced in the US will be biopharmaceutical. The volume of

biopharmaceutical drugs and chemicals could reach the $200 billion figure,

according to Dow AgroSciences' Guy Cardinau.

 

 

 

Warnings

 

 

 

But some scientists and ecologists are concerned. Will it be possible to contain

and segregate such crops, fruit and seed, in order to avoid a biological

Chernobyl?

 

 

 

Is there any guarantee that these products won't accidentally end up at the

supermarket? And how can we keep their pollen from fertilizing other fields and

reproducing out of control?

 

 

 

" One single mistake from a biotechnology company and we'll be having someone

else's prescription medicine for breakfast in our cereal, " warns Larry Bohlen,

spokesman for Friends of the Earth, an international ecology organization.

 

 

 

" What will happen if the pollen of a transgenic plant containing some kind of

drug fertilizes a nearby edible crop? " argues the Erosion, Technology and

Concentration Action Group (ETC) in a report published in 2000.

 

 

 

The report continues to ask: " How will the soil microorganisms and insects which

benefit agriculture be affected by crops genetically designed to produce

industrial and pharmaceutical chemicals? What will happen if animals eat the

biopharmaceutical crops? Will the biopharmaceutical proteins be altered during

the various stages of growth, harvest and storage? Will they cause allergic

reactions?

 

 

 

According to biologist Brian Tokar, professor at the Institute for Social

Ecology, the most serious problems concern cross-pollination and unknown effects

to insects, soil microorganisms and other native life-forms.

 

 

 

A Little Mishap In Nebraska

 

 

 

There have been mistakes with these crops already. In November 2002, at an

agricultural cooperative in Aurora, Nebraska, 500,000 bushels of soy were

contaminated with biopharmaceutical corn. One of the coop members harvested an

experimental batch of corn for ProdiGene the year before and then proceeded to

plant a crop of soy for human consumption in the same field.

 

 

 

During a routine inspection, federal officials from the Department of

Agriculture found the corn stalks for ProdiGene growing among the soy plants. By

the time they made the discovery, soy from that field was already being stored

mixed with the soy of other coop members. Fortunately, the authorities were able

to segregate the contaminated grain just before it reached the supermarket

aisles.

 

 

 

The company was slapped with a $500,000 fine for negligence; yet, and in spite

of such gross near disaster, the government still allows the corporation to

continue with biopharmaceutical research as well as keeping the precise nature

of the contaminating batch in Nebraska a trade secret. Mark Ritchie, president

of the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, describes the incident as the

" Three Mile Island " of biotechnology, in reference to the emergency caused by a

nuclear reactor in the 70s.

 

 

 

After the ProdiGene scandal, two industrial corporations which had so far

supported transgenic research began to reconsider their positions. The Grocery

Manufacturers Association, a group which represents supermarket distributing

companies, expressed concern about the possibility that biopharmaceuticals could

end up contaminating food supplies; such concern was also shared by the National

Food Processors Association. The president, John Cady, requested strict and

mandatory regulations in order to protect food products from being contaminated

by biopharms.

 

 

 

Other people don't share such concerns. The Biotechnology Industry Organization,

a group that represents biotech companies, and the American Farm Bureau

Federation, an organization dedicated to Big Farming, are currently lobbying in

Washington to obtain support from the federal government in order to weaken

biopharmaceutical regulations.

 

 

 

Biological contamination

 

 

 

Transgenic products unfit for human consumption have already contaminated the

food chain. At the end of the year 2000, environmental and consumer advocacy

groups in the United States discovered that hundreds of american products in the

supermarkets had been contaminated with traces of Starlink, a genetically

enhanced GM corn that was declared unfit for human consumption by the Food and

Drug Administration (FDA).

 

 

 

Although the Starlink strain was farmed in just 0.04% of the US corn production

area, and was only meant for farm animal consumption, it ended up tainting 430

million bushels and to this day keeps showing up regularly in US exports.

 

 

 

" The Starlink discovery in Japan and South Korea, two of the most important US

corn consumers, indicates that it could be found anywhere, " remarks Meena Raman,

from Malaysia, coordinator in Asia for Friends of the Earth Transgenics Program.

" Until the US and Aventis (the biotechnology company that created Starlink)

controls contamination, no other countries should allow corn imports. "

 

 

 

A more severe case of genetic contamination is taking place in Mexico, where the

presence of GM corn has been documented since 2001. It continues to show up in

rural farming communities, both peasant and indigenous, sown by small farmers

who are not aware of the transgenic threat; and it is proliferating rapidly,

across wild and mixed varieties, in spite of the Mexican government's ban on

transgenic crops, in effect since 1998. This contamination deeply concerns

environmentalists, scientists and farmers, since Mexico is the cradle of corn

and axis of its diversity, rendering the long term consequences on the

environment and human health uncertain.

 

 

 

In Mexico, people are distressed by the possibility that biopharmaceutical corn

could be introduced in the country. Silvia Ribeiro, of the ETC organization,

expresses great annoyance about the California-based company Epicyte, which

ostentatiously declared having developed a spermicidal corn to be used as a

contraceptive.

 

 

 

Ribeiro stated in La Jornada: " The potential of spermicidal corn as a biological

weapon is outrageous, since it easily interbreeds with other varieties, is

capable of going undetected and could lodge itself at the very core of

indigenous and farming cultures. We have witnessed the execution of repeated

sterilization campaigns performed against indigenous communities. This method is

certainly much more difficult to trace. "

 

 

 

We cover the world

 

 

 

Where are biopharms cultivated? All over the world. At the molecularfarming.com

website, investors solicit the collaboration of farmers willing to lease their

land for biopharmaceutical experiments anywhere in the world. They have signed

agreements in Brazil, Ireland, Australia, Greece, Zimbabwe, Panama and many

other countries.

 

 

 

Activist Beth Burrows first denounced the claims at the Molecular Farming's

website. Burrows is president of the Edmonds Institute, a nonprofit dedicated to

bioethics and biosecurity issues.

 

 

 

Award-winning journalist Devinder Sharma, an expert in agricultural and

nutritional matters who lives in India, comments on molecularfarming.com: " This

is part of a global scheme to transfer dirty industries onto the Third World. "

 

 

 

" First came the exporting of toxic and industrial recycled waste to developing

countries in Africa and Southeast Asia. Now comes the biopharms. In the US

there's a huge problem regarding these crops. What are they gonna do? Transfer

dirty technology. "

 

 

 

Don't worry, be happy

 

 

 

In spite of all this, biopharming advocates assure us that they're perfectly

safe. Doctor Allan S. Felsot, an environmental toxicologist at Washington State

University considers the use of plants to produce pharmaceuticals and other

chemicals " not even a new concept, if we take into account that we've used

medicinal plants for centuries. "

 

 

 

Felsot insists there's nothing unusual about our breeding human proteins in the

tissues of transgenic plants. " The proteins (in question) are the same found in

our bodies. Most of them are used as medicine through cellular fermentation.

They are very well defined and have been subject to exhaustive research and

clinical trials on humans. "

 

 

 

Doctor Robertson adds: " The possibilities boggle the mind, the opportunities are

impossible to grasp in their totality and the risks appear minimal when they're

compared with the risks we have encountered in medicine throughout the years. "

 

 

 

What's ahead?

 

 

 

" What will have to happen before the Department of Agriculture takes seriously

the fact that millions of people almost ended up consuming experimental drugs

and chemicals? " asks Brandon Keim, of the Council for Responsible Genetics in

reference to the ProdiGene scandal. " A few sensational deaths? Maybe an increase

in debilitating disorders which will only be noticeable some decades later, when

it's already too late? "

 

 

 

Biopharmaceuticals are in an experimental stage but the corporations producing

them anxiously await the day when federal authorities give them the go-ahead to

enter the market.

 

 

 

Carmelo Ruiz is a journalist and a research associate of the Institute for

Social Ecology. He has previously published in Grist, E Magazine, the New York

Daily News, Corporate Watch, IPS and other media.

 

 

 

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