Fear of pharming

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Fear of pharming

" GM WATCH " info

Mon, 20 Sep 2004 11:55:53 +0100

 

 

 

http://www.gmwatch.org

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Fear of pharming

 

" Corn is the world's worst organism for this, " says Norman Ellstrand,

a plant geneticist at the University of California at Riverdale and

director of the Biology Impacts Center.

 

" When I heard about this, my first thoughts were, 'What were they

thinking?' "

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Technology at Scientific American.com:

 

Fear of Pharming -- Controversy swirls at the crossroads of

agriculture and medicine

September 20, 2004

 

Farming, one of the world's oldest practices has suddenly found itself

entangled with modern medicine. Imagine this: at your child's

appointment for a routine vaccination, the doctor proffers a banana

genetically engineered to contain the vaccine and says, " Have her eat

this and call me in the morning. " Though still far-fetched, the

scenario is getting closer to reality, with the first batch of

plant-made medicines--created by genetically modifying crops such as

corn, soy, canola and even fruits such as tomatoes and bananas to

produce disease-fighting drugs and vaccines--now in early clinical testing

 

Splicing foreign genes into plants is nothing new -- biologists have

been doing it for about 25 years. Using the technology to produce

protein-based medicine could revolutionize the drug industry,

proponents say.

 

Plants are inherently safer than current methods of using animal cell

cultures, which carry a risk of spreading animal pathogens; plants

also provide a much cheaper means of production. But fears that these

" pharma crops " will contaminate the food supply are casting shadows on

the promise of the technology.

 

The problem is that containing genes from GM plants seems to be harder

than scientists expected. Recent data suggest that bioengineered genes

spread more widely than previously thought. A pilot study released in

February by the Union of Concerned Scientists (USC) found that more

than half of native species of corn, soybean and canola tested

contained low levels of DNA from strains engineered to confer

resistance against herbicides. An analysis published in March

established that genetically engineered corn had found its way into

Mexico despite that country's six-year-old ban on growing GM varieties

of the crop. And a major review of biologically modified organisms

conducted last year by the National Academies of Science stressed the

need to develop better confinement techniques. These findings and

others illustrate the reality that experts are starting to

acknowledge: the way things are going, maintaining zero

levels of contamination from GM plants may be impossible.

 

Leaks of pharma crops have occurred as well. Two years ago, USDA

inspectors found experimental corn plants containing a pig vaccine

growing in nearby conventional fields in two separate incidents in

Nebraska and Iowa. ProdiGene, the Texas biotech company responsible

for the mishaps, was heavily fined for violating its permit and

ordered to destroy 500,000 bushels of soybeans and 155 acres of corn

plants. But perhaps more importantly, the leak shook the public's

confidence in the technology. So far, no one has shown that current GM

crops carry any health risks. But pharma crops, the new generation of

GM plants, raise the safety stakes: the proteins spliced into these

plants are specifically chosen to target physiological function.

 

The USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS), which

oversees crops, responded to the ProdiGene incident by revising its

regulations for growing pharma crops. Companies must now use

designated equipment for planting and harvesting, provide better crop

containment training for growers, and undergo at least five

inspections a year. The new rules also require that pharmaceutical

corn be grown at least one mile away from any other fields and planted

at least 28 days before or after surrounding corn crops are planted.

Lisa Dry, spokeswoman for the Biotechnology Industry Organization

(BIO), says the new rules make drug pharming so distinct from

producing commodities crops that future contamination is preventable.

And industry, keen to avoid any further negative publicity, takes

contamination very seriously. In fact, according to Neil Johnson,

regulatory programs director at APHIS's Biotechnology

Regulatory Services, many if not most companies running field tests

for pharma crops currently operate under tighter restrictions than

government regulations demand.

 

But even with stringent compliance by industry, the science of gene

flow could flout APHIS's rules. Corn in particular, which accounts for

about two thirds of pharmaceutical crops being tested, has a strong

tendency to cross-pollinate. " Corn is the world's worst organism for

this, " says Norman Ellstrand, a plant geneticist at the University of

California at Riverdale and director of the Biology Impacts Center.

" When I heard about this, my first thoughts were, 'What were they

thinking?' " Corn pollen is viable for only a few days, and the 28-day

segregation requirement provides a good deal of additional protection

against contamination. But the problem, Ellstrand observes, is that

there is little actual data on how far genes can travel.