Dr Antoniou on Research shows antibiotics in genetically modified plants are a

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GMW: Dr Antoniou on " Research shows antibiotics in

genetically modified plants are a non issue "

 

 

" GM WATCH " <info

Thu, 7 Oct 2004 18:58:09 +0100

 

 

Dr Antoniou on " Research shows antibiotics in genetically modified

plants are a non issue "

 

 

http://www.gmwatch.org

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According to the medical biotechnologist, Dr Michael Antoniou (item 1),

the Medical News Today article " Research shows antibiotics in

genetically modified plants are a non issue " (item 2) contains

numerous errors

and questionnable claims, as well as conveniently ignoring evidence that

fails to fit its reassuring thesis.

 

Yet this article has popped up on a whole series of websites in the few

days since publication - allindianews.com, science.bio.org,

innateimmunity.net, bioportfolio.co.uk, seedquest.com, junkscience.com,

monsanto.co.uk, etc., etc.

 

The article's authorship is unspecified but the original source appears

to have been the European Food Information Council. EFIC is coy about

sponsorship, referring only in passing to " food and beverage " companies,

but interestingly the strikingly similar IFIC - the International Food

Information Council - has amongst its sponsors:

 

Archer Daniels Midland Company

BASF

Cargill, Incorporated

Dow AgroSciences, LLC

DuPont Agricultural Products

Monsanto Company and

Syngenta

http://www.gmwatch.org/profile1.asp?PrId=64 & page=I

 

At the bottom of the Medical News Today article it says, " For more

information, contact W. De Greef at ALSS " . ALSS is Applied Life Science

Strategies whose highly minimal website - www.alss.be -appears to be

partly still under construction and partly made up of references to

events

which occurred 6-7 years ago!

 

The Managing Director of ALSS - a " consultancy working on issues

related to the use of biotechnology in food production " - is Willy de

Greef

(ie the contact given at the end of the article). Until the end of 2002

de Greef was the Global Head of Regulatory Affairs - Biotechnology for

GM giant Syngenta. And as such he would have had to deal repeatedly

with the regulatory hurdles arising out of concerns over the antibiotic

resistance genes used in GM crops.

 

1.Comments by Dr Michael Antoniou

2.Research shows antibiotics in genetically modified plants are a non

issue

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1.Comments by Dr Michael Antoniou on Medical News Today web page

article " Research shows antibiotics in genetically modified plants are

a non

issue " (04 Oct 2004, reproduced below)

 

This is a typical industry sweeping statement. (Note: Is it a

co-incidence that this is an AstraZeneca sponsored web page?).

 

I'd like to know what scientific community the article is referring to

when it states " The conclusion of the scientific community is that

antibiotic resistance markers in genetically modified plants do not

add any

measurable risk to the environment or to human health and need not be a

matter of concern. " !

 

There are numerous errors:

 

1. Reports by Maewan Ho and Joe Cummins clearly describe that kanamycin

and other similar antibiotics are still being used in human and

veterinary medicine (Cummins, 2001).

 

2. I am not aware of " Intense research has been undertaken over the

past ten years on the possibility of gene transfers. " This on the whole

has been a neglected area.

 

3. What work has been done to be able to say that " To date, there have

been no reports of the reliable and stable transfer of ARMs from

genetically modified plants to human pathogens. " ? I agree that perhaps

no one

has shown transfer into recognised human pathogens, but has anyone been

stupid enough to try this? Non-pathogenic model systems are usually

used to assess the likelihood of this happening. Since no-one is

eating GM

food as a staple over prolonged periods of time as yet (only processed

stuff from soya and maize), you cannot even look at the American

population for such events. So this is clearly an unanswered question

within

a real world/life context.

 

4. He conveniently ignores the FSA sponsored University of Newcastle

study where human volunteers were studied after being fed a single GM

Soya containing meal (Netherwood et al., 2004). As Heritage points out in

his commentary on this study (Heritage, 2004):

 

" Nevertheless, on balance, the data presented in the paper support the

conclusion that gene flow from transgenic plants to the gut microflora

does occur. Furthermore, because transfer events seem to have occurred

in three of the seven subjects examined, it may be that trans-kingdom

gene transfers are not as rare as suggested by the UK GM Science Review

Panel "

 

" They (the authors) propose that the gene transfer events from

transgenic plants to gut microflora for which they provide evidence

are highly

unlikely to alter gastrointestinal function or endanger human health. I

would conclude, however, that whereas this may be true for the

construct examined by Gilbert's group, it may not be true in other

cases, such

as genes that encode resistance to antibiotics used in human medicine. "

 

5. Even very low levels of ARM gene transfer from GM plants to bacteria

would be significant in the presence of the appropriate antibiotic.

Those few bacterial cells that had taken up the ARM gene would survive

and

flourish, while those that didn't would die off rapidly. The result?

Potentially fatal infectious disease!

 

References:

 

Cummins, J. (2001). Kanamycin Still Used and Cross-Reacts with New

Antibiotics. ISIS Report - May 27. http://www.i-sis.org.uk/kanomycin.php

 

Heritage, J. (2004). The fate of transgenes in the human gut. Nature

Biotechnology 22: 170 - 172. doi:10.1038/nbt0204-170

http://www.nature.com/cgi-taf/DynaPage.taf?file=/nbt/journal/v22/n2/full/nbt0204\

-170.html

 

Netherwood T., Susana M Martin-Orue, SM., O'Donnell, AG., Gockling, S.,

Graham, J., Mathers, JC. and Gilbert, HJ. (2004). Assessing the

survival of transgenic plant DNA in the human gastrointestinal tract.

Nature

Biotechnology 22, 204-209.

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2.Research shows antibiotics in genetically modified plants are a non

issue

Medical News Today, 04 Oct 2004

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/medicalnews.php?newsid=14379

 

The probability that antibiotic resistance markers (ARMs) which are

used in some genetically modified plants could transfer to bacteria

harmful to humans is less than winning first prize in the national

lottery

three weeks in a row.

 

Antibiotic resistance markers are important tools for the development

of genetically modified crops. They are used to identify and isolate the

gene or genes that have been moved from one plant to a plant that is to

be genetically modified. There are no antibiotics in our food as a

result of using these markers.

 

Concerns have been raised that the use of ARMs could have a negative

impact on the use of antibiotics in human medicine. Two genes are widely

used in plant biotechnology: kanamycin and ampicillin. These two

antibiotics have been specifically chosen because, as a number of recent

studies have shown, they have outlived their practical use. Nearly all

strains of pathogens they used to kill are now resistant to them.

Nevertheless, some people still fear that introducing these ARMs in

crops could

add to the load of resistance genes already present in our environment,

and thus somehow affect human pathogens that have not yet been

converted into the resistant forms.

 

A number of recent studies on the presence of ampicillin resistance

genes inhabiting the human digestive tract show that usually more than

50%

of the samples contain ampicillin resistant individuals. It is known

that many of these naturally ampicillin resistant bacterial populations

can transfer the resistance genes to human pathogens.

 

Intense research has been undertaken over the past ten years on the

possibility of gene transfers. To date, there have been no reports of the

reliable and stable transfer of ARMs from genetically modified plants

to human pathogens.

 

" It is easy to transfer from bacteria to bacteria, but not from plant

to bacteria, " says biologist Willy De Greef, managing director of

Applied Live Science Strategies, a consultancy working on issues

related to

the use of biotechnology in food production. " Data show that the chances

of such a transfer actually taking place are infinitely small at less

than 1 in 1018. This does not totally exclude transfer altogether, but

it's incredibly unlikely. The chance that human pathogens will acquire

antibiotic resistance from other bacteria in our living environment are

in fact millions of times larger. "

 

The conclusion of the scientific community is that antibiotic

resistance markers in genetically modified plants do not add any

measurable risk

to the environment or to human health and need not be a matter of

concern.

 

For more information, contact W. De Greef at ALSS, Fax +32 9 244 6449,

website: http://www.alss.be, email-: gvanoverbeke

 

http://www.eufic.org