Syngenta admits antibiotic-resistance genes in its rogue seeds

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GMW: Syngenta admits antibiotic-resistance genes in its rogue

seeds

" GM WATCH " <info

Tue, 29 Mar 2005 21:00:20 +0100

 

 

 

 

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Syngenta admits antibiotic-resistance genes in its rogue seeds

 

EXCERPTS: Officials at the company last week argued that Bt10 is

basically identical to Bt11 corn, which has been approved for sale (see

Nature 434, 423; 2005). But this week, Sarah Hull, a spokeswoman for

Syngenta, confirmed that a marker gene that confers resistance to

ampicillin,

a commonly used antibiotic, was present in the Bt10 seeds.

 

Critics have expressed surprise that neither Syngenta nor the US

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced the presence of the

marker

when they admitted that the release of Bt10 had taken place. " It is quite

scandalous, " says Greg Jaffe, head of the biotechnology project at the

Center for Science in the Public Interest

 

In a ruling published last April, for example, the European Food Safety

Authority, which advises European Union governments on food issues,

said that marker genes conferring resistance to ampicillin " should be

restricted to field trials and not be present in genetically modified

plants placed on the market " .

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Stray seeds had antibiotic-resistance genes

Nature

Published online: 29 March 2005; | doi:10.1038/434548a

Colin Macilwain

Accidental release of genetically-modified crops sparks new worries.

http://www.nature.com/news/2005/050328/full/434548a.html

 

Hundreds of tonnes of genetically modified corn seeds sold to farmers

by mistake over the past four years contained a gene for antibiotic

resistance, Nature has learned. The release of such genes into the

environment is sometimes considered inadvisable, as there is a small

chance

that they could flow from crops to microorganisms and spread problems of

antibiotic resistance.

 

The Swiss biotechnology company Syngenta admitted last week that it had

accidentally released a variety of corn (maize) called Bt10 between

2001 and 2004. Like other crops with the name Bt, this corn had been

genetically modified to produce a protective pesticide. But Bt10 has not

been approved for sale by regulatory agencies.

 

Officials at the company last week argued that Bt10 is basically

identical to Bt11 corn, which has been approved for sale (see Nature 434,

423; 2005). But this week, Sarah Hull, a spokeswoman for Syngenta,

confirmed that a marker gene that confers resistance to ampicillin, a

commonly

used antibiotic, was present in the Bt10 seeds. She adds that this gene

would not have been active in the corn plants that grew from the seeds.

 

Antibiotic-resistance genes are widely used as 'tags' during the

production of genetically modified crops, to help breeders identify and

preserve desirable strains. But the genes are often removed before the

seeds

enter the food chain. The presence of the marker gene in Bt10 corn was

noted in a 2003 advice notice from a UK government committee, the

Advisory Committee on Releases to the Environment, which was using

Bt10 as a

comparison to prove that there were no marker genes in Bt11 corn.

 

Critics have expressed surprise that neither Syngenta nor the US

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced the presence of the

marker

when they admitted that the release of Bt10 had taken place. " It is quite

scandalous, " says Greg Jaffe, head of the biotechnology project at the

Center for Science in the Public Interest, a pressure group in

Washington DC. " This shows that the government and the company are not

being

forthright. "

 

Hull says that the company didn't mention the gene's presence because

" it wasn't relevant to the health and safety discussion " . She adds that

the antibiotic-resistance genes have been around for a long time.

" They've been studied extensively, and they pose no risk to humans or

animals, " she says. Regulators say that the genes present a very small

risk

to human health, either directly - if in the stomach of a patient on

antibiotics, for example - or indirectly through gene flow into microbes.

 

Michael Rodemeyer, director of the Pew Initiative on Food and

Biotechnology, a think-tank in Washington DC, says that the presence

of such

genes would be unlikely to see a crop declared unsafe in the United

States

- but adds that it could cause problems in Europe.

 

In a ruling published last April, for example, the European Food Safety

Authority, which advises European Union governments on food issues,

said that marker genes conferring resistance to ampicillin " should be

restricted to field trials and not be present in genetically modified

plants placed on the market " . And the Codex Alimentarius Commission, the

international food-standards body, has urged the agricultural

biotechnology industry to use alternative methods to refine

genetically modified

strains in the future.

 

The EPA, which is jointly investigating the release of the Bt10 corn

with the US Department of Agriculture, declined to say what it knew about

the antibiotic-resistance marker. " What the company told us and when

about the marker gene is part of our ongoing investigation and we are not

able to discuss it at this time, " the agency said in a statement.

 

" I think they've done a terrible job, " says Margaret Mellon, head of

the food and environment programme at the Union of Concerned Scientists

in Washington DC, referring to both Syngenta and the government

agencies. " There are lots and lots of unanswered questions, and the

longer they

remain, the less confidence people are going to have in the technology

and in the regulatory system. "

 

 

 

 

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