GMW: Six impossible things before breakfast

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GMW: Six impossible things before breakfast

" GM WATCH " <info

Thu, 28 Jul 2005 16:16:13 +0100

 

 

 

 

GM WATCH daily

http://www.gmwatch.org

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1.Six impossible things before breakfast

2.'superweed' in field of GM crops

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1.Six impossible things before breakfast

 

Earlier today we put out a press release from a farmers group warning

against believing the statements of scientists with a vested interest in

GM. The same might go for the comments to be found at the end of this

article.

 

As well as the scientists working for institutes with direct finacial

funding from GM corporations, there are the scientists now specialising

in GM risk assessments who have a meal-ticket for life just so long as

GM crop commercialisation remains on the agenda.

 

In the article below one of the latter - Dr Les Firbank, co-ordinator

of the GM farm-scale evaluations (FSEs) - claims " there are no

environmental consequences " from GM crops interbreeding with wild

relatives

like charlock. The claim is that this is only a weed management problem

for farmers.

 

That could be bad enough for farmers, as American farmers are finding

to their cost as weed resistance gallops across a whole series of

states. But, bizarrely, Fairbanks claim about " no environmental

consequences "

is directly contradicted by his own research! The clear conclusion from

the FSEs he oversaw is that different forms of weed management have a

critically different impact on wildlife.

 

In other words, weed management can have major environmental

consequences. The herbicide regime used with GM oilseed rape, for

instance, was

shown to have a significantly more damaging effect on wildlife, which

was why Bayer were not allowed to proceed with commercialisation. This

makes it ludicrous to argue that a problem that forces farmers to

intensify their herbicide regimes by the addition of more toxic

herbicides is

something that has " no environmental consequences " !

 

In the same article Brian Johnson, a member of the scientific group set

up by the government to assess the GM trials, suggests the researchers

may have been so incompetent as to have allowed contamination of their

experiment and that the charlock, might not have interbred at all with

GM oilseed rape plants. Their evidence to the contrary is the result of

contamination by GM pollen, he suggests, though he provides no evidence

to support the experiment having been contaminated. Similar accusations

of contamination and false positives were thrown at the Berkely

researchers Quist and Chapela when their findings of GM contamination of

native maize in Mexico proved not to the taste of some of their

scientific

colleagues.

 

The statements of some GM supporting scientists bring to mind the White

Queen in Alice in Wonderland:

 

" Alice laughed: " There's no use trying, " she said; " one can't believe

impossible things. "

 

" I daresay you haven't had much practice, " said the Queen. " When I was

younger, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I've

believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast. "

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2.Green body's fury at 'superweed' in field of GM crops

IAN JOHNSTON

SCIENCE CORRESPONDENT

The Scotsman

http://news.scotsman.com/scitech.cfm?id=1682082005

 

GENETICALLY modified crops have bred with a native species to create a

new herbicide resistant plant which environmentalists yesterday branded

Britain's first " superweed " .

 

It was previously thought that the weed, charlock, would not be able to

interbreed with genetically altered oilseed rape plants.

 

But government scientists have found a hybrid plant at the margins of a

field where a trial crop had been planted. Tests showed it was

unaffected by the same herbicides that the GM crop was designed to resist.

 

Environmentalists said the discovery of the superweed showed there

would be serious consequences if GM crops were allowed to be grown

commercially, as farmers would be forced to use even more herbicide to

stop

charlock and other resistant weeds from taking over the field.

 

The GM rape, which was trialled at several locations around the UK

including one site in Aberdeenshire, is supposed to allow farmers to

use a

" kill all " herbicide that would get rid of every weed in a field -

including charlock - but leave the crop unaffected.

 

But a report by scientists at the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology

confirmed a hybrid plant had been discovered at one of the trial sites in

England.

 

" In the year after the trial, fields [were] revisited and wild

relatives growing in or around the subsequent crop were tested by

herbicide

application, " it said

 

" A single plant of sinapis arvensis (charlock) showed no reaction to

the application and a leaf of this plant was taken for PCR (genetic)

analysis. The gene construct was found to be present. " Two other plants,

wild turnips, were also found to be herbicide resistant.

 

A reviewer's comment attached to the front of the report said the

consequences were " presumed " to be negligible. But it added:

" Nevertheless,

this unusual occurrence merits further study in order to adequately

assess any potential risk of gene transfer. "

 

Environmental groups warned of the dangers of allowing GM crops to be

planted on a large scale. There are currently no commercial GM crop

farms in Britain and interest has waned because of public opposition

 

Emily Diamand, Friends of the Earth's GM campaigner, said: " The

government's trials have already shown that growing GM crops can harm

wildlife. Now we're seeing the real possibility of GM superweeds being

created,

with serious consequences for farmers and the environment.

 

" The government must stop acting as cheerleader for GM crops and start

paying attention to its own research, and above all, to the British

public

 

However, Dr Les Firbank, co-ordinator of the farm-scale evaluations of

GM crops at the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, said the impact of

the GM resistant weed would be " pretty much non-existent " .

 

" It's recognised that gene flow from GM crops to wild relatives is a

potential problem, but in this case it happens very, very rarely and

there are no environmental consequences, " he said

 

" Some people would say any gene flow at all is unacceptable. I

personally think the risk is low enough to be acceptable. "

 

Follow-up studies failed to find the hybrid, suggesting that the weed

had died out.

 

Brian Johnson, an ecological geneticist and a member of the scientific

group set up by the government to assess GM farm trials, said: " I do

not consider this to be a superweed. Hybrids really aren't terribly

exciting. Most of them are sterile. "

 

He added that the PCR test used was so sensitive it may have picked up

pollen from the GM plants on the leaf of the charlock, producing a

false positive result. " I'm not totally convinced they found a hybrid. "

 

 

 

 

 

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