GMW: Are There Human Genes in Your Food?

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GMW: Are There Human Genes in Your Food?

" GM WATCH " <info

Tue, 28 Feb 2006 13:24:22 GMT

 

 

 

 

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http://www.gmwatch.org

 

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EXCERPT: Pharma crops are supposed to be rigorously regulated. But the

Food and Drug Administration (FDA) does not review biopharmaceutical

crops before planting, even though many of them have toxic or

anti-nutritional effects on human health or the environment.

 

A recent audit by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Inspector

General found the USDA failed to inspect field trial sites as promised

and didn't even know where some experiments were planted. The

Inspector General also found that USDA didn't follow up to find out

what happened to the biopharm harvests. Two tons of a drug-laden crop

was stored for more than a year at two sites without USDA's knowledge

or inspection.

 

 

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Are There Human Genes in Your Food?

by Trudy Bialic

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, February 24, 2006

http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0224-28.htm

 

Ask the people around you if they want experimental drugs and

industrial chemicals in their food or beer -- without their knowledge

or consent. Chances are they'll say no. Then tell them experiments

that could make that happen are occurring right here in Washington state.

 

As you read this, a professor at Washington State University and a

private Canadian company, SemBioSys, have applied for permits to turn

two common food crops -- barley and safflower -- into virtual

factories for synthetic drugs or chemicals.

 

On its Web site, SemBioSys declares its plan to inject safflower with

human genes to produce experimental insulin and a drug for heart

attacks and strokes. WSU confirms that it plans to grow barley,

injected with human genes, to produce artificial proteins with

pharmaceutical properties. Where these fields will be is secret;

nearby farmers and residents won't be notified.

 

Proponents say that injecting human genes into plants (or animals)

will provide cheaper drugs -- someday. But this so-called

" biopharming " has met with considerable opposition.

 

In California and Missouri, farmers protested and effectively stopped

outdoor cultivation of " pharma rice, " concerned that the drug-plants

would contaminate their food-grade crops and make them unmarketable.

Food companies such as Anheuser-Busch and Kraft Foods, as well as the

Grocery Manufacturers of America and the Food Products Association,

concur.

The risks are more than hypothetical. Several cases of

cross-contamination from GE crops have cost farmers and the food

industry more than a billion dollars in recalls and lost export markets.

 

The National Academy of Sciences, a nongovernmental body of scientists

and professionals, has warned in two reports that it's virtually

impossible to keep biopharms out of the food supply if food crops are

used to grow them. Insects, birds, animals, wind, storms, trucks,

trains and human error see to that.

 

Pharma crops are supposed to be rigorously regulated. But the Food and

Drug Administration (FDA) does not review biopharmaceutical crops

before planting, even though many of them have toxic or

anti-nutritional effects on human health or the environment.

 

A recent audit by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Inspector

General found the USDA failed to inspect field trial sites as promised

and didn't even know where some experiments were planted. The

Inspector General also found that USDA didn't follow up to find out

what happened to the biopharm harvests. Two tons of a drug-laden crop

was stored for more than a year at two sites without USDA's knowledge

or inspection.

 

What's the risk of cross-contamination from these experiments? State

legislators at least should order a thorough risk assessment and allow

public comment.

 

Washington's Barley Commission is aware that WSU is biopharming barley

and is strongly opposed. Administrator Mary Sullivan says, " Once those

genetically altered genes are out there, there'll be GMOs in the beer. "

 

No one's opposed to less expensive and effective drugs, but biopharming

in food crops in open fields is a bad financial risk. Several leading

biopharm companies have gone bankrupt. When Large Scale Biology went

bankrupt -- it was the first to conduct a field trial in 1991 -- even

biotech movers and shakers contemplated the demise of the biopharming

concept.

 

Agriculture and the food industry are the largest employers and the

greatest source of revenue in Washington state -- more than Microsoft

and Boeing combined. WSU and SemBioSys should not be mixing drugs and

food.

They should cancel these risky experiments immediately.

 

If they want to produce plant-based drugs, they should follow the lead

of Dow AgroScience, which just announced approval of a vaccine for

chickens produced by tobacco cell cultures in a contained steel tank.

Cell cultures are a proven way to generate pharmaceuticals under

controlled laboratory conditions -- without the risk of untested drugs

in our food.

 

 

 

 

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