GMW: GM-eggplant challenged in Supreme Court of India

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GMW: GM-eggplant challenged in Supreme Court of India

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Wed, 9 Aug 2006 10:32:21 +0100

 

 

 

 

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GM-eggplant challenged in Supreme Court of India

Press Release: Robert Mann, 7 August 2006

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/WO0608/S00085.htm

 

In a type of action not available in many countries, an Indian citizen

is challenging proposed field-trials of a particularly obnoxious

GM-eggplant. Several scientists have deposed statements in support -

here's

mine.

 

Statement for the Supreme Court of India

on the Writ Petition of Aruna Rodrigues

 

L. R. B. Mann

senior lecturer in Biochemistry (rtd)

University of Auckland, New Zealand

 

Introduction

 

I have studied the statements to the Court by Professor Schubert, Dr

Pusztai and Dr Gurian-Sherman. I find I agree with them, and will not

reiterate their points here, but have been invited to augment them.

What I

wish to do is to make some general points about genetic 'engineering',

as well as some particular points about the proposed GM-Brinjal that

are not emphasized in their prior statements.

 

Genetic manipulation (GM) or genetic engineering (GE) mean artificial

transfer of genes - pieces of DNA - to produce a transgenic organism,

e.g. jellyfish genes into sugarcane or human genes into cows. The methods

of artificially joining pieces of DNA from different organisms' genes

were invented as recently as the mid-1970s and are collectively called

recombinant-DNA technology.

 

I was a university teacher of biochemistry when these techniques were

first developed, and became interested in their effects. Much of what I

have to say to the Court is taken from a paper presented more recently

as a public lecture to the Royal Society of New Zealand (Auckland

branch).

 

The techniques of GM no more entail a uniform degree of hazard than

does nuclear science. As in nuclear technology, so with genetic

engineering: the tag 'nuclear' does not necessarily connote any

serious degree of

hazard, and some versions of GM may well be harmless.

 

But some versions are not harmless. Therefore a regulatory system must

perform sceptical analyses of GM proposals to assess their hazards.

 

General Doubts

 

Many scientific and moral leaders have queried GM. The science upon

which GM technology is founded is under strenuous criticism from

scientific thinkers. Genes are not Lego modules which can be blithely

slotted

into very different organisms free from unintended effects. Rogue

diseases are a genuine concern arising from detailed, sceptical

appraisal of

some GM projects by highly qualified scientists. But global ecological

damage is the gravest threat.

 

One tawdry old argument we have heard since 1974 and can expect to hear

again is the claim that gene transfers occur naturally so GM is only

hastening them. This line of talk is a smoke-screen designed to obscure

the fact that GM usually performs artificial transfers which are not

known to occur in nature. This fact is denied when possible harm is

suggested, but is acknowledged, indeed emphasised, for claims of

benefit. It

is certainly true that no brinjal could arise in nature containing

modified versions of a Bt toxin in most or all of its cells.

 

If we change the rates, or even worse the specificities, with which

genes can jump around in infectious manners, we may wreak biological

havoc

on a global scale. Go back to Ovid's Metamorphoses to glimpse what

might go wrong.

 

The gene-manipulators claim they can foresee the evolutionary results

of their artificial transposings of human genes into sheep, bovine genes

into tomatoes, altered bacterial genes into eggplant,etc. But such

claims are a reflection more of arrogance than of scientific analysis.

 

The science upon which current GM experiments are based, as stated or

assumed by the experimenters, is in many places wrong.

 

For instance:-

 

1. It is routinely assumed that there are only 4 letters in the

'alphabet' of DNA (called for short G, C, T, and A). But it has been

known for

several decades that other 'letters' exist in DNA. The functions of the

'odd' bases - methyl-C, methyl-G, and others - are largely unknown, but

that does not mean they're equivalent to 'The Big Four'. They are often

ignored by genetic engineers sequencing DNA " copied " by systems that

can produce only 'Big 4' polymers. The synthetic genes inserted by GM

are, on this basis, all made with just 'The Big Four' bases. This is a

glaring fallacy.

 

2. Synthetic genes are routinely inserted which are deliberately

different from actual genes. An example in the present case is the

'Bt' genes

that have been inserted into GM-Brinjal; the 'Bt' toxin gene must be

different from that for any actual toxin produced in the bacterium

Bacillus thuringiensis , in order for the plant to make the novel

protein to

any useful extent.

 

3. It is routinely assumed that the effects of genes inserted by

radically unnatural methods are predictable, when in fact they are

known to

be extremely variable (frequently lethal). It is pretended that a cell

surviving such genes-insertion processes, and then selected on just one

property - resistance to an antibiotic - and then grown into a whole

organism, e.g. an eggplant, will have all properties at least as good as

those of a normal organism. On the contrary, insertional mutation

damages the target genome in unpredictable ways, rendering literally

unforeseeable the many properties of any surviving GM-cells. The

unforeseeability is compounded by somaclonal variation in the

GM-progeny: plants

grown from single cells, taking advantage of what is called the

'totipotence' of some plant cells, are known to exhibit much more

variability

than plants grown from normal seed.

 

How Much Harm; How Often?

 

In appraising dangerous technologies, it is best to estimate the hazard

- the scale of harm in the event of a major mishap - as a separate

question, and then analyse if possible the risk - the probability that

the

major mishap will occur. Much confusion between these two aspects of

danger has been created by language-tampering, even in such formal arenas

as the Journal of Risk Analysis.

 

Biology is so much more complex than technology that we should not

pretend we can imagine all the horror scenarios, but it is suspected that

some artificial genetic manipulations create the potential to derange

the biosphere for longer than any civilisation could survive. If only

pro-GM enthusiasts are consulted in the appraisal of GM proposals, such

scenarios will not be thought of.

 

The hazard certainly includes some mortality: a hundred or so people

were killed, and a few thousand maimed, in the 1980s by impurities in

L-tryptophan (a natural amino acid, sold as a dietary supplement) made by

Showa Denko using GM'd bacterial cultures. Showa Denko has paid roughly

U$2,000,000,000 in out-of-court settlements of suits resulting from

some of the approx. 80 - 120 deaths (possibly more) and thousands

continuing maimed. This actual damage by GM

(http://www.connectotel.com/gmfood/trypto.html) is one basis of the

campaign for labelling as such any GM'd foods which may be permitted.

 

Having taught on environmental health hazards for many years in science

& medical faculties, and having served as an adviser to successive

Ministers of Health in the first dozen years of the Toxic Substances

Board,

I know all too well how overloaded government staff, even when backed

by statutory powers, get subverted by not only the specific claims but

more importantly the whole value-system of the industries which they are

supposed to regulate. It is therefore crucially important that a

clearly defined agency conduct scrutiny of GMOs before they are

allowed into

field-trials. Furthermore, that agency must - to be scientifically

reliable - take due account of evidence against a proposed

field-trial. In

the case of GM-brinjal, the evidence summarised by the experts from

whom the Court has already heard on behalf of Mrs Rodrigues is, in my

opinion, overwhelming.

 

One aspect of 'Bt'-Brinjal which deserves more attention is the

persistent concern among experts that GM-'Bt' plants such as this will

evoke

selection & proliferation of mutant insects resistant to Bacillus

thuringiensis. The natural bacterium B. t. is very important in advanced

organic agriculture, so insects resistant to this pesticide would be a

serious threat to many types of agriculture on which a country such as

India inevitably & rightly relies.

 

Conclusion

 

I regard the 'Bt'-brinjal field-trial proposal as one of the most

ill-conceived I have encountered in my three decades of critical

appraisal

of GM. The risks and hazards, while not exactly known or indeed

precisely foreseeable, appear to be so grave that the proposed

field-trials

should be enjoined pending a thorough assessment such as has yet to be

performed. Since the intended GM-brinjal would be unfit for human

consumption, the hazards of the field-trial can be prevented by not

doing the

field-trial.

 

(signed)

 

L. R. B. Mann

21-7-2006

 

+ DOCUMENTS ON BT BRINJAL Here are links to documents forming part of

the response sent by the Coalition for a GM-Free India, to India's GM

regulatory body - the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC) - on

the biosafety data and the proposal by Monsanto Mahyco for field trials

and seed production of Bt brinjal (eggplant/aubergine).

 

The Coalition's response was endorsed by more than 250 leading

organisations and eminent experts from various fields including farmers'

organisations, organic farmers, agricultural scientists, microbiologists,

medical professionals, and social scientists.

 

The Coalition also told the GEAC that it strongly objected to the fact

that the GEAC had stated in a press release that it WILL permit the

trials, even while it was asking for feedback on the proposal to hold the

trials! This, the Coalition said, was not just unacceptable but

rendered the entire regulatory process farcical.

 

The documents are at:

http://www.gmwatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6772

http://www.gmwatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6773

http://www.gmwatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6774

http://www.gmwatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6775

http://www.gmwatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6776

 

For a letter to the prime minister of India from the food and trade

policy analyst, Dr Devinder Sharma on the Bt brinjal plans, see:

 

http://www.gmwatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6778

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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