Guest guest Posted October 19, 2001 Report Share Posted October 19, 2001 I found this quite interesting. Jo Bt GM crop toxin is from Anthrax family -- Please circulate -- Forwarded from NLP Wessex [via Ban-Gef, USA] -- Bt GM crop toxin is from Anthrax family " ...probably the nearest relative of B. thurigiensis is B. anthracis (anthrax) with whom it shares genes " . Professor Anthony Trewavas, Institute of Cell and Molecular Biology, Edinburgh The Lancet, Volume 355, Number 9207. p. 931-934 11 March 2000 " Small genetic differences have so far maintained the distinction that makes B. anthracis a notorious humanpathogen and Bt merely a useful pest control bug. However, Bacillus expert Lars Andrup of the National Institute of Occupational Health in Copenhagen has identified a novel gene-swapping system that enables Bt to exchange an unusually wide variety of DNA with other Bacillus cells. The potential for spawning very dangerous strains and unleashing them into the environment is clearly there, he says. " New Scientist, October 9, 1999 " B.t. belongs to a small group of closely related Bacillus species, including B. cereus, a bacteria that is an agent of food poisoning, and B. anthracis, the pathogen of the virulent animal disease, anthrax. These three bacteria are so similar it has been theorized that they are all varieties of the same species. If B. cereus is cultured with B.t. cells, genetic material is transferred to the B. cereus cells that allows B. cereus to produce B.t.'s crystal proteins. Transfers of genetic material between B. anthracis and B.t. have also occurred. " Journal of Pesticide Reform, Volume 14, Number 3, Fall 1994 17 October 2001 Yesterday the vice-president of the British Veterinary Association confirmed that the food supply is a major risk area for terrorist activity through deliberate biological contamination(http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/uk/newsid_1601000/1601846.stm ). Not surprisingly this is a highly sensitive issue following the recent anthrax attacks in the US and the earlier outbreaks of BSE and foot-and-mouth in the UK. These latter two experiences alone should have taught us that we lose control of our agricultural and food biology at our peril. And yet with the advent of genetically modified crops we find our politicians - not only in the UK but throughout the world - consciously acquiescing in the legislative endorsement of the introduction of radical molecular changes to global food supplies. Although limited in number at present there is almost no food for which such genetic modification is not being planned. Such a dramatic change to the very 'staff of life' - over a time scale in evolutionary terms which is infinitesimally small - is overwhelmingly without precedent. That these changes are fundamental is not disputed in the published scientific literature (www.btinternet.com/~nlpwessex/Documents/gmrisk.htm). Indeed, such radical change forms the very basis on which the proprietary ownership of these 'novel foods' is secured through the vehicle of intellectual property rights, and from which unchallengable investment returns are derived. In order to emphasise the extraordinary nature of what is taking place here, it is worth remembering that the sametechnology that is used to create GM crops (recombinant DNA technology) is the same technology that is used to create modern bioweapons. One example is the genetically engineered anthrax which the US government has recently admitted it has covert manufacturing proposals for, according to the London Times 5 September (the Times also discloses that the Pentagon has secretly built a germ factory 'capable of producing enough deadly bacteria to kill millions of people' http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/0,,3-2001305743,00.html). In this context claims that GM crops are 'just an extension' of traditional plant breeding are patently absurd. Essentially this technology now allows the out-of-context incorporation of genetic material from almost any source into food and other organisms. For example, although a version allegedly benign to mammals, the Bt pesticide toxin that is already engineered into millions of acres of GM crops around the world is from a bacteria which belongs to the same family as anthrax (see Nature Biotechnology and New Scientist articles below). Whilst Bt in its natural form has been used as a pesticide in agriculture for a long time, in genetically engineered crops it exists as a novel construct incorporated through a process known as 'illegitimate recombination'. This has it own uniqueimplications for biosafety ( http://www.btinternet.com/~nlpwessex/Documents/ECnoconfidence.htm ). In contrast to the traditional use of Bt pesticide sprays which are applied to the exterior of the crop, with Bt GM crops thetoxin is embedded into the inner cellular structure of the plant itself and becomes an integral part of the food produced fromit (this is not a case of pesticide residues; rather the plant itself is a pesticide). Whilst the scientist from the Los Alamos National Laboratory featured in the New Scientist article below does not considerthat the use of naturally occurring Bt is likely to give rise to new biohazards, it is notable that no discussion is presented on the implications of the use of Bt in genetically engineered plants - particularly when the novel transgenic constructs involvedmay be continually expressed in every cell of each plant over huge acreages. In the case of GM plants the Bt toxin is expressed in highly artificial circumstances commonly activated by a potent regulator taken from a virus which is itselfrelated to Hepatitis B and HIV and is associated with illegitimate recombination events(see: www.btinternet.com/~nlpwessex/Documents/camv.htm ; http://www.genewatch.org/GeneSrch/_scripts/CaMV.asp). To what extent this type of situation can facilitate the swapping of novel genetic sequences in the environment is the subject of considerable debate. Whilst only briefly alluding to the use of Bt in GM crops the New Scientist article nonetheless specifically draws attention in a more general context to the issue of the swapping of 'regulator genes' within the anthrax family of bacteria and the potential for the creation of new hazards. Despite ongoing specific concerns relating to allergenicity and mammalian toxicity ( http://www.biotech-info.net/structural_changes.html ), it may still be felt in many quarters that these factors have little or no significance in the case of those Bt GM crops that have already passed through the official regulatory approval process (that the European Commission itself, for example, has significant doubts about the robustness of the safety tests carried out in that process does not for some reason seem to have become a major issue yet - see http://www.btinternet.com/~nlpwessex/Documents/ECnoconfidence.htm ). However, these crops are only the very beginning of a never-ending process of radical and rapidly accelerating biological change which has profound implications for the already acutely fragile future of global biosecurity. It has been clear for some time that the use of recombinant DNA technology in the so-called 'life sciences' is rapidly melting the boundaries not only between species, but between food, drugs and weapons. According to a report on biotechnology published last year by the US Industrial College of the Armed Forces: " There are substantial future opportunities to bioengineer plants for nonfood purposes, such as medical treatments through 'neutraceuticals' (i.e., plant-based therapeutic products) or the detection of biological weapons on the battlefield through plant sensors..... No fewer than 17 nations, including Iraq, Iran, North Korea, Cuba, Russia, and China, as well as several international terrorist organizations, have known or suspected bioweapons programs.....The rapid advances in biotechnology mean that increasingly insidious bioweapons are becoming increasingly accessible to even minor actors...... In addition, the technology to produce bioweapons is 'dual-use,' meaning that it could also be put to legitimate purposes, such as in the manufacture of vaccines, which would provide cover to bioterrorists.... Cloning, bioengineered foods, genetic patenting, and advanced knowledge of inherited diseases will threaten long-cherished beliefs about how we interact with nature, who we are as a society, and what we are as human beings. There will be serious challenges in the areas of biowarfare and bioterrorism.... " (http://www.ndu.edu/ndu/icaf/industry/biotech/biotech.htm). Even if you are comfortable with where we are at the moment with this technology just stop and think for a moment about where the genetic engineering trajectory is ultimately taking us as more and more genetic modifications are introduced into our living environment........ So how does the vision of this brave new bio-soup chaos appeal to you? Is this the kind of world you would like your children to 'live' in? Are you prepared to do something about it? Why not join the growing local and international movement to stop this unbelievably reckless global bio-gamble? One way you can act is by forwarding our mails on genetic engineering and global security to as many people as you feel appropriate. Take a look back through the mails we have already issued, or start with this one. Additional material is available on our web site. More will follow. The situation is serious. It is not enough simply to try to persuade the world to change its behaviour in this area. It is even more necessary to increase the very depth and range of its thinking. Ultimately this is an issue of global consciousness; one whose current precarious state of health has grown out of the chronic failure of our educational institutions to develop the full potential for coherent integrated thinking of our citizens, students, and scientists. Knowledge is not structured in information. It is structured in consciousness - that with which information interacts. Until such time as the world responds to its rapidly proliferating social and bioligical crises by adopting a shift towards a new paradigm of 'consciousness-based' education (http://www.mum.edu/) we can confidently expect more of the same, and in all likelihood more that is considerably worse. NATURAL LAW PARTY WESSEX nlpwessex www.btinternet.com/~nlpwessex " [Genetically engineered] DNA is no respecter of natural law, and terrorism is no respecter of man-made law. No regulatory system, however well-intentioned and complex, can possibly deal with this combination. Only an entirely new paradigm for the biosciences and global security can guarantee 'apocalypse never'. We should pursue it. " NLPWessex, 19 May 2001 http://www.btinternet.com/~nlpwessex/Documents/Bio-terrorism.htm to receive regular email bulletins on GMOs please '' via nlpwessex http://www.biotech-info.net/bt_crisis1.html " Bacillus Identity Crisis " Aaron J. Bouchie, Nature Biotechnology, Volume 18, No. 8, August, 2000 Researchers at the Biotechnology Centre at the University of Oslo, led by Anne-Brit Kolstø, have determined that what were thought to be three separate bacterial species are actually three strains of the same species (Appl. Environ. Microbiol. 66, 2627 & ndash;2630, 2000; MEDLINE). This team had previously found evidence that Bacillus thuringiensis, the sire of Bt toxin, and B. cereus, a common cause of food poisoning found ubiquitously in the soil, appear to be the same species, exhibiting low degrees of clonality and frequent exchange of genetic material. Through multilocus enzyme electrophoresis (MEE) and sequence analysis of nine chromosomal genes, the Kolstø group now has found that B. anthracis, the cause of anthrax, belongs to the same species as well. The difference in phenotype is due to virulent plasmids harbored within B. anthracis. With B. anthracis currently undergoing complete sequencing, Kolstø plans to sequence genes in the closest B. cereus relatives to determine what exactly allows B. anthracis to retrieve and retain virulent plasmids. Although researchers should not be overly concerned by these findings, she says, they could have implications for " organic " pest control methods: " We do not know whether it would be dangerous to use B. thuringiensis as a whole bacterium for pesticidal reasons due to possible genetic transfer, " warns Kolstø. http://www.biotech-info.net/friend_foe.html " Friend or Foe? " Debora MacKenzie New Scientist October 9, 1999 The bacteria Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt), B. cereus and B. anthracis are all the same species, biologists believe. If, the story asks, you're thinking " so what? " , then consider this: Bt is sprayed over crops in vast quantities and B. anthracis is the bug that causes anthrax. Small genetic differences have so far maintained the distinction that makes B. anthracis a notorious human pathogen and Bt merely a useful pest control bug. However, Bacillus expert Lars Andrup of the National Institute of Occupational Health in Copenhagen has identified a novel gene-swapping system that enables Bt to exchange an unusually wide variety of DNA with other Bacillus cells. The potential for spawning very dangerous strains and unleashing them into the environment is clearly there, he says. So why use Bt at all? For one thing, it is a highly successfully pesticide. Bt makes a toxin that kills insects but hurts nothing else. Genes for the toxin have been engineered into crops, but most farmers, timber growers and gardeners get it from live bacteria. More than 500 tonnes--five billion billion bacteria--are sprayed annually in the US alone. Similar amounts are sprayed in Europe. It is the only designated insecticide permitted on organic produce in Britain. If outbreaks of anthrax had been traceable to cabbage patches we would have, the story says, known about them. But before you consider the anthrax link, some claim that Bt even in its familiar form may not be as benign as we like to think. A closer look at its genes shows it is remarkably similar to B. cereus, an organism which causes about four serious outbreaks of food poisoning a year in the US. The only difference between them is a few plasmids. And it now appears that Bt is well equipped for swapping these small DNA loops with other bacilli. The surprising but generally held view of Bacillus specialists who met in New Mexico in August is that, the story says, plasmids aside, Bt, B. cereus and B. anthracis are one species. Take away its insect-killing plasmid, for example, and " Bt cannot be distinguished from B. cereus, " says microbiologist Anne-Brit Kolsto of the University of Oslo. " All three are one species based on genetic evidence. " Paul Jackson of Los Alamos National Laboratory, New Mexico, says some strains of B. cereus are more different from each other genetically than they are from B. anthracis. Bt, B. cereus and B. anthracis were considered different species because they favour different hosts and carry different plasmids. Two plasmids in B. anthracis code for toxins that cause anthrax in mammals. Bt has one that makes insect poisons. And although its plasmids seem innocuous, the main part of Bt's genetic material codes for toxins that can cause diarrhoea, vomiting, muscle and kidney damage and liver failure. But recent research in Canada suggests that commercial strains of Bt do make B. cereus toxins. Vern Seligy and colleagues at the Canadian federal health ministry told the American Society for Microbiology in Chicago in June that, at concentrations similar to those in aerial sprays, two commercial strains of Bt killed human cells in culture, by producing toxins that behaved like those from B. cereus. " The DNA sequence information for most of the virulence genes in B. cereus is in current Bt products, " says Seligy. There are also reports of health damage with Bt. Katy Young of the Environmental Health Alliance, a campaigning group in British Columbia, says that in 1994, after Bt was sprayed to kill gypsy moths in forests near Victoria, 62 people had problems consistent with B. cereus toxins. Their symptoms included diarrhoea, vomiting and respiratory problems. Young suspects many infections are never diagnosed. While agreeing that Bt produces small amounts of cereus toxins, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) says there is no valid evidence to link use of Bt insecticides with episodes of diarrhoea, and it has therefore declared the products safe. Some scientists, however, point out that commercial Bt strains could become more aggressive, perhaps by swapping regulator genes with wild B. cereus. Andrup has discovered that some strains of Bt, very similar to those used commmercially, contain plasmids that cause the bacteria to join up with other Bacillus bacteria, and pass DNA back and forth (Journal of Bacteriology, vol 181, p 3193). " This powerful conjugation system, " says Andrup, " could spawn harmful bacteria in the environment, where sprayed Bt can survive a year. " Not least, Bt could pass on the gene-swapping mechanism itself. The dangerous plasmids in B. anthracis appear unable to pass into other Bacillus species. But armed with powerful new conjugation genes from Bt, in theory, this could change. It's an alarming scenario. However, Jackson thinks it is unlikely to happen because the bacilli rarely meet in the vegetative or " growing " state needed for plasmids to be swapped. Bt usually grows only in its insect host, B. cereus in soil, B. anthracis in mammals. This makes it extremely unlikely that Bt will ever swap dangerous DNA with its Bacillus cousins, says Jackson. Others are not reassured, however. While separate territories keep the bacteria apart in nature, they fear modern agriculture might bring the different species together. Artificially growing and spreading billions of extra Bt in sprays might cause events that are vanishingly rare in nature to occur often enough to spawn dangerous hybrids, says Andrup. " We should certainly remove the conjugation system from commercial strains, " he says. " This mixing and matching, also known as recombinant technology, can be used, for example, to take a gene that makes a deadly toxin from one strain of bacteria and introduce it into other bacterial strains.... Bacteria that cause diseases such as anthrax could be altered in such a way that would make current vaccines against them ineffective.....The expertise and technology to create lethal new strains of viruses and bacteria are available at almost any university in the United States and abroad. " . ABC News, 5 October 2001 http://abcnews.go.com/sections/living/DailyNews/WTC_weaponsengineering011005 ..h tml Genetically Engineered Anthrax Resistant to Antibiotics and Vaccines http://www.wcc-coe.org/wcc/what/jpc/echoes/echoes-18-10.html " The basis for modern biotechnology is not the manipulation of whole organisms, but the manipulation of the very building blocks of life itself.... " - The Industrial College of the Armed Forces, USA, 2000 report on 'Bio Technology' http://www.ndu.edu/ndu/icaf/industry/biotech/biotech.htm Losing Control of Global Biosecurity - nlpwessex 10 September 2001 - click here " The time will soon come when we will not be able to remember the horrors of September 11 without remembering also the unquestioning technological and economic optimism that ended on that day.... The paramount doctrine of the economic and technological euphoria of recent decades has been that everything depends on innovation.... We had accepted uncritically the belief that technology is only good; that it cannot serve evil as well as good; that it cannot serve our enemies as well as ourselves; that it cannot be used to destroy what is good, including our homelands and our lives.... If we are serious about innovation, must we not conclude that we need something new to replace our perpetual " war to end war " ? What leads to peace is not violence but peaceableness, which is not passivity, but an alert, informed, practiced, and active state of being. We should recognize that while we have extravagantly subsidized the means of war, we have almost totally neglected the ways of peaceableness. We have, for example, several national military academies, but not one peace academy.... The complexity of our present trouble suggests as never before that we need to change our present concept of education.... " . - Wendell Berry, Kentucky Farmer and author of 'The Unsettling of America: Culture and Agriculture' Agribusiness Examiner, 16 October 2001 ---------------------- How to eliminate terrorism without resorting to military aggression: http://www.worldpeaceendowment.org/ --- --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.281 / Virus Database: 149 - Release 18/09/01 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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