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posted here 30 Oct 2000
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SUPPRESSED INFORMATION ABOUT THE REAL HAZARDS
OF
GENETICALLY ENGINEERED FOODS
Subject:
Konformist: SUPPRESSED INFORMATION ABOUT THE REAL HAZARDS OF
GENETICALLY
ENGINEERED FOODS
Date: Mon, 30 Oct 2000 15:15:01 -0000
From: "Robert Sterling" <robalini@aol.com>
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STARLINK IS NOT THE PROBLEM! SUPPRESSED INFORMATION ABOUT THE
REAL
HAZARDS OF GENETICALLY ENGINEERED FOODS
by
Barbara Keeler and Robert Sterling
It took Starlink biocorn to get the media's attention on
genetically
engineered foods. Dragging their footsteps, our government
agencies
gradually followed in the media's wake. Starlink only made the
news
because the form of corn involved had not yet been approved for
use in human
food. Not that it had been disapproved. The EPA had said
only that it
needed more and better scientific information.
And who discovered the widespread presence of the unapproved
corn
product? Not the people we pay to protect his or safeguard
the food supply,
but a band of underfunded, underrespected, and at times scorned
food safety
activists.
In spite of its high media profile, Starlink is not the major
problem.
Government agencies are tracking it down, and food companies are
way
ahead of them, recalling their products. Most significant,
everybody knows
about Starlink. The problem lies with the more serious issues
and hazards
being ignored.
For example, what was the response when Monsanto researchers
notified
FDA that the most widely used genetically engineered product,
Roundup
Ready soybeans, contained a surprise package-some unintended
and
unsuspected gene fragments? Apparently when Monsanto enabled
soybean
plants to survive spraying with their weed killer,
Roundup, by splicing a gene
into the bean's DNA, they tossed in a little
extra.
FDA's response: a big yawn. Media response: UK papers carried
the
story. A newswire service reported it in the US. Maybe some
newspapers
and news stations picked it up, but we did not see
it anywhere except in the
July News column of Whole Life Times.
Although this story should have smeared egg on the faces of
biotech
cheerleaders who claim that genetic engineering is more precise
than
conventional breeding techniques, scientist to this day
publish
high-profile opinion pieces making this now-disproved
assertion.
What might explain the absence of the spotlight on these
genetic
hitchhikers in soy that pervades a majority of processed foods
on the
market? In soy on the market with FDA blessing? Possibly
apathy.
However, a document posted on GeneWatch UK website: www.genewatch.org,
offers another possible explanation. In what
Genewatch says is a leaked internal
document from Monsanto, the writer brags that "The [Monsanto]
Scientific
Outreach network and the Technology Issues Team averted attacks
on recently
emerging biotechnology issues. The team developed rapid
responses to avoid
over-reaction to claims regarding...the characterization of
additional
non-functional DNA in Roundup Ready soybeans."
Not to worry, says Monsanto's letter to the UK government.
According
to Monsanto spokesman Jeff Bergau the gene fragments were in RR
beans
when they passed safety assessments by US authorities in 1994.
What else
was in the beans when they passed safety assessments? Well, not
Roundup.
Unlike the beans on the market and in the food supply, the beans
Monsanto
researchers analyzed had not been treated with weed
killer.
Monsanto tried valiantly to silence one of the first critics to
point
out this discrepancy, Dr. Marc Lappe, Formerly head of the State
of
California's Hazard Evaluation System and a former tenured
professor
in Health Policy & Ethics at the Univ of Illinois at Chicago
College of
Medicine. His book, AGAINST THE GRAIN, was the topic of a
threatening
letter from Monsanto to its original publisher in 1998. After
the
first publisher backed down, Common Courage Press published the
book.
If not Roundup, what DID the Roundup Ready soybeans contain when
they
were reviewed by FDA in 1994? For starters, higher levels of a
known
allergen. Apparently, Monsanto managed to keep some
troubling information from
becoming an issue. They just didn't report the data in their
published
study or the report they sent to the EPA. What information
the
published study and FDA report did reveal was camouflaged in a
place readers
were least likely to look for it. Sandwiched between lists
of
macronutrients (protein, carbohydrates, etc.) were levels of
trypsin-inhibiter, an
allergen which inhibits protein digestion and has been
associated with
enlarge cells in rat pancreases. Table 9 shows
trypsin-inhibiter,
levels that are 26.7 percent higher in the untoasted RR soybeans
than in the
conventional controls.
The authors' discussion of table 9 did not mention
trypsin-inhibiter
levels, which meant no mention was made in the online text
version,
sans tables, available in most libraries. In fact, we missed it
the first
few times through the tables, and we were looking for
it.
An 1996 article describing Monsanto's research was published in
the
JOURNAL OF NUTRITION. It's title is "The composition of
glyphosate-tolerant
soybean seeds is equivalent to that of conventional soybeans,"
but
statistically significant differences were measured in content
of ash, fat
carbohydrate and some fatty acids. The brain-boosting vitamin
choline was 29%
lower in Roundup Ready lecithin. Go figure.
In the text, the authors acknowledge "higher than expected"
levels of
trypsin inhibitor in Experiment 1, which was conducted
on
conventional and RR beans grown in Puerto Rico. The authors
contend
that the processing caused the elevated levels,
but they noted elsewhere in
the study that "processing soybean protein
significantly inactivates TI." Moreover,
processing was identical for Roundup ready beans and
controls.
The did not report the data about the Puerto Rico beans in
their
published tables, calculations, or discussion. Their rationale:
the beans were
grown in a single Puerto Rico site, and the beans in Experiment
2 and 3,
from several US sites, were "more representative of the wide
geographical
area in which soybeans are grown." They did not explain why they
grew the
Puerto Rico beans for the study in the first place. Nor did they
explain why
a comparison between batches of beans grown at the same site
under
identical conditions is less valid than comparisons among beans
grown in
different geographical areas under widely varying
conditions.
A footnote in the journal said that supplementary information on
the
Puerto Rico beans had been deposited with American Society for
Information
Science, National Auxiliary Publication Service under Doc.
04949. For
a price, the data could be ordered.
Contrary to the authors' statement, the data filed under Doc.
04949
pertains to an unrelated study be a different author. The
National
Auxiliary Publication Service confirmed that the data was
never
deposited.
The JOURNAL OF NUTRITION supplied the missing information. What
did it
reveal? It does indeed show higher levels of the allergen
trypsin
inhibitor in toasted RR soy meal thaN in the controls. In fact,
by one measure
the levels of trypsin inhibitor in toasted Roundup Ready meal
were over
the top of the literature range--the highest and lowest levels
measured
for soybeans by other researchers.
Roundup Ready beans were also significantly lower in protein and
the
aromatic amino acid phenylalanine. Drops in aromatic amino
acid
levels are of particular importance, because Roundup kills weeds
by inhibiting an
enzyme that helps the body make the aromatic amino acids. There
were
also significantly different levels of the amino acid cysteine
and one
fatty acid.
Data omitted from the published study also show that after a
second
toasting, the levels of an allergen called lectin in Roundup
Ready
meal nearly doubled the levels of the conventional control
beans.
Besides possible allergic reactions, what might be expected
from
higher levels of trypsin-inhibitor and lectin? Well, animals
would be
expected to grow more slowly and gain less weight, and that is
exactly what
happened to male rats fed unprocessed meal from Roundup Ready
soybeans.
Cows fed the RR soya meal showed higher levels of fat in their
milk.
Yet the title of the study is "The feeding value of soybeans fed
to rats,
chickens, catfish and dairy cattle is not altered by
genetic
incorporation of glyphosate tolerance," and the abstract makes
no mention of the
data that challenges their conclusion.
Don't research findings such as these point to the need for
more
testing, rather than immediate FDA blessing? EPA busted the
suppliers of
Starlink for similar shoddy research, and that is the reason
Starlink is not
approved for human consumption. EPA said, essentially, that the
data
in these studies did not support the authors conclusion and
invited them
to submit better studies. Ironically, the safety studies
for foods now ubiquitous in the food
supply also fail to support the authors' conclusions, according
to Dr. Lappe
and Dr. Joe Cummins. As Dr. Cummins puts it, "The concept of
substantial
equivalence has been introduced to commercialize genetically
modified
(GM) crops without extensive testing or labeling in the
marketplace. The
concept assumes that GM crops are equivalent seems to be being
used as a
license to distribute GM crops which are unsubstantially
equivalent."
The leaked Monsanto document also credits its response team
for
developing "rapid responses to avoid over-reaction to claims
regarding...gene
transfer by honey bees" referring to gene transfer from
genetically engineered
rapeseed to bacteria and fungi in the gut of honey bees detected
by
Professor Hans-Hinrich Kaatz from the Institut für
Bienenkunde
(Institute for bee research) at the University of Jena. The
story made its way
into the Whole Life Times news column, but for the most part,
the
suppression was successful in the US. The document brags "Two
op-eds on the
honeybee issue by notable scientists were triggered to help
avoid additional
high profile press coverage."
Monsanto and other producers of GE seeds fund plenty of research
at
universities around the world, making it easy to recruit
"notable
scientists" as mouthpieces. They also fund think tanks and
similar
organizations to spread their misleading messages.
An example of a widely published mouthpiece for big agribusiness
is
Dennis Avery, the author of SAVING THE PLANET WITH PESTICIDES
AND PLASTICS,
and currently is director of the Center for Global Food Issues
for the
Hudson Institute, a pro-corporate think tank with major funders
such as
Monsanto, DuPont, Novartis, Dow, and ConAgra. The biotech
industry's PR firm,
Burson-Marsteller, allegedly involved in a massive PR campaign
to
counteract the escalating global anti-GE movement in the US
and
abroad, is represented on Hudson Institute's board.
Herb London, President of the Hudson Institute, is a John M.
Olin
Professor of Humanities at New York University, a position
funded by the John
M. Olin Foundation. The Olin Foundation was created and is still
controlled
by the Olin Corporation, a leading North American chemical giant
and top
producer of agricultural chemicals, including sulfuric acid,
fertilizers and
pesticides.
Herb London also sits on the Board of Associates for the Palmer
R.
Chitester Fund--a right-wing foundation which sells
educational
materials based on John Stossel's 20/20 reports on ABC, giving
ABC a cut of the
profits. Remember Stossel's 20/20 hatchet job on organic
foods?
Another major contributor to the Palmer R. Chitester Fund is the
Olin
Foundation. Is a picture beginning to emerge?
The corruptive inbreeding of interests does not end with
the
connections between agribusiness, a conservative foundation, a
conservative think
tank, a widely published media mouthpiece for agrigusniees, and
a supposed
independent journalist. We won't even start in on the well
documented
revolving door between Monsanto and FDA, or other US agencies
that
develop and implement biotech policy.
Is it any wonder that the American public does not hear about
the real
troubling issues in genetic engineering of foods, or that
the
pervasiveness of Starlink would be unsuspected but for the
persistence of GE
activists?
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These will move to
https://thepiedpiper.tripod.com/ag0000.htm
http://cbsnews.cbs.com/now/story/0,1597,244648-412,00.shtml
Healthy Poultry = Sick Humans?
The FDA Wants To Ban Drug That Keeps Chickens, Turkeys
Healthy
FDA Worried About Drug's Effect On People Who Eat
Chickens
Drug Makers Say They Will Protest Because They Don't See A
Problem
WASHINGTON, Oct. 27, 2000
(CBS) What's good for poultry is not so good for
people.
That's the Food and Drug Administration's conclusion Friday as
it calls for a ban on antibiotics widely used to keep
the nation's chickens and turkeys healthy.
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/10/29/national/29POUL.html
Government Proposes a Ban on Two Antibiotics Used in Poultry
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
ASHINGTON, Oct. 28 — The government proposes to ban two
antibiotics given to poultry, citing evidence that their use is
causing people to become ill from drug-resistant bacteria.
Abbott Laboratories of North Chicago, Ill., one maker, will
withdraw its drug, but the Bayer Corporation of Pittsburgh, which
dominates the market, says it may challenge the ban.
The Food and Drug Administration says the drugs, known as
fluoroquinolones, are a "significant cause" of human infections
by resistant camplyobacter bacteria, contracted primarily by
eating chicken.
Camplyobacter causes about 1.8 million illnesses a year, 190,000
of them treated with antibiotics. About 11,000 of those this year
will involve drug-resistant bacteria, up from 9,000 last year,
Steve Sunlof, director of the F.D.A.'s Center for Veterinary
Medicine, said on Friday.
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