Viral Gene in Genetically Engineered Foods Could Promote Disease
February 05, 2013
Story at-a-glance
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The European Food Safety Authority has discovered a hidden viral
gene in 54 of 84 commercially approved genetically engineered
crops—a finding that highlights deep flaws in the regulatory
process
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Plant pathologists speak out about the potential dangers of the
viral gene fragment in GE plants, stating it may confer
“significant potential for harm,” and call for a total recall of
affected crops
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Plants expressing the viral gene fragment exhibit gene
expression abnormalities, which indicate that the protein
produced by gene functions as a toxin. The known targets of its
activity are also found in human cells, so there is potential
for this plant toxin to also have toxic effects on humans
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At present, the only way to avoid GE foods is to eliminate
processed foods from your grocery list, and buy primarily whole
foods grown according to organic standards. The need for
labeling of GE foods is also becoming more apparent in order to
allow for health monitoring
By Dr. Mercola
I’ve previously warned of the potential dangers of genetically
engineered (GE) foods for many years now, pointing out that such
crops might have wholly unforeseen consequences.
In recent years, such suspicions have increasingly proven
correct, and now researchers have released yet another bombshell.
Genetic manipulation of crops, and more recently
food animals, is a dangerous game that has repeatedly revealed
that assumptions about how genetic alterations work and the effects
it has on animals and humans who consume such foods, are deeply
flawed and incomplete.
At present, the only way to avoid GE foods is to ditch processed
foods from your grocery list, and revert back to whole foods grown
according to organic standards.
Regulators Discover a Hidden Viral Gene in Commercial GMO Crops
The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) recently published a
paper titled, "Possible Consequences of the overlap between the CaMV
35S promoter regions in the plant transformation vectors used in the
viral gene VI in transgenic plants,"1
which has many questioning the safety of GE crops that have already
been on the market for two decades.
One way to achieve a genetic modification in a plant is to
piggyback a chosen gene on a plant virus, such as the
Cauliflower Mosaic virus. Here, they discovered that the most
commonly used genetic regulatory sequence (i.e. that which drives
the gene expression within the plant), called CaMV 35S promoter,
also encodes a gene fragment of the virus, in addition to the
desired genetic trait being inserted.
The viral gene fragment in question is called Gene VI, and this
encoding may have human health ramifications. According to EFSA,2
they’ve known all along that certain GE crops contained Gene VI,
which belongs to the Cauliflower Mosaic virus.
This virus can infect a variety of different plants. It’s not a
virus that can directly infect animals or humans. However,
while the agency claims the virus poses no direct threat to animal
or human health for this reason, others vehemently disagree.
According to an article in Independent Science News,3
written by plant pathology researchers Jonathan Latham and Allison
Wilson:4
“In general, viral genes expressed in plants raise both
agronomic and human health concerns (reviewed in Latham and
Wilson 2008.)5
This is because many viral genes function to disable their host
in order to facilitate pathogen invasion. Often, this is
achieved by incapacitating specific anti-pathogen defenses.
Incorporating such genes could clearly lead to
undesirable and unexpected outcomes in agriculture. Furthermore,
viruses that infect plants are often not that different from
viruses that infect humans.
For example, sometimes the genes of human and plant viruses are
interchangeable, while on other occasions inserting plant viral
fragments as transgenes has caused the genetically altered plant
to become susceptible to an animal virus...
Thus, in various ways, inserting viral genes accidentally
into crop plants and the food supply confers a significant
potential for harm.”
Hazard to Public Health has Not Been Ruled Out
GE crops affected include Roundup Ready soybeans, MON810 maize,
and NK603 maize, the latter of which was recently linked to massive
tumor growth and organ damage in rats in a French
lifetime feeding study. All in all, 54 out of 84 approved GE
crops contain the toxic gene.
According to the featured article, the EFSA researchers admit the
Gene VI fragments "might result in unintended phenotypic changes,"6
as similar fragments of this gene have previously been demonstrated
to have independent activity.
“In other words, the EFSA researchers were unable to rule
out a hazard to public health or the environment,” Latham
and Wilson write.7
“...In the course of analysis to identify potential
allergens in GMO crops, the European Food Safety Authority
(EFSA) has belatedly discovered that the most common genetic
regulatory sequence in commercial GMOs also encodes a
significant fragment of a viral gene (Podevin and du Jardin
2012).
This finding has serious ramifications for crop biotechnology
and its regulation, but possibly even greater ones for consumers
and farmers. This is because there are clear indications that
this viral gene (called Gene VI) might not be safe for human
consumption. It also may disturb the normal functioning of
crops, including their natural pest resistance.”
Total Recall is 'the Only Reasonable Course of Action'
Latham and Wilson go on to discuss how a regulatory agency could
go about announcing such a monumental screw-up. After all, GE crops
have been approved and deemed “safe” for some 20 years, and EFSA
admits it has known about Gene VI for some time.
One option would be to recall all affected GE crops, which could
effectively spell the end to crop biotechnology as a whole. We know
this is not going to happen in the US as biotech, Monsanto
specifically, has leveraged the revolving door between industry and
the federal regulatory agencies that are responsible for this type
of monitoring. The classic case of the fox guarding the henhouse and
federal agencies are simply not going to act because of this.
Another possibility would be to do a retrospective risk
assessment of the CaMV promoter and its Gene VI sequences, “and hope
to give it a clean bill of health.” A third option would be to
evaluate the seriousness of the hazard by monitoring reports of
harm. Unfortunately, this option has been and still is impossible to
pursue, as not a single country has carried out any type of GE
monitoring. In the US, we still don’t even have GE labeling, so
reporting adverse health effects is a logistical impossibility.
“Unsurprisingly, EFSA chose option two,” Latham and
Wilson write. “However, their investigation resulted only in
the vague and unreassuring conclusion that Gene VI 'might result
in unintended phenotypic changes'... This means literally, that
changes of an unknown number, nature, or magnitude may (or may
not) occur. It falls well short of the solid scientific
reassurance of public safety needed to explain why EFSA has not
ordered a recall.”
I recommend reading the featured article8
in its entirety, as the researchers go into some detail about the
known functions of Gene VI, and why it might indeed have
repercussions for human health. These concerns include but are not
limited to:
- Gene VI is an inhibitor of RNA silencing, which leads to
aberrant gene expression in GE plants, with unknown consequences
- As a unique transactivator of gene expression, Gene VI could
presumably result in the production of a variety of random
proteins within cells. Such proteins could include allergens and
toxins, in addition to harmless proteins. The end result would
differ for each crop species
- Gene VI has two mechanisms by which it interferes with plant
anti-pathogen defenses — one of which was unknown to EFSA
researchers at the time their findings went to press. According
to Latham and Wilson, “the discovery of an entirely new function
for gene VI while EFSA’s paper was in press, also makes clear
that a full appraisal of all the likely effects of Gene VI is
not currently achievable”
- Plants expressing Gene VI exhibit gene expression
abnormalities, which indicate that the protein produced by Gene
VI functions as a toxin. The known targets of Gene VI activity
are also found in human cells, so there is potential for this
plant toxin to also have toxic effects on humans
According to Latham and Wilson, the retroactive risk assessment
performed by EFSA clearly shows CaMV 35S promoter-containing GE
crops have the potential to harm human health. Therefore, the only
course of action left is to order a total recall — option number
one, as discussed above.
“This recall should also include GMOs containing the FMV
promoter and its own overlapping Gene VI,” they write.
Never Assume Anything — Especially When Tinkering with Genes!
The authors of the featured story make a really important point
in their article — one that you’d be well advised to remember when
it comes to discussions about safety:
“No-one knows, for example, what quantity, location or
timing of protein production would be of significance for risk
assessment, and so answers necessary to perform science-based
risk assessment are unlikely to emerge soon.”
If you don’t even know what might be of significance, then how
can you possibly assess risks? And if you cannot assess risk, how
can you proclaim something is safe? They continue:
“It is perhaps the most basic assumption in all of risk
assessment that the developer of a new product provides
regulators with accurate information about what is being
assessed. Perhaps the next most basic assumption is that
regulators independently verify this information. We now know,
however, that for over 20 years neither of those simple
expectations have been met.
Major public universities, biotech multinationals, and
government regulators everywhere, seemingly did not appreciate
the relatively simple possibility that the DNA constructs they
were responsible for encoded a viral gene.
This lapse occurred despite the fact that Gene VI was not
truly hidden; the relevant information on the existence of Gene
VI has been freely available in the scientific literature since
well before the first biotech approval... We ourselves have
offered specific warnings that viral sequences could contain
unsuspected genes...9
The inability of risk assessment processes to incorporate
longstanding and repeated scientific findings is every bit as
worrisome as the failure to intellectually anticipate the
possibility of overlapping genes when manipulating viral
sequences.
...Even now that EFSA’s own researchers have belatedly
considered the risk issues, no one can say whether the public
has been harmed, though harm appears a clear scientific
possibility. Considered from the perspective of professional and
scientific risk assessment, this situation represents a complete
and catastrophic system failure.”
Monsanto Company Joins WBCS
Ironically, while their GE products are increasingly being
revealed as far from suitable for human consumption, Monsanto joined
the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD).10,
11 According to their January 22, press release:
“Monsanto, a leading global provider of technology-based
solutions and agricultural products that aim to improve farm
productivity and food quality, joins WBCSD and is offering the
WBCSD's Business Ecosystems Training (BET) course globally for
employees. The BET course will enhance employees' awareness and
understanding of the links between ecosystems and business.
'...In joining the WBCSD, Monsanto is taking an important
step along a continuum towards developing a more sustainable
agriculture system – one that improves our daily lives, respects
our global environment and recognizes the importance of the
world's small-holder farmers,' said Peter Bakker, President,
WBCSD. 'We must find new ways to protect soils, enhance
ecosystems and optimize land use in ways that are
environmentally sound...'"
I can’t think of a company less suited for the job... As
pointed out by Latham and Allison:
“A further key point relates to the biotech industry and
their campaign to secure public approval and a permissive
regulatory environment. This has led them to repeatedly claim,
firstly, that GMO technology is precise and predictable; and
secondly, that their own competence and self-interest would
prevent them from ever bringing potentially harmful products to
the market; and thirdly, to assert that only well studied and
fully understood transgenes are commercialized.
It is hard to imagine a finding more damaging to these
claims than the revelations surrounding Gene VI.
Biotechnology, it is often forgotten, is not just a
technology. It is an experiment in the proposition that human
institutions can perform adequate risk assessments on novel
living organisms. Rather than treat that question as primarily a
daunting scientific one, we should for now consider that the
primary obstacle will be overcoming the much more mundane trap
of human complacency and incompetence. We are not there yet, and
therefore this incident will serve to reinforce the demands for
GMO labeling in places where it is absent.”
Keep Fighting for Labeling of Genetically Engineered Foods
While California Prop. 37 failed to pass last November, by a very
narrow margin, the fight for GMO labeling is far from over. The
field-of-play has now moved to the state of Washington, where the
people's initiative 522, "The People's Right to Know Genetically
Engineered Food Act," will require food sold in retail outlets to be
labeled if it contains genetically engineered ingredients. As stated
on LabelWA.org:
"Calorie and nutritional information were not always
required on food labels. But since 1990 it has been required and
most consumers use this information every day. Country-of-origin
labeling wasn't required until 2002. The trans fat content of
foods didn't have to be labeled until 2006. Now, all of these
labeling requirements are accepted as important for consumers.
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) also says we must know
with labeling if our orange juice is from fresh oranges or
frozen concentrate.
Doesn't it make sense that genetically engineered foods
containing experimental viral, bacterial, insect, plant or
animal genes should be labeled, too? Genetically engineered
foods do not have to be tested for safety before entering the
market. No long-term human feeding studies have been done. The
research we have is raising serious questions about the impact
to human health and the environment.
I-522 provides the transparency people deserve. I-522
will not raise costs to consumers or food producers. It simply
would add more information to food labels, which manufacturers
change routinely anyway, all the time. I-522 does not impose any
significant cost on our state. It does not require the state to
conduct label surveillance, or to initiate or pursue
enforcement. The state may choose to do so, as a policy choice,
but I-522 was written to avoid raising costs to the state or
consumers."
Vermont has also created a Right to Know Campaign.
Remember, as with CA Prop. 37, these are people's initiatives,
and they need support of people like YOU to succeed. Prop. 37 failed
with a very narrow margin simply because we didn't have the funds to
counter the massive ad campaigns created by the No on 37 camp, led
by Monsanto and other major food companies. Let's not allow Monsanto
and its allies to confuse and mislead the people of Washington and
Vermont as they did in California. So please, I urge you to get
involved and help in any way you can, regardless of what state you
live in.
- No matter where you live in the United States, please donate
money to these labeling efforts through the
Organic Consumers Fund.
- If you live in Washington State, please
sign the I-522 petition. You can also
volunteer to help gather signatures across the state.
- If you live in Vermont, please sign the
VT Right to Know GMO's petition.
- For timely updates on issues relating to these and other
labeling initiatives, please join the Organic Consumers
Association on
Facebook, or follow them on
Twitter.
- Talk to organic producers and stores and ask them to
actively support the Washington and Vermont initiatives.
© Copyright 1997-2013 Dr. Joseph Mercola. All Rights Reserved.
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