Viral Gene in Genetically Engineered Foods Could Promote Disease
February 05, 2013
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 article
8 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.
