IGNORING THE EVIDENCE AGAIN
© Robert Anderson PhD
Originally published in Organic New Zealand, July/August 2003, Vol. 62 No.4
www.organicnz.org
www.organicnz.org
The soil is more than just something we walk on. It is more than just an anchor for trees and buildings. It is a vibrant environment, full of life and activity. The atmosphere, the seas and the rivers pale in comparison. Soil is the most biologically active zone in the world. It is not just worms, ants and plant roots that live in it. Bacteria, fungi, arthropods are there in their millions. Even a single spoonful may contain hundreds of millions of organisms, many of them unknown to our science. Soil is so valuable because it makes our earth habitable.
It seems that no matter how many scientists' warnings are given to government, a blind persistence to release formidable and unwanted genetically engineered organisms into New Zealand soils will go ahead in October. The misinterpretation of the recent NZ taxpayer-funded BERL report, was immediately obvious.1 Notwithstanding the liability issues - who pays for contamination? - government is determined to lift the moratorium on GE organisms (GEOs).
I will never forget the laughter from a large audience of gardeners when I tried to explain the reason for genetically engineering potatoes to combat soft rot. “I just keep mine dry,” said one wry old fellow in the back row. It is likely the potatoes and onions destined to be tested may have built-in Bt toxin like the well-publicised Bt transgenic corn.2 Bt corn has ruined many Indian village farmers and proven utterly useless against corn borer. The insect has grown immune to the toxin as we expected it would and which prominent entomologists made plain to, though ignored by, the Royal Commission. In fact, the borer now grows fat feeding on Bt corn; not the idea of this technology.
Contrary to industry claims, research will not be “set back” by not releasing GMOs. Reports maintain that only three percent of New Zealand's genetic engineering research represent field releases. The rest can be conducted in the laboratory. Is it so much to ask that we follow the advice of prestigious NZ and international scientists and maintain the moratorium? In a short time, we could be breathing the same sigh of relief that we did when the true nature of the nuclear issue came to light and we remained, thank God, nuclear free. Our farming neighbours in Australia have asked for a further year's moratorium. We should be doing the same. Instead, government toadies to the WTO and supports the US in not labelling GE-food products. Phil Goff's asinine comment that “they wish to support good science” is absurd3 when we have almost 600 scientists from 71 countries signing a “World Scientists' Statement and Open Letter” calling for a moratorium on the release of GMOs, a ban on patents on living processes, and seeds, etc, and for a comprehensive public enquiry into the future of agriculture and food security. What sort of science would our ministers like?
Liability when contamination occurs, or if an engineered organism proves dangerous, will be a major issue.4 The fact that no insurance company will provide cover should send a strong message to Government on the reliability and safety of release. The NZ Government Law Commission report on liability stated the effects could range from “trivial to catastrophic”. Industry makes much of the status of Organics being contaminated, but pointedly ignores the majority of farmers who farm conventionally and wish to continue to take advantage of our present GE-free status. A Lincoln University study found 70 percent of NZ farmers did not intend to use GE.
New Zealand beekeepers are particularly worried over contamination issues. Having seen the effect of overseas markets refusing to buy Canadian GE-contaminated honey they have good cause to be concerned. It is manifestly absurd to expect that bees will not collect pollen from GE plants. The effect of GE-pollen contaminating our exquisite range of New Zealand honeys would be disastrous to exports. The official rejection of the beekeepers request for a veto on flowering GE crops was a disgrace.5 The absurd suggestion that the Environmental Risk Management Authority (ERMA) could set conditions on the management of GE crops to minimise effects on bee products, such as requiring farmers to take the flowers off some crops, beggars description. Perhaps they expect farmers to go round fields with a pair of scissors. How daft can you get?
No doubt the recent warnings from Oxford Professor Alan Cooper will go unheeded in exactly the same way that those of PSRG, the British Medical Association (BMA) and others have done. It is arguably inaccurate for scientists such as Crop Research's Dr Tony Conner to state, “We know a lot more about them than their non-GE counter parts.” If that were the case, the failure of such crops as Bt corn and cotton would never have happened. GE-cotton caused widespread suffering to village farmers in India and threatens the same to others forced by their governments to plant it. The technology is seriously flawed and is certainly not “precise”. Only through GE can genes from a rat or soil bacterium become part of a corn plant's DNA; a DNA which, as Professor Cooper said, can persist for thousands of years. A growing body of literature is showing that GE-crops are creating new kinds of environmental problems for farmers, and are exacerbating already severe economic problems for American, Indian and other
farmers fooled into growing them. Whether GE proponents like it or not, genes jump. Encouraging the process of horizontal gene transfer is a disturbing problem. The emergence of SARS and other viruses has not surprised scientists aware of the risks from experiments with recombinant DNA, and the release of GE organisms into the global network and soil environment.6 Genes are certainly not guaranteed to stay where they are put. Complex exchanges occur constantly in the microscopic world of the soil and plants.
The Royal Commission strongly recommended we preserve our opportunities to use GE for economic, health and environmental benefit. Since the Commission's findings, it has been demonstrated these benefits are scant. Genetic engineering biotechnology promises have always been alluring, but to date they are backed mostly by hope, hype, and a lot of noise. Numerous independent studies from the USDA and US universities on GE crops have documented their failure to live up to the propaganda. There are failures of one kind or another with all GE-crops, without counting the contamination they have caused.
“Proceeding with caution” would, in most well-informed scientists' minds, be a recommendation to stop any form of release.
Helen Clark's view that “it's a lot of noise from a small number of people” could not be more mistaken. Over 10,000*citizens do not march down Queen Street because they are mildly concerned. Government should face it, the GE bonanza is over.7 The predicted financial boom has not materialized, nor the promised benefits to agriculture and health. Genetic engineering biotechnology is a risky business and those industries likely to be effected, understandably, are getting very uneasy. Our decision on releasing GMOs will affect far more than the food we eat and the gardens in which we grow it. It will determine the kind of country we and our children inhabit.
Robert Anderson BSc (Hons), PhD
(4 February 1942 to 5 December 2008)
Robert Anderson was a Trustee of Physicians and Scientists for Responsible Genetics (now Physicians and Scientists for Global Responsibility) www.psgr.org.nz. He authored The Final Pollution: Genetic Apocalypse, Exploding the Myth of Genetic Engineering and several other publications on environmental, health and social justice issues.
View Robert Anderson’s lectures on this site.
Address enquiries for Robert Anderson's publications to naturesstar@xtra.co.nz.
For further information see:
GE Free New Zealand in food and environment www.gefree.org.nz/
GE Free Northland in food and environment http://web.gefreenorthland.org.nz/
Physicians and Scientists for Global Responsibility www.psgr.org.nz
Sustainability Council of New Zealand http://www.sustainabilitynz.org/
The Soil & Health Association / Organic New Zealand http://organicnz.org.nz/
References
1. www.greens.org.nz/searchdocs/PR6 227html.
2. CropChoice news,13.12.01: Over the past six years, farmers who planted transgenic Bt corn have lost about $92 million or an average of about $1.31 per acre according to the first farm-level economic analysis of the product.
3. Recent statement in supporting the US submission to the WTO.
4. http://www.i-sis.org.uk/GMcropsfailed.php"GMO's Pose Liability Threats for Farmers",
press release: the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy. Oxford University Professor Alan Cooper,
an expert on ancient DNA, has warned that the New Zealand Government should continue its moratorium on the release of GE organisms for at least another five years, after work revealing that DNA can survive in soil for thousands of years. The professor, a New Zealander told reporters, "The ability of DNA to persist in soils for so long was completely underestimated ... and illustrates how little we know. It raises serious issues about the release of altered genes into the environment." Professor Cooper says GE altered DNA in soil will get to many more places than previously thought- carried by wind and water movement- and a great deal more research is needed before we can predict the effect of releasing GE plants.
5. Officials reject apiarists' calls for veto on flowering GE crops. NZ Herald 17.04.03.
6. Dr R.E. Lee, "More World-first SARS Research" rense.com/general37/ex.html
7. "GM Crops Failed" documenting the failures of GM crops around the world; lower yields, Bt resistance and more pesticides, reduced profits. http://www.i-sis.org.uk/GMcropsfailed.php