London Free
Press

Genetically Modified Food Fear Unfounded

The Sierra Club of Canada and other environmental groups have called for removal of all genetically modified (GM) food products - the so-called Frankenfoods - from Canadian grocery shelves. Is there reason for such drastic action?

One might think so after reading Unnatural Harvest: How Corporate Science Is Secretly Altering Our Food, by Ingeborg Boyens, a CBC television producer. In May, this book was selected for this year's National Business Book Award.

Boyens warns: "The fact that science is about to propel us into a world where the majority of our food will be engineered in laboratories has frightening implications, for the environment, for human and animal health, for the global food system, and for the biodiversity of our planet."

As an example of how GM foods threaten the environment, Boyens cites the injection of a gene from a natural insecticide, Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt), into corn, potato and cotton plants. While Bt is deadly to corn borers, Colorado potato beetles, cotton-eating bollworms and other pests, it poses no known threat to human health.

Over the past few years, farmers in the United States and Canada have taken to sowing literally tens of millions of hectares of cropland with Bt plants. Such widespread application alarms Boyens. "When this once rarely used organic pesticide becomes a commonplace ingredient of plant life," she says, "widespread resistance to all Bt plants and sprays is sure to follow. And there goes what used to be a valuable control for organic farmers." Why, though, should organic farmers be allowed to go on sprinkling Bt powder on their crops, while the Bt plants preferred by other farmers are banned? Surely, avoiding the creation of pesticide-resistant bugs is a legitimate concern that calls for the careful regulation of all pesticides, not just the genetically engineered variety.

As for the alleged threat to human health posed by GM foods, Boyens recalls how Pioneer Hi-Bred, a major manufacturer of animal feed, undertook to create a nutritionally enhanced soybean by injecting a Brazil nut gene into soybean plants. The plan went awry when researchers discovered that soybeans with the Brazil nut gene touched off an allergic reaction in people sensitive to conventional Brazil nuts, forcing Pioneer Hi-Bred to destroy all of its GM soybean plants. Here, though, is an example of how safeguards against the introduction of a potentially dangerous GM food protected the public. Have there been any outright failures?

Boyens cites a tragedy in which at least 37 people died and another 1,535 were permanently disabled in the United States after ingesting a genetically engineered health-food supplement - L-tryptophan - that was manufactured by a Tokyo-based petrochemical giant Showa Denko KK. However, Boyens concedes, "It was never definitively determined if the toxic assault had been caused by slipshod production - a consequence of Showa Denko cutting back on the level of its filtration - or on genetic engineering gone wrong." That's typical of Boyens' book - a lot of speculation, but no solid evidence that the use of genetic engineering to produce foods and drugs has ever caused anyone to get sick.

A more authoritative and balanced assessment of the risks and benefits of GM foods is presented in Pandora's Picnic Basket: The Potential and Hazards of Genetically Modified Foods. The author, Allen McHughen, is a senior research scientist at the University of Saskatchewan who has developed GM plants and serves as chair of the international biosafety advisory committee of the Genetics Society of Canada.

Boyens insists that organic food is safer than GM food. McHughen cites a study based on data compiled by the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta which found that people who eat organic foods are many times more likely than the rest of the population to be attacked by a deadly E coli bacteria that grows in manure. "So far," states McHughen, "GM has been more fortunate, in that no one has been harmed from eating GM foods."

"So far," states McHughen, "GM has been more fortunate, in that no one has been harmed from eating GM foods." More than 60 per cent of the processed foods consumed in North America already contain GM ingredients. McHughen does not pretend these GM foods are absolutely safe. As he sensibly points out, perfect safety is impossible.

Even so, there is no reason for the GM hysteria fomented by the Sierra Club. Boycotting all GM foods for fear of food poisoning is no more rational than cowering indoors on a cloudless day, for fear of lightning.