Le Quotidien
Du Médecin

Biotechnologies: Information For Better Understanding

An interview with Professor Bernard Guy-Grand*

According to Professor Guy-Grand, the development of biotechnologies is an evolution that is indubitably inevitable. Biotechnology is liable to improve, not only agricultural output, but also nutritional quality, food safety, and even the organoleptic characteristics of food. Nevertheless, it is still necessary that this progress be explained to the public and that the public feels protected by strict regulations.

LE QUOTIDIEN - Genetically modified organisms arising from biotechnology always arouse much debate in public opinion. What is your opinion on this?

Professor Bernard GUY-GRAND: This debate is healthy: It should allow objective information to be distributed dispassionately to opinion makers (in this case the physicians) and the public. The possibilities offered by biotechnology are immense. Their only limitation comes from the acceptance by consumers, the professional ethics of industrialists and governments responsibility in matters of food safety.

Genetic "manipulations" of plants have always been accepted: no one has ever been offended to hear about varieties created by hybridization, allowing better agricultural output (indispensable considering the growth of populations to fed), colza devoid of erucic acid (cardiac toxicity), tomatoes of remarkable appearance (but with insipid taste), etc.

Gene transfer allows the same thing, and even more, to be done with a degree of precision that has practically never been reached: gaining time, effectiveness and safety. However, some consumers today do not seem to appreciate these benefits which are nonetheless impressive, as if their "Promethean" aspect was disturbing to them. In the pharmaceutical field, biotechnologies are not contested because their advantages are so appreciated: if we had had the recombinant growth hormone earlier, the transmission of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease to hypopheseal deficiencies could have been avoided.

In the food and agriculture field, an unreasoning fear is emerging. However, the benefits of biotechnologies for the consumer exist at least at two levels: collective, because transgenic plants can assure better environmental protection (reduced use of plant care products and/or persistent herbicides with the cultivation of plants that are "spontaneously" resistant or tolerant) and individual, with an improvement of food's nutritional qualities, increased food safety, even better organoleptic characteristics.

What benefits can be expected in the field of nutrition?

First of all, nutritional value: We can anticipate -- and it is already under way -- an increase in the polyunsaturated fatty acid content of oil-bearing plants, making vegetable oils more stable in respect to oxidation, a modified potato starch so that French fries will be less fatty, an increase in the essential amino acid content of vegetables that contain too little (lysine in cereals), etc.

I have always thought that the necessary nutritional developments would come more from modifying foods than from attempting to act on food consumption behaviors.

Secondly, food safety: Food products derived from biotechnology are subject to a set of control procedures that are unknown to traditional food items and that resemble those preceding the AMM medicinal. Of course, they cannot claim to be without defects: who would pride oneself on assuring zero risk for anything! At least the risk is reduced to a minimum, and after the contaminated blood affair and the mad cow disease, it would be surprising if the government wasn't particularly vigilant! Furthermore, let's not forget that biotechnologies can improve the tolerance of foods, by removing the allergens responsible for food allergies (rice in Japan is an example).

Finally, organoleptic characteristics: If transgenic plants, principally fruits or vegetables, lost their gustatory qualities, what a blow for the market! Tomatoes whose maturity is delayed by transgenesis (which facilitate transportation and limit loss) might not compare to our good Marmande tomatoes, but the example of Golden apples, as beautiful in form as they are mediocre in taste, proves that genetic selection did not wait for transgenesis to stray into our markets. It is up to consumers to be vigilant and to producers to modify the Golden apples so that they look beautiful and taste good.

Be that as it may, the buyer has a legitimate wish to know. If he does not have the impression -- usually false -- that information is being hidden from him, he will hardly have a reason to be reluctant.

Can one imagine that the underdeveloped countries may benefit one day from these techniques?

Yes, indubitably, because the improvement of certain qualities will allow the resumption of local cultivation in unfavorable soils. It would then be possible to offset the nutritional deficiencies of these populations, to respect their dietary traditions and to grant them relative degree of independence with respect to the industrialized countries.

Modern biotechnologies constitute an undeniable progress for all the actors in the nutritional chain, from the seed manufacturers to the consumers who should be able to share its benefits. It is, of course, necessary to implement precise regulations, which is now the case, and to control their enforcement. It seems that the Swiss, by rejecting by referendum a plan to forbid biotechnologies, have pointed out the path of wisdom.

*Professor of Nutrition, University of Paris-VI, Director of the Medical and Nutrition Department of the Hôtel-Dieu of Paris.