Genetically Modified Food Riot Sparked

Published Date: 02 Nov 2017

Jiang Yoko Bian

Centre College

Genetically engineered food is no longer a rare concept in modern society. Throughout centuries, farmers have boosted the yield of no matter common crops or cash crops in our society by crossbreeding related plants that add desirable traits, which can be either better taste or higher rate of survival under tough conditions. Also, scientists may pick up specific pieces of genes from one organism and insert into another organism. To do so, billions of people in the world of want are fed by thousands of different organisms.

As can be seen, practices of technologically fixing commercial food were once limited to combining the traits of organisms only within the same species. Nowadays, such is no longer the case with the necessary help of development in biotechnology. Scientists can now easily alter the genetic material of a specific organism by genetically engineering different species so that they share the same genetic material. For example, corn as a common crop in the States, is commonly bred with a built-in insecticide which can kill insects that are harmful to its growth or survive chemical sprays. Similarly, the Flavr Savr tomato, developed by the biotechnology company Calgene, is another good example. In this case, a gene is moved from a kind of arctic flounder and inserted into a breed of tomatoes. By doing this, the researchers hope this technique would allow the tomatoes to be more resistant to cold living conditions. Obviously, this new technology has the potential to revolutionize our food production in way of either feeding a growing population in the world or pandering to public tastes.

Recently, a study on the peer-reviewed journal Food and Chemical Toxicology claims that there is no adverse health effects in rats fed a specific genetically modified breed of corn developed by Monsanto (a biotech company). Such kind of maize is created by researchers to resist the herbicide glyphosate and approved for human consumption in the European Union. Although several scientists raised query on the study’s methodology and findings, they maintained that genetically modified food offers an inexpensive way to get more food as needed especially in the areas of poverty. For years, it is known that genetically modified food has been such a controversial issue over the choice whether it is really bad for our health or not, whether such products should be popularized or not.

The 90-day feeding trial Subchronic Feeding Study of Grain From Herbicide-tolerant Maize DP-Ø9814Ø-6 in Sprague-Dawley rats mentioned above evaluated the potential health effects of rats from long-term consumption of rodent diet composed of GM (genetically modified) grain, herbicide-tolerant corn in which herbicidal chemical glyphosate was inserted by genomic expression and integration of a gene-shuffled acetylase coding sequence. After the three months of experiment, the researchers have found no adverse health effects on rats. Such observations were reported by NATURE.

The experiment follows the principle of substantial equivalence, which is a current assessment performed nowadays to ensure the safety of food. By applying a comparative evaluation approach using recombinant DNA technology, government will decide whether a specific type of food should be popularized or not relying on reasonable evidence that no harm will result from certain consumption of foods from new crop compared with familiar conventionally-bred crops. That way, typical types of commercial maize that are produced according to typical agricultural practices are selected to be materials for the experiment: untreated (98140) and herbicide-treated (98140+Gly/SU) plants, the conventional non-transgenic, near-isogenic control (091), and three commercial non-transgenic reference hybrids (33J56, 33P66, and 33R77). These milled grains were substituted into a common rodent chow formula and fed to rats (12/sex/group).1 The rodent chow composition is analyzed with test, control and reference maize and verifies absence of transgenic contamination of the control and reference diets before the experiment is performed. Accordingly, pre-commercialization safety assessments for new genetically modified crops (often includes feeding trials in broiler chickens and other livestock species) would be performed to address safety of food in the normal times. Also, comparative nutritional wholesomeness of genetically modified and conventional feeds is assessed on a routine basis using animal growth and carcass characteristics.1

Rats of each gender were grouped into six by weight and observed twice a day to detect dead or moribund or abnormal behavior. Also, researchers conducted both ophthalmological examinations and functional observational battery evaluations before grouping the rats. After 13 weeks, clinical pathology including hematology, coagulation, serum chemistry, and urinalysis evaluations were performed on all of the surviving rats (MacKenzie et al., 2007, Malley et al., 2007 and Appenzeller et al., 2008). At last, data of rats from two test groups (098140 and 098140+Gly/SU) were compared separately with data of rats in the control group (091).1 The categorical and quantitative data of male and female rats, both of which depend on measurement of controlled variable, were thus analyzed within gender. For all comparisons, differences between values were considered statistically significant at a p-value <0.05. Data of rats in the three reference groups: 33J56, 33P66, and 33R77, were used to construct a range of natural contrast and variation.

For results of the experiment, there were no unusual clinical observations, no significant diet related differences for neurobehavioral assessment or no biologically meaningful difference in body weights reported overall. All of the treatment groups within gender share similar mean values for quantitative variables; there were no statistically significant or diet-related differences observed for both male and female rats in the test and control groups during analysis of clinical pathology. Exceptionally, the data from examination of serum alkaline phosphatase (ALKP) concentration was higher in males in the test group in analysis of clinical pathology. However, such difference was then considered unrelated to consumption of diets containing GM corn plants. In sum, no adverse health effects were detected in rats after 13 weeks of dietary exposure to grain from genetically modified Optimum maize and it is thus confirmed as safe and nutritious as grain from conventional field corn.

The article on NATURE, an international weekly journal of science, reports realistically and objectively on both sides of view of scientists and implies no bias on either side. One the one hand, the article shows that the study of Prof. Gilles Eric Séralini, a molecular biologist at the University of Caen, reporting that the rats fed by GM grain would be more likely to develop cancerous tumors and died earlier than those who were not fed by GM grain as controls.2 On the other hand, the article also writes about the study: Subchronic Feeding Study of Grain from Herbicide-tolerant Maize DP-Ø9814Ø-6 in Sprague-Dawley Rats sponsored by Dupant Company in a neutral way, showing failures to find such stark health effects demonstrated by the research of Prof. Gilles Eric Séralini. Additionally, The article writes about other scientists’ question by pointing out that the Sprague-Dawley strain of rats used as material in the experiment has been shown to be susceptible to developing cancerous tumors spontaneously themselves, particularly as they grow older, thus making it difficult and unreliable to interpret the results.

Along with advances in biotechnology, the effects of genetically engineered foods have been debatable issues not only among scientist, but also concerned activists and consumers. Currently in food industry, governments around the world maintain that genetically modified foods are strictly regulated,3 yet people and several scientists who are against GM foods say that such genetically modified foods have been foisted on an unwitting public without adequate testing and even claim there is adverse health effects. For example, David Schubert, professor in Cellular Neurobiology Laboratory of Salk Institute, wrote on a peer-reviewed study of US government’s regulation of GMOs that he co-authored4. He believes the government makes decisions on GM foods relying on the data provided by the biotech food companies which have a mind developing new organisms such as Monsanto and Calgene, even when those data are not subjected to peer review or published in journals. In the meantime, Millstone E holds susceptible attitude on the assertion of substantial equivalence saying that the concept of substantial equivalence and the degree of difference between a natural food and its genetically engineered alternative before its ‘substance’ ceases to be acceptably ‘equivalent’ has not been defined up till now.5 Thus such unclearness within the definition makes an opportunity that can be exploited to biotech food companies’ advantage.

In the United States, the government does not seem to be an impartial authority on GM foods with policies of actively promoting them.6 Governments, including those of the EU, Japan, China, Australia, Canada and New Zealand, have an agency that assesses the safety of GM crops. Based on data from the assessment, the agency provides both positive and negative suggestions of the crop for use in food or animal feed to the government. Meanwhile, GM food safety assessment process is still evolving especially in Europe. Thus, it is reasonable to expect that the agricultural biotechnology industry will continue to develop and apply innovative genetic modification technologies, singly and in combination, as a strategy to accelerate the pace of crop improvement in anticipation of the growing global demand.

The article on Nature reports well on GM Food furore sparked by rat study by Prof. Gilles Eric Séralini and a series of studies carried out by other scientists which aim to verify the (in) validity of his study. the author of the article did not mainly focus on selling our his story as much as possible, instead of getting up a panic by saying GM maize would cause severe disease, he wrote the article in a neutral way giving as much factual evidence as possible so that the public can get an calm outlook of genetically modified maize which researchers have not conclusively identified as a mechanism for the effect. Even though, the public have not dismissed doubts about GM foods. As added by Kearns at the very last of the article on Nature: "Resolution of the debate over the safety of genetically modified foods can come only from vigorous science clarifying the issues".2 there is still a long way to go for GM foods.

Work Cited

Laura M. Appenzeller, Susan M. Munley, Denise Hoban, Greg P. Sykes, Linda A. Malley, Bryan Delaney, 2009. Food and Chemical Toxicology, Volume 47, Issue 9, Pages 2269-2280

Declan Butler, 2012, Rat study sparks GM furore. NATURE NEWS, Volume 489, Issue7417

Institute for Social Ecology Biotechnology Project, June 2006, Ban GMO Food organization, http://www.bangmfood.org/quotes/24-quotes/29-regulatory-breakdown

Rosie Mestel, 2012. Scientists defend safety of genetically modified foods, Los Angeles Times,

Millstone E, Brunner E, Mayer S. Beyond "substantial equivalence". Nature. 1999; 401(6753): 525–526.

US Department of Agriculture. Frequently asked questions about biotechnology. 2010. doi: http://1.usa.gov/hVIRYq