April/May 2004

Peace Candidate Dennis Kucinich Vows to Stay in Race
Interview by Amy Goodman

Three Days in Spain
William Rivers Pitt

"House of Bush, House of Saud"
Interview with Craig Unger by Amy Goodman

"Seeds of Deception"
Jeffrey Smith

Genetically Engineered DNA Found in Traditional Seeds

New Findings Show Health Hazards of Genetically Modified Crops

An Evolutionary Conversatoin with Barbara Marx Hubbard
Alan Sasha Lithman

Making A New Declaration of Independence
Michael J. Tamura

Empathic Listening
Holley Humphrey

Intimacy With Self and Others, Earth and Spirit
Loba

2004 State of the Universe Address
Swani Beyondananda

Cosmic Calendar
Salina Rain

BACK TO TOP

Seeds of Deception, continued

Dr. Richard Smith, editor of the British Medical Journal, says that the “competing interests” that sponsor research have “quite a profound influence on the conclusions.” He warns, “We deceive ourselves if we think science is wholly impartial.”

In the US, corporate donations rose from $850 million in 1985 to $4.25 billion in less than ten years. According to the Atlantic Monthly, “increasingly the money comes with strings attached … In higher education today corporations not only sponsor a growing amount of research—they frequently dictate the terms under which it is conducted.”

Consider the case of the University of California at Berkeley. In November 1998, the biotech company Novartis gave $25 million to the Department of Plant and Microbial Biology for research. In exchange, Novartis gets the first rights to negotiate licenses for about one third of the discoveries made by the department. This includes discoveries funded by Novartis as well as those funded by federal and state sources. Novartis can also delay the publication of research by up to four months, providing time for patent applications and for allowing the company to utilize the proprietary information. In addition, Novartis gets representation on two of the five seats of the committee that determines how the department’s research money is spent.

When informed of this deal, many in the faculty were outraged. More than half believed it would have a “negative” or “strongly negative” effect on academic freedom, about half thought it would get in the way of “public good research,” and 60 percent thought it would inhibit the free exchange of ideas between scientists.

“Worse than the problems of enforced secrecy and delay,” says the Atlantic Monthly article, “is the possibility that behind closed doors some corporate sponsors are manipulating manuscripts before publication to serve their commercial interests … A study of major research centers in the field of engineering found that 35 percent would allow corporate sponsors to delete information from papers prior to publication.”

In addition, many professors own stock in the company that sponsors their research, or sit on their boards, or hold a corporate endowed position, or simply rely on the corporation for continued research money. Even universities are investing in companies that fund or benefit from university research. “In a study of 800 scientific papers published in a range of academic journals, Sheldon Krimsky, a professor of public policy at Tufts University and a leading authority on conflicts of interest, found that slightly more than a third of the authors had a significant financial interest in their reports.” None of these papers, however, disclosed the information. Mildred Cho, a senior research scholar at Stanford’s Center for Biomedical Ethics, says, “When you have so many scientists on boards of companies or doing sponsored research, you start to wonder, How are these studies being designed? What kinds of research questions are being raised? What kinds aren’t being raised?”

What Could Go Wrong?

When her one-year-old daughter developed an allergy to milk in February 1998, a leading British surgeon did what many other mothers do: she switched to soymilk. When the girl immediately developed large cold sores, the child was tested and found not to be allergic to soy. The mother figured it must be something else and continued feeding her soymilk. Over the next year the sores got worse and did not respond to treatment. “I became aware that she was not getting better,” said the mother. “There seemed to be three large, weeping sores on her face at any one time.”

From a geneticist friend, she learned about the potential risks of GM soy and tried reducing the daughter’s soymilk by one-fourth. “The sores cleared up overnight,” she recalled.

She told the Sunday Telegraph, “I want the government to look into this because I saw the change in my daughter—as soon as she was taken off the GM milk, her health dramatically improved. I and my [general practitioner] have not found any other reasons why she became ill. My family previously ate GM products without worrying—but now we do not.”

Could the child have reacted to the GM soy but not natural soy? It’s possible, but the limited details raise more questions than they answer. Did the allergy test use natural soy instead of GM soy, thereby missing her reaction to the GM variety? Was the reaction not an allergy but rather a food “intolerance” or “sensitivity” to GM soy? The mother’s geneticist friend even suggested that the cold sores were related to a virus that was being activated by the GM soy.

If GM soybeans were responsible for anything out of the ordinary such as increased allergies, then the total number of allergies attributed to soy would probably rise in the general population after GM soy was introduced into the diet. Unfortunately, very few countries maintain detailed statistics on food allergies. In the UK, however, the York Nutritional Laboratory, Europe’s leading specialist on food sensitivity, does extensive tests each year to determine how many people have allergies and to what foods.

In March 1999, York Laboratory scientists discovered that soy allergies skyrocketed over the previous year, jumping 50 percent. The increase propelled soy into the top ten list of allergens for the first time in the seventeen years of testing. Soy “moved up four places to ninth and now sits alongside foodstuffs with a long history of causing allergies, such as yeast, sunflower seeds and nuts,” reported the UK’s Daily Express.

Researchers tested 4,500 people for allergic reactions to a wide range of foods. In previous years, soy affected 10 percent of consumers. Now, 15 percent reacted with a range of chronic illnesses, including irritable bowel syndrome, digestion problems, and skin complaints including acne and eczema. According to John Graham, spokesman for the York laboratory, “People also suffered neurological problems with chronic fatigue syndrome, headaches and lethargy.” Scientists confirmed the link with soy by detecting increased levels of antibodies in the blood. Furthermore, the soy tested in the study, like most soy in the UK at the time, was primarily imported from the US and therefore contained a significant percentage of the genetically modified Roundup Ready variety.

The fact that GM soy had recently entered the food supply was not lost on the researchers who, according to the Daily Express, “said their findings provide real evidence that GM food could have a tangible, harmful impact on the human body.” Graham said, “We believe this raises serious new questions about the safety of GM foods.”

The British Medical Association had already warned that the technology may lead to the emergence of new allergies. With York’s research in hand, British scientists now urged their government to impose an immediate ban on GM foods until further testing evaluated their safety. Irish doctors also demanded that GM foods be banned, when increased soy allergies were also reported in that country. Geneticist Michael Antoniou said that the increase in allergic responses “points to the fact that far more work is needed to assess their safety. At the moment no allergy tests are carried out before GM foods are marketed.”

Soy and soy derivatives are used in more than 60 percent of processed foods sold in the US. GM soy is mixed with natural soy and foods are not labeled as such. Avoiding GM soy, therefore, is a difficult task.

There are many potential reasons why GM soy could be allergenic. Increasing the amount of a naturally occurring plant allergen is one way that genetic modification might promote allergies. Trypsin inhibiter, a substance found in natural soy, has been identified as a major allergen. According to a published study, the amount of trypsin inhibitor in one variety of GM soybeans is about 27 percent higher than in natural soybeans. It is also possible that GM food posses new allergens, never before found in natural food.

The FDA does recommend that producers evaluate potential allergens by comparison of the protein’s amino acid sequence to known allergens, the resistance of the protein to break down by digestion and heat, and evaluation of molecular size. The EPA, which regulates pesticidal Bt crops, makes similar recommendations. Most scientists agree, however, that these are unreliable methods and cannot fully safeguard the public.

“None of these criteria are exact,” said Hansen, “as the state of science in the field of allergenicity is still in its infant stages.” Arpad Pusztai describes the FDA’s allergy test methods as indirect and rather scientifically unsound. The FDA’s own scientist Carl Johnson writes, “Are we asking the crop developer to prove that food from his crop is non-allergenic? This seems like an impossible task.”

New foods are very difficult to test for allergenicity. People aren’t usually allergic to a food until they have eaten it several times. According to FDA’s Pribyl, “the only definitive test for allergies is human consumption by affected peoples, which can have ethical considerations.” Pusztai concurs, saying, “It is at present impossible to definitely establish whether a new GM crop is allergenic or not before its release into the human/animal food/feed chain.” He said, “I think that is the Achilles heel of these GM foods. What they do now in testing is rubbish.”

StarLink Shock

In September 2000, Grace Booth dined on three chicken enchiladas, which she later recalled were very good. Within about fifteen minutes, however, something went wrong. She felt hot, itchy. Her lips swelled; she lost her voice and developed severe diarrhea.

In the emergency room of a nearby hospital in Oakland, California, Booth was injected with anti-allergy medicine, given Benadryl, and put on an IV. It worked. The effects of anaphylactic shock subsided and five hours later Booth safely left the hospital.

Across the country, Keith Finger, a Florida optometrist, enjoyed a dinner of tortillas, beans, and rice. Fifteen minutes later he got a terrible stomachache and diarrhea. Soon he was itching all over. His tongue started to swell and he had trouble breathing—again the symptoms of anaphylactic shock. Finger injected himself with anti-allergy medicine and swallowed some Benadryl; the symptoms subsided. He is confident, however, that without the medicine he would have died.

Neither Booth nor Finger knew what had caused their allergic reactions, but within a few days both heard the news. A genetically modified corn product called StarLink, which contained a potential allergen and was not approved for human consumption, was discovered in tacos, tortillas, and other corn products. More than 300 items were eventually recalled from the grocery store shelves in what was to become the world’s biggest GM food debacle.

Booth contacted the Food and Drug Administration. There was corn in her tortillas and she had tested negative for all other food allergies. Booth thought StarLink might be the cause. Finger too confirmed that there was corn in his tortillas and filed a report with the FDA.

Hundreds of others also contacted the FDA, concerned that they too had allergic reactions to StarLink; more than fifty people eventually filed reports with the agency. Symptoms “varied from just abdominal pain and diarrhea [and] skin rashes to … a very small group having very severe life-threatening reactions,” said Marc Rothenberg, chief allergist at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital and adviser to the government in the StarLink investigation. Twenty-eight people’s reaction fit the profile of an anaphylactic response.

StarLink was not supposed to be eaten by humans. It is a brand of corn that creates a modified form of a pesticide produced by the soil bacteria Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt). The EPA, however, did allow StarLink to be fed to hogs, cows, and other livestock. The EPA also required that the manufacturer let farmers know that the corn must be segregated. Farmers were supposed to sign statements that any StarLink they grew, plus any corn grown within 660 feet of it, was only to be used for animal feed or industrial (fuel) purposes, but not put into the human food chain. In spite of these requirements, the word about the corn’s special handling instructions didn’t circulate much. Farmers didn’t know; grain elevators didn’t know.

With consumers concerned about their health the FDA was under intense pressure to determine whether StarLink was, in fact, an allergen. At the same time, the agency was “up against the reality that there is no surefire way of testing a new protein like Cry9C (contained in StarLink corn) for its potential to cause allergies in people,” reported the Washington Post. “We all wish there was a test where you plug in a protein and out pops a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer,” said Sue MacIntosh, a protein chemist with AgrEvo. “But there is no such test … short of giving it to a lot of people and seeing what happens.”

After months of waiting, the FDA and the Center for Disease Control (CDC) came up with a plan for an allergy test. Karl Klontz, a medical officer with the FDA’s Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, said, “This is the first time a test like this has been developed, and nobody is claiming that it is a gold standard.” The Washington Post reported, “It has not been fully checked and double-checked and researchers warn the test will not give a definitive answer.”

The FDA’s test involved looking for antibodies in blood samples from seventeen people who were suspected of being allergic to StarLink—they had reported serious allergic reactions after eating corn products and were not normally allergic to corn. The presence of antibodies would indicate that some reaction to Cry9C had taken place. Based on the results, on June 11, 2001, nine months after Booth ate her enchiladas, the FDA announced the test results: StarLink was not the cause of allergies. The biotech industry was quick to disperse the news, claiming as always that GM food was safe to eat. Val Giddings of the Biotechnology Industry Organization said that the results meant that the case was “slam-dunk closed.” But as the details of the FDA test emerged, scientists became critical of its design and suspicious of its conclusions.

Just five weeks after the FDA/CDC’s declaration of safety, advisers to the EPA—including some of the nation’s leading food allergists—released a thorough critique of the FDA’s allergy test and other aspects of the StarLink investigation. Their con-clusion? “The test, as conducted, does not eliminate StarLink Cry9C as a potential cause of allergic symptoms.” They said the research had many shortcomings. For example, the test lacked adequate controls, was not sensitive enough, and failed to follow standard protocols that helped prevent false interpretations.

The EPA’s Scientific Advisory Panel also decided that even the twenty parts per billion tolerance for Cry9C requested by Aventis should not be granted. They said, “based on reasonable scientific certainty, there is no identifiable maximum level of Cry9C protein that can be suggested that would not provoke an allergic response and thus would not be harmful to the public.” Unfortunately, the EPA has not followed through on the Panel’s recommendations for further research.

The advisory panel also recommended to the EPA that allergy testing should be expanded to include all GM foods. According to the Washington Post, the panel also said “that ‘every attempt’ should be made to further test two people who reported severe reactions and who have offered to undergo skin testing and to eat StarLink products under medical supervision.”

Dr. Finger, the Florida optometrist who had nearly died after eating a tortilla, had already offered to eat StarLink corn to see if he would have a second reaction. Although risky, this method offers significant advantages over the FDA’s methods. Suppose, for example, that the process of genetic engineering had given rise to some of the other unpredictable effects discussed in Chapter 2. Code scramblers, damaged DNA, gene silencing, genetic instability, and haphazard promotion by the CaMV promoter, can all potentially change the expression of the natural proteins in corn, or even introduce a new unexpected protein. Even if the FDA’s test had not used Cry9C from bacteria, but rather isolated Cry9C from StarLink, testing the protein and not StarLink corn itself might have missed detection of other possible allergens created in the corn. When contacted by Finger with his proposal, Aventis’ lawyer “was initially interested but declined.”

Nonetheless, after going public with his offer to be tested, he received some StarLink sent to him anonymously in the mail. “After running a test that showed it was in fact StarLink, he ate some and went to a local hospital several hours later with itchy rashes over his body and fast-rising blood pressure,” reported the Washington Post. Finger’s blood had been used as one of the seventeen that had tested negative in the FDA’s test.

Friends of the Earth, the organization that had spearheaded the initial discovery of StarLink contamination in the food supply, wrote an analysis of the way the StarLink investigation was carried out. They point out several errors by the government as well as numerous ways in which Aventis failed to cooperate.

For example, the FDA established a passive monitoring system, contacting and testing only the tiny percentage of affected people who filed formal complaints with them. They didn’t investigate the thousands of allergy or health-related consumer calls made to food companies, including some who were rushed to emergency rooms.

The FDA did not actively contact health professionals or allergy groups around the country once the contamination had been made public. Corn is not normally consi-dered a major allergen. Eighty percent of the US population eats some form of corn protein every day. Without adequate education, many Americans might have suffered reactions without knowing the cause or how to prevent future problems.

The Friends of the Earth analysis concluded, “The StarLink debacle is a case study in the near total dependence of our regulatory agencies on the ‘regulated’ biotech and food industries. If industry chooses to submit faulty, unpublishable studies, it does so without consequence. If it should respond to an agency request with deficient data, it does so without reprimand or follow-up (e.g., statistics on allergic reactions reported to food companies). If a company finds it disadvantageous to characterize its product, then its properties remain uncertain or unknown. If a corporation chooses to ignore scientifically sound testing standards, then faulty tests are conducted instead, and the results are considered legitimate. In the area of genetically engineered food regulation, the ‘competent’ agencies rarely if ever (know how to) conduct independent research to verify or supplement industry findings.”

New evidence reveals that allergies may also result from other varieties of the genetically engineered Bt crops still on the market. According to Hansen of the Consumers Union, “There is increasing evidence … that the various Bt endotoxins—including those from [GM corn], cotton, and potatoes—may have adverse effects on the immune system and/or may be human allergens.”

What You Can Do

Major media has avoided covering the food safety issue. Even when GMO-related health issues are reported, the news is usually limited to short sound bites or a quoted opinion that is “balanced” by a pro-biotech quote challenging any concerns. General news stories are not sufficient. To convince someone that GM foods carry serious risks usually takes a prolonged discussion. It takes an even longer discussion to inspire someone to actually change his or her lifelong eating habits. That’s where this book comes in. It’s a portable long discussion—one that can be passed around. And it’s unedited by the media and unsanitized by the industry.

Books have power. Upton Sinclair’s novel The Jungle exposed the unsanitary conditions of the meat packing industry. After Teddy Roosevelt read the book on a long train trip, he pushed a bill through congress creating meat inspection. At a press conference, President Kennedy acknowledged the importance of Rachel Carson’s book Silent Spring, which exposed the dangers of pesticides. Kennedy then had his scientific advisor look into the issue. The book was eventually “credited with be-ginning the American environmental movement, the creation of the Environ-mental Protection Agency, and the 1972 ban on DDT.”

If the facts in this book get into the hands of the right people, someone might make a big difference. For that reason, I will send or hand-deliver copies to politicians, food industry executives, reporters, and celebrities. To donate discounted books for this purpose, please go to www.seedsofdeception.com, or call 888-717-7000. Officials around the world who are in charge of GM food policy need to be made aware of the foods’ dangers and of how their approval was based on politics, not science. They have been subjected to relentless promotion by the biotech industry and bullying by the US government to accept GM foods and crops. The revelations in this book might change that.

In the US, executives of large food companies may have a more immediate influence. This was exhibited in the UK in 1998, where the head of Iceland Frozen Foods sparked a revolution. After receiving several letters expressing concerns about GM foods, the company’s chairman Malcolm Walker decided to find out what all the fuss was about. After learning about the issues, he ordered that GM soy and corn be removed from the company’s house brand. Brochures denouncing GM foods were handed out at his chain of stores. Within half a year, the rest of the UK food industry followed suit. Executives from other chains acknowledged the influence of Iceland Frozen Foods on their decisions.

In the US, Whole Foods Market, Wild Oats, and Trader Joe’s announced that GMOs would be removed from their store brands. Gerber baby foods, as well as scores of health food products, have similarly changed their ingredients.

When a store or brand removes GM ingredients, it has a ripple effect through the industry. After a supermarket chain commits to eliminate GMOs, they usually send out a letter to their suppliers who in turn contact their suppliers and so on. A store may have hundreds of food items, each with a list of ingredients. Hundreds or thousands of businesses can be affected, right back to the farm level.

When a vendor receives a request to provide only non-GM ingredients, they usually test their products for GM content. If they make a change, they typically choose the minimum level of compliance necessary to meet the buyer’s requirements. They’ll remove only those GM ingredients specified, and establish the least costly testing and monitoring program that their buyer will accept. Their choices are not motivated by food safety; it’s economics—make a change or lose the customer. Buyers, therefore, are at the top of the food chain. They move the market. When McDonalds, Pringles, and the other major potato buyers decided not to sell Monsanto’s GM New Leaf potato, for example, it was soon taken off the market. McDonalds and others doomed Monsanto’s potato because they wanted to satisfy consumer demands. We have that power.

European food chains likewise re-sponded to consumer demands, and their switch to non-GMO products was a landslide. Once a few major manufacturers and chains announced their intention to go non-GMO, no one wanted to be left out. This made it easier on the whole industry. All the vendors and ingredient suppliers switched to non-GM soy and corn at the same time.

The US food industry is now clearly concerned. They realize how vulnerable they are to another StarLink-type recall, and they have some idea that the government is not adequately protecting consumers. The time may be perfect to create a US food industry landslide. Even one large company changing its policy could make GM foods unpopular very quickly. That is the thinking behind GE Food Alert, a coalition of seven organizations that have targeted America’s largest food manufacturer, Kraft foods. Their campaign, described at www.krafty.org, is rallying consumers to contact Kraft, to ask the company to take out GM ingredients.

Please email or write food companies to share your concerns about GM foods. If you have stopped buying a food brand due to GMO issues, definitely let the company know. With your message, please suggest that they read this book; they’ll learn about the health risks of GM foods and the significant liability they face by using them. You can download sample letters and emails at www.seedsofdeception.com.

Excerpted with permission from Yes! Books, www.seedsofdeception.com

Jeffrey M. Smith, who has been involved with genetically modified foods for nearly a decade, lectures widely, speaks at conferences, and is quoted in articles around the world. Smith is the founding director of the Institute for Responsible Technology, a member of the Sierra Club Genetic Engineering Committee, a member of the steering committee of the Genetic Engineering Action Network (GEAN), and a member of the advisory board of the Campaign to Label Genetically Engineered Foods. www.seedsofdeception.com.