Animals say 'NO' to GMOs

When The Corn Hits The Fan

Steven Sprinkel / Millennium Debate 1999

Over half of all GM crops are fed to animals of the non-human variety. Should we be relieved - or worried?

There are a few uncomfortable facts about GM animal feed:

• GM soy and maize have been used in British animal feed for three years;
• A large but unknown proportion of Britain's milk, butter, cheese, meat and eggs is produced from GM contaminated animal feed;
• Of the world's 70 million acre GM crop, well over half is fed to farm animals - cattle, pigs, poultry and Scottish farmed salmon;
• Because GM grain is not segregated from non-GM grain, there is no way for farmers or consumers to know whether animal feed has GM content.

A MAFF (U.K. Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food) report from earlier this year confirms the huge scale of the problem: "... a substantial proportion of 2 million tonnes of soya meal, 1.1 million tonnes of maize gluten feed and 500,000 tones of distillers grains used in animal feed could contain material derived from unsegregated GM varieties. Thus, there will be a perception that GM material is coming into the country in large quantities to go into animal feed. Of this 3.6 million tonnes, some 2.2 million would be used by UK feed compounders. This comprises nearly 20% of their raw material, and soya and maize products are major, scarcely replaceable sources of energy".1

Officials at MAFF are clearly concerned. In January this year, biotech giant Monsanto applied for government approval to sell two new GM ingredients to animal feed producers in Britain. Its applications, one for GM cotton and the other for GM corn for specified use in animal fodder, were considered by MAFF's animal feed unit, which dealt with the BSE crisis. A source who attended the meeting said that MAFF officials on the approval committee were "very worried indeed" when the applications came forward.

The officials called for full "toxicology tests" on Monsanto's GM cotton and privately expressed fears about the unknown implications of using it as feed.

The source said, "They were very concerned and agitated. One of them was virtually shaking. They are not happy and they have been saying so privately."2

What's the problem?

Nobody knows what effects GM feed may have on the animal that consumes it and the human being who ingests the animal's milk or meat. No rigorous toxicological tests have been carried out - or if they have, the results have not been made public.

The use of antibiotic-resistant marker genes in GM crops is an especial cause of concern. A MAFF official, Mr N. Tomlinson, recently wrote a letter warning the U.S. FDA, which is supposed to regulate GM crops in America, that such genes could interact with human bacteria and viruses and create antibiotic-resistant diseases.3 The letter was never meant to be made public, but was leaked. (See article, "MAFF warns of health risks fom GM crops")

The British Medical Association have also condemned the use of antibiotic-resistant genes: "The BMA believes that the use of antibiotic resistant marker genes in GM foodstuffs is a completely unacceptable risk, however slight, to human health."4

The use of such genes has also been condemned by the Royal Society, the Advisory Committee on Novel Foods and Processes (the Government's advisors on GM food safety), and the National Farmers Union. But despite this consensus, 13 out of 23 applications to the European Union (EU) for approval of GM foods contain antibiotic resistance marker genes. In addition, 12 applications for inclusion on the National Seed List (which enables seed to be sold in the UK) contain antibiotic resistance marker genes.5

The effect of regularly exposing farm animals to these antibiotic resistant genes is potentially disastrous. Intensive farming has made farmers increasingly dependent on antibiotics to counter diseases that affect animals in closely confined conditions. More diseases in both animals and humans are becoming resistant to antibiotics. The cavalier use of such genes in feed crops could make the current difficult situation intolerable.

Dr Mae-Wan Ho has warned that the use of these genes and other genetically engineered constructs in animal and human feeds could create new diseases. Also, existing diseases could become more virulent or likely to cross species barriers - a phenomenon which Dr Ho says is already occurring.6

Nothing to worry about

Some scientists claim that genetically modified DNA (genetic material) in feedstuffs is not a problem because by the time meat and milk is consumed by humans, any GM DNA from animal feed will have broken down. The theory is that this DNA would not be "viable" - that is, it would be too fragmented to affect the DNA of an organism that came into contact with it.

With GM animal feed, there are two possible routes by which this degradation might happen:

• during processing of the animal feed;
• in the gut of the animal during digestion.

We looked at both possibilities in turn.

Is GM DNA destroyed by processing of animal feed?

Biotech proponents claim that processing animal feed will destroy any GM DNA present. An example of this "nothing to worry about" stance is a letter sent by MAFF's J.M. Nicholas to one of our readers, John Parfitt.7 Mr Parfitt had written to MAFF expressing his concerns about the lack of labelling on GM animal feed. Mr Nicholas does not share Mr Parfitt's concern.

In his reply, Mr Nicholas refers to Novartis's GM maize containing antibiotic resistant marker genes: "The government is sensitive to consumer concerns but takes the view that labelling would need to be based on the actual presence in them of GM material. Current advice is that this is unlikely... the majority of the materials used for animal feeding are processed by-products, such as soya meal and maize gluten feed. It is known that some forms of processing disrupt DNA and therefore render it incapable of replication. In the case of one maize product from Novartis, tests were conducted on the maize gluten feed which indicated that the antibiotic resistance marker and its replication could not have survived processing."

Perhaps Novartis' antibiotic marker gene is especially obedient to the desire of MAFF officials that it disappear without trace during processing. This is the only explanation we can think of as to why Mr Nicholas is so blithely confident that GM DNA would be "unlikely" to turn up in processed animal feed. Perhaps he is not acquainted with the unreasonably oikish behaviour of the DNA in the research study commissioned by MAFF and carried out at Leeds University.8

The Leeds study

The Leeds study was set up to "address the necessary treatments to GM material if risks are to be removed". The study tested DNA in animal feed crops after they were subjected in the laboratory to the types of processing used in commercial feed mills, to see whether the DNA survived in a viable form. The results showed that:

• DNA was not destroyed by silageing the crops. The authors comment that "if there is a significant risk of transmitting a transgene [gene inserted by genetic engineering] in the gut of farm animals, it would seem sensible not to use [sileaged] crops as animal feed".
• Dry heat and steam heat processing needs to be carried out at temperatures of 95°C for at least 5 minutes for the DNA to fragment. The authors comment that "It would not be usual for feed materials to be heated to more than about 85°C during normal processing and pelleting." In other words, normal feed processing by dry heat and steam would not destroy GM DNA.

MAFF's Mr Tomlinson commented in his letter to the U.S. FDA that the study revealed "the relative difficulty with which plant DNA is degraded during processing"3.

The authors of the study explain the implications of this "difficulty": "It is unlikely to be proved impossible for transfer of [antibiotic resistance] genes from plant to microbe to be completely excluded."8

In lay terms, this means the GM DNA could survive processing, and the genes could transfer to microbes in the animal or human body, with unpredictable results.

Could oils contain GM DNA?

The Leeds researchers found one processing method that degraded DNA in the final product better than the others - oil extraction. The authors write, "Extraction of oil from seeds leaves a residue in which the DNA is highly fragmented." At first glance, this seems reassuring. Can we conclude that oils extracted from GM crops are free from GM DNA? Certainly, the human and animal food industries and their regulators have resisted labelling oils and other derivatives of GM crops on the grounds that there is no DNA present. They sometimes add that even if there is DNA present, it would be too fragmented to be "viable".

However, an interview we conducted with Dr Gordon Wiseman of RHM Technology, of High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, casts doubt on these assumptions. RHM has developed a test which can detect GM DNA even in highly processed foodstuffs such as oils and lecithin. Dr Wiseman says that all soy lecithin and about 50 percent of oil samples contain enough DNA for his company to test for GM material.

We told Dr Wiseman that consumers had been led to believe that highly processed derivatives like oils and lecithin contained no "viable" DNA. He said, "I'm sure plenty of people would like to believe that. But it's not true. The fragmentation is not always complete."

Licence to kill

Why would MAFF's Mr Nicholas go against the evidence and say that the presence of GM DNA in processed animal feed would be "unlikely", whereas his colleague Mr Tomlinson comments on the "relative difficulty" with which DNA in feed is broken down by processing? Is the apparent difference in stance between the reassuring Mr Nicholas and the wary Mr Tomlinson a sign of a split within MAFF? Or is the discrepancy due to the fact that Mr Nicholas was writing to a member of the public yet Mr Tomlinson was writing to his fellow regulators in the U.S. FDA?

Multinational corporations owe it to their shareholders to maximise profit while minimising liability. They are given licence to pursue their operations by government regulators blinded by short-term economics. If the truth about the damaging effects of corporations' polluting activities were to emerge, lawsuits could be launched by aggrieved citizens. This trend has already emerged in Europe and the U.S. Recently, the net has widened to include the regulators who permitted the corporations to continue their damaging activities. In the U.S., the Alliance for Bio-Integrity is suing the FDA, the regulatory board which allowed GM foods onto the market.

In such a climate, statements by corporations and regulators to the public are characterised by "reassurance" and avoidance of liability for damages. In contrast, private communications between regulators are characterised by a need to anticipate and carefully sidestep liability. For this reason, truth may be more often found in the latter type of communication.

After the horse has bolted

According to Farmers Weekly, MAFF is currently funding more research to find out whether DNA in plants is broken down during commercial feed processing.9 The work will build on the Leeds University study of lab-prepared samples by looking at samples that have been subject to commercial processing. This means it will reflect working practice.

The timing of the research has been criticised by activists, who accuse MAFF of shutting the door after the horse has bolted. They say the studies should have been carried out before GMOs were released into the food chain. It also shows MAFF's reassurance that viable GM DNA is "unlikely" to be found in processed feed is not based on sound science but wishful thinking.

Is GM DNA destroyed in the gut during digestion?

Biotech proponents claim that genetically modified DNA cannot survive passage through the gut of an animal or a human; it therefore cannot get into the bloodstream, cells or bacteria living in the gut and create genetic change or disease.

We can rely on MAFF's Mr Nicholas to "reassure" us on GM animal feed: "there is no evidence that DNA could survive passage through an animal's digestive tract to be present in milk, eggs or other products for human consumption."7

However, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. The tests have simply not been done. Once again, the regulators are running along behind the GM juggernaut trying to catch up. MAFF is just beginning studies on "the possibility of transfer [of modified genes] to gut microflora."7

Other scientists do not share Mr Nicholas' confidence in the all-destroying power of the gut. They say that GM DNA could pass through the lining of the gut and become incorporated into bacteria or cells. With this in mind, Dr Arpad Pusztai, formerly of the Rowett Institute, has called for rigorous testing of GM food before release into the food chain. He says, "The testing of modified products with implanted genes needs to be thoroughly carried out in the gut of animals and humans if unknown disasters are to be avoided."10

More worryingly, Dr Mae-Wan Ho of the Open University says the claim that DNA is easily digested by enzymes in our gut is "not true". She says, "The DNA of a virus has been found to survive passage through the gut of mice. Furthermore, the DNA readily finds its way into the bloodstream, and into all kinds of cells in the body. Once inside the cell, the DNA may insert itself into the cell's genome (genetic material) and create all manner of genetic disturbances, including cancer."6

Research in the Netherlands using a model gut predicted that 6% of the genes from GM tomatoes would survive digestion and pass into the colon.11 The researchers considered that the genes could survive for long enough for bacteria to pick them up, with unknown consequences.

[Update, July 2000: An as yet unpublished report from Germany found that GM genes in GM pollen have transferred to the bacteria and yeasts in the gut of baby bees. Reported by A. Barnett, (May 2000) in The Observer: "GM genes 'jump species barrier'"]

And research just published in the Lancet (Oct 15) reveals that the GNA lectin (the gene for which has been spliced into experimental GM crops, including Dr Arpad Pusztai's GM potatoes which damaged rats) binds strongly to human white blood cells. Nobody knows the implications of this, except that white blood cells are involved in the immune system.

Contrary to what pro-GM scientists claim, the existence of such research does not show the effectiveness of the regulatory system and prevent the GM crops in question being released. This research is not required to be carried out on GM crops before they are approved. If someone decides to study the subject, it's a bonus.

Europe, U.S. on collision course

EU Consumer Affairs Commissioner David Byrne plans to draft a new law requiring labelling of GManimal feed by December - but the law will take a year to come into effect.

This development is certain to throw the U.S. into bullying mode at the upcoming World Trade Organisation talks in Seattle in November as it tries to force Europe to accept GMOs along with other American gastronomic delights such as beef treated with carcinogenic hormones.

The U.S. fears that labelling of genetically modified feed could deal another blow to biotech companies such as Monsanto. "The concern," said Carl Feldbaum, president of the Biotechnology Industry Organization, "is that a label would be seen as a stigma, like a skull and crossbones." Come now, Mr Feldbaum. Surely an industry which constantly tells us that its GM products will be better, cheaper, and more nutritious than conventional foods - and will save the world from hunger - should view a GM label as a mark of quality? And surely consumers, ever quick to recognise a superior product and value for money, will rapidly gain confidence and snatch those GMOs off the supermarket shelves with gusto? Mr Feldbaum's fears give the unfortunate impression that the only way to get the public to accept GM foods is to hide the fact that they are GM.

Mindful of the skull and crossbones effect, U.S. trade representatives have resisted demands for labelling by arguing that U.S. feed exporters could be hurt, since they will be forced to shoulder the cost of separating GM ingredients from conventional ones. In the context of the WTO, labelling will be seen as "unfair barriers to trade" and will justify trade penalties against Europe.

Meanwhile, U.S grain suppliers are scrambling to meet European and Japanese consumer demand for non-GM grains. Archer Daniels Midland, one of the world's largest grain and oilseed processors, announced that it would pay premiums for non-GM crops and asked farmers to keep GM grain separate from non-GM. Agricultural consultant, farmer and grain supplier Leon Ridzon of Ohio confirmed that in his locality, non-GM grains command premiums of 15 percent.

Dumping the GM mountain

The biotech companies have been quick to assure worried U.S. farmers that the GMOs they were persuaded to grow will find a market. Above all they are keen to avert the PR crisis, predicted by W. Kirk Miller of the N. American Export Grain Association, of "violent uprisings" and angry "farmers burning grain in the street".

Where are unwanted GMOs going? Evidence suggests that they are being dumped on those countries which are least prepared and worst informed. In August, Russian authorities were surprised by a Greenpeace report that imports of unapproved GM maize were illegally entering the country from the U.S. Greenpeace says that a Panamanian ship arrived in St Petersburg carrying 42,000 tonnes of GM maize from the U.S. Tests conducted for Greenpeace by the Austrian government showed the grain contained Novartis' GM seed. The Russian authorities reacted with confusion. One official said no GMOs could enter the country without a licence, but another said these GMOs did not need a licensebecause they were meant for animal, not human, food.

Another disposal strategy has been to advise farmers to feed their surplus to livestock. One problem with this approach is that most U.S. farmers specialise - either in vast acreages of arable crops, or vast sheds of dairy cows. On top of this, different areas of the country specialise in different types of farm. Only organic farmers, who need a "closed-loop" system of animals providing a reliable supply of manure for crops, have both livestock and arable crops - and they won't touch GMOs.

Animals say no to GMO

There's a more serious problem with the idea of disposing of tonnes of unsaleable GMOs into animal feed. Animals are refusing to eat it.

Recently, American journalist Steven Sprinkel recently spent four months collecting reports from farmers growing GM crops. His article, entitled "When The Corn Hits The Fan" details the following observations:

Cattle who were put out into GM corn stubble wouldn't touch it. Pigs wouldn't eat the ration when GM crops were included. A farmer said, "If you want your cattle to go off their feed, just switch them out to a GM silage." A farmer said that his cattle broke through a fence and ate the non-GM hybrids but wouldn't touch the GM Roundup Ready corn, even though they had to walk through the GMs to get to the non-GMs on the other side of the fence. A cattleman saw the weight-gain of his cattle fall off when he switched to GM feed. An organic farmer with a terrible deer problem on his soybeans found forty of them mowing down his tofu beans while across the road there wasn't one eating the Roundup Ready GM soy. Raccoons romped by the dozen in a field of organic corn, while down the road there wasn't one ear that had been touched in the Bt fields. Even mice will move on down the line if given an alternative to GM crops.

Sprinkel asks, "What is it that they know instinctively that most of us ignore?" He predicts, "When the rotting corn hits the fan, it will make a tremendous mess, with the debris lying equally on the tables of the great leaders of the world as well as on the plates of consumers."

Bt crops: toxic harvest

There may be a particular problem with crops genetically engineered to express the natural insecticide Bt. As long ago as March 1998, a letter in Farmers Weekly reported that livestock on farms from Nebraska to Iowa were not grazing normally in fields that contained GM Bt corn.

Ohio farmer Leon Ridzon does not grow GMOs, but he deals with farmers who do. He recounted local farmers' experience with Bt corn: "We first had problems three years ago, when famers planted Bt corn and the cows refused to eat it. The farmers had to camouflage it to get them to eat it."

Maybe these cows are just finicky? Ridzon says not - other animals won't eat Bt grain either: "The Bt corn was left on the cob and stored in an open bin. The rabbits would not touch it, the squirrels would not touch it. The rats and mice didn't go near it. It killed all the spiders in the bins."

Ridzon has become increasingly suspicious about the possible toxicity of Bt corn. His testimony is the more remarkable for the fact that the norm for most Ohio farmers is intensively grown and chemically treated corn - which the animals apparently prefer to GM Bt corn.

Ridzon confirms Sprinkel's account of reduced weight gain in Bt corn-fed cattle. He says farmers report that cattle need nine pounds of Bt corn to make a one pound weight gain as compared with only six of normal corn.

Journalist Steven Sprinkel says that a major U.S. seed dealer told him that there is evidence that earthworms are dying as a result of the effects of Bt corn. Sprinkel comments, "This is not an activist promoting the notion that GMO plants have unpredicated results. It's a midwestern big seed dealer who would have more to gain by keeping quiet, and much to lose if he got caught in a liability cross-fire. So my assumption is that there is a big iceberg under these rumours and chit-chat. Reasonable people are asking reasonable questions."

Waiting for science

These reports from farmers and seed dealers can easily be dismissed as anecdotal evidence from which no conclusions can be drawn. But if we wait for the scientists to catch up, it could be too late. Scientific studies take years to do, and the majority are funded by industry or governments greased with biotech dollars. Who is going to fund a study which may find that a GM crop is toxic?

It is for this reason that where experience or knowledge suggests that serious risks are presented by a product, then the precautionary principle should be invoked. The onus should be on industry to prove safety - not on the consumer to prove harm before action can be taken. The problem of pro-industry bias in the research could be minimised by a laundering system whereby industry pays for the research but a public interest organisation commissions independent scientists to design and carry it out.

Insecticide factory in every cell

The known facts about Bt suggest that crops engineered to express it should have been subjected to toxicological testing. Bt is a natural insecticide which is used as an occasional remedy by organic famers. Used as a spray, it biodegrades rapidly in daylight and leaves no residue.

But now, biotech companies have engineered Bt into crops such as maize and cotton, so that every cell of the plant expresses the toxin. Bt crops have managed to escape independent toxicity testing, regulation and monitoring in the U.S. because the biotech companies convinced the regulators that they were "substantially equivalent" to the non-Bt versions of the same crop. That's despite the fact that, as British MP Alan Simpson pointed out, Bt crops' unique selling point is that they have "a little insecticide factory chugging away in every cell". That's also despite the findings of researchers at Cornell University in May this year that Bt corn pollen kills Monarch butterfly larvae - whereas Monarch larvae feeding on ordinary corn pollen grew fat and healthy.12

It would not be surprising if Bt crops were found to be toxic. Dr Pusztai says that Bt is a lectin, related to the lectins engineered into the potatoes that caused problems in his rats. Some lectins are toxic, and Bt's full name is "Bt toxin"; it kills insects. While Dr Pusztai chose the lectin used in his research because it was not toxic to mammals, no such deliberation came into play with the creation of Bt crops.

Dr Pusztai says: "Though we are assured that the Bt toxin does not react with the mammalian gut, to the best of my knowledge there is no direct experimental evidence for that." Dr Pusztai says if he had not been barred from his laboratory after the GM potato hullabaloo, he would be doing the toxicological tests on Bt maize that should have been done prior to its commercialisation. He hopes to begin work next year.

In the meantime, we - and our animals - are forced to eat crops that the rodents won't touch.

Notes

1. MAFF, "Food Contaminants D", Mar 11, 1999

2. The Independent, Jan 24, 1999

3. Letter from N. Tomlinson of MAFF's Joint Food Safety and Standards Group to the U.S. FDA, Dec 4, 1998

4. British Medical Association Board of Science and Education (1999), "The Impact of Genetic Modification on Agriculture, Food and Health: An Interim Statement". BMA: London

5. Friends of the Earth briefing (1999), "Antibiotic Resistance Genes in GM Foods"

6. Mae-Wan Ho, Genetic Engineering: Dream or Nightmare (Bath: Gateway Books, 1998), p15. Dr Ho cites evidence from: i) Schubbert, R., et al (1994), "Ingested foreign (phage M13) DNA survives transiently in the gastrointestinal tract and enters the bloodstream of mice". Mol. Gen. Genet, 242: 495-504. ii) Wahl, G.M., et al (1984), "Effect of chromosomal position on amplification of transfected genes in animal cells". Nature 307: 516-520.

7. Letter from J.M. Nicholas of MAFF's Feed and Fertilisers Branch to John Parfitt, 27 Aug 1999

8. Forbes, J.M. et al, "Effect of Feed Processing Conditions on DNA Fragmentation" (1998), MAFF Report no. CS0116, p5. Available from MAFF on 0171 238 6575.

9. Farmers Weekly, 24 Sept 1999.

10. Dr Arpad Pusztai, evidence to the House of Commons Select Committee on Science and Technology, 1 Mar 1999

11. Van der Vossen, J.M.B.M. et al. (1998), "Development and application of an in vitro intestinal tract model for safety evaluation of genetically modified foods". Food Safety Evaluation of Genetically Modified Foods as a Basis for Market Introduction, pp 81-99.

12. Losey, J.E. et al (1999), "Transgenic pollen harms monarch larvae". Nature 399, 214.

For information about the UK campaign against GM animal feed visit http://millennium-debate.org