Is
Genetically Modified Food Killing Us?
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Posted By Alex Daley On
November 26, 2012 @ 4:46 pm In Agriculture,biotech,Featured Post,Investment
Strategies,medical advancement,Science and Technology,The Daily Reckoning |
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Last month, a group of Australian
scientists published a warning to the citizens of the country, and of the world,
who collectively gobble up some $34 billion annually of its agricultural
exports. The warning concerned the safety of a new type of wheat.
As Australia’s number-one export,
a $6-billion annual industry, and the most-consumed grain locally, wheat is of
the utmost importance to the country. A serious safety risk from wheat — a
mad wheat
disease of sorts — would have disastrous effects for the country and
for its customers.
Which is why the alarm bells are
being rung over a new variety of wheat being ushered toward production by the
Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO) of
Australia. In a sense, the crop is little different than the wide variety of
modern genetically modified foods. A sequence of the plant’s genes has been
turned off to change the wheat’s natural behavior a bit, to make it more
commercially viable (hardier, higher yielding, slower decaying, etc.).
What’s really different this time
— and what has Professor Jack Heinemann of the University of Canterbury, NZ, and
Associate Professor Judy Carman, a biochemist at Flinders University in
Australia, holding press conferences to garner attention to the subject — is the
technique employed to effectuate the genetic change. It doesn’t modify the genes
of the wheat plants in question; instead, a specialized gene blocker interferes
with the natural action of the genes.
The process at issue, dubbed RNA
interference or RNAi for short, has been a hotbed of research activity ever
since the Nobel Prize-winning 1997 research paper that described the process. It
is one of a number of so-called “antisense” technologies that help suppress
natural genetic expression and provide a mechanism for suppressing undesirable
genetic behaviors.
RNAi’s appeal is simple: it can
potentially provide a temporary, reversible “off switch” for genes. Unlike most
other genetic modification techniques, it doesn’t require making permanent
changes to the underlying genome of the target. Instead, specialized siRNAs —
chemical DNA blockers based on the same mechanism our own bodies use to
temporarily turn genes on and off as needed — are delivered into the target
organism and act to block the messages cells use to express a particular gene.
When those messages meet with their chemical opposites, they turn inert. And
when all of the siRNA is used up, the effect wears off.
The new wheat is in early-stage
field trials (i.e., it’s been
planted to grow somewhere, but has not yet been tested for human consumption),
part of a multi-year process on its way to potential approval and not unlike the
rigorous process many drugs go through. The researchers conducting this trial
are using RNAi to turn down the production of glycogen. They are targeting the
production of the wheat branching enzyme which, if suppressed, would result in a
much lower starch level for the wheat. The result would be a grain with a lower
glycemic
index — i.e., healthier
wheat.
This is a noble goal. However,
Professors Heinemann and Carman warn, there’s a risk that the gene-silencing
done to these plants might make its way into humans and wreak havoc on our
bodies. In their press conference and subsequent papers, they describe the
possibility that the siRNA molecules — which are pretty hardy little chemicals
and not easily gotten rid of — could wind up interacting with our RNA.
If their theories prove true, the
results might be as bad as mimicking glycogen storage disease IV, a super-rare
genetic
disorder which almost always leads to early
childhood death.
Although Heinemann and Carman
cannot provide rock-solid proof that the new wheat is harmful, they have
produced a series of opinion papers that point to the possibilities that could
happen if a number of criteria are met:
- If the siRNAs remain in the wheat in transferrable form, in large quantities, when the grain makes it to your plate. And…
- If the siRNA molecules interfere with the somewhat different but largely similar human branching enzyme as well…
Then the wheat might cause very
severe adverse reactions in humans.
Opinion papers like this — while
not to be confused with conclusions resulting from solid research — are a
critically important part of the scientific process. Professors Carman and
Heinemann provide a very important public good in challenging the strength of
the due-diligence process for RNAi’s use in agriculture.
However, we’ll have to wait until
the data come back from the numerous scientific studies being conducted at
government labs, universities, and in the research facilities of commercial
agribusinesses like Monsanto and Cargill — to know if this wheat variety would
in fact result in a dietary apocalypse.
But if the history of modern
agriculture can teach us anything, it’s that GMO foods appear to have had a huge
net positive effect on the global economy and our lives. Not only have they not
killed us, in many ways GMO foods have been responsible for the massive
increases in public health and quality of life around the world.
Nevertheless, the debate over
genetically modified (GM) food is a heated one. Few contest that we are working
in somewhat murky waters when it comes to genetically modified anything. At
issue, really, is the question of whether we are prepared to use the
technologies we’ve discovered.
In other words, are we the
equivalent of a herd of monkeys armed with bazookas, unable to comprehend the
sheer destructive power we possess yet perfectly capable of pulling the
trigger?
Or do we simply face the same
type of daunting intellectual challenge as those who discovered fire,
electricity, or even penicillin, at a time when the tools to fully understand
how they worked had not yet been conceived of?
In all of those cases, we were
able to probe, study, and learn the mysteries of these incredible discoveries
over time. Sure, there were certainly costly mistakes along the way. But we were
also able to make great use of them to advance civilization long before we fully
understood how they worked at a scientific level.
Much is the same in the study and
practical use of GM foods.
While the fundamentals of DNA
have been well understood for decades, we are still in the process of uncovering
many of the inner workings of what is arguably the single most advanced form of
programming humans have ever encountered. It is still very much a rapidly
evolving science to this day.
While RNAi is not a panacea for
GMO scientists — it serves as an off switch, but cannot add new traits nor even
turn on dormant ones — the dawn of antisense techniques is likely to mean an
even further acceleration of the science of genetic meddling in agriculture. Its
tools are more precise even than many of the most recent permanent
genetic-modification methods. And the temporary nature of the technique — the
ability to apply it selectively as needed, versus breeding it directly into
plants which may not benefit from the change decades on — is sure to please
farmers, and maybe even consumers as well.
That is, unless the scientists in
Australia are proven correct, and the siRNAs used in experiments today make
their way into humans and affect the same genetic functions in us as they do in
the plants. The science behind their assertions still needs a great deal of
testing.
Still, their perspective is
important food for thought… and likely fuel for much more debate to come. One
thing is sure: the GMO food train left the station nearly a century ago and is
now a very big business
that will continue to grow and to innovate, using RNAi and other techniques to
come.
Regards,
Alex Daley
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