Nation of Lame: Fighting GMO Controversy With Sketchy Rhetoric and Fantasy

This post will be in response to an article on Nation of Change called "81 Percent of GM Crops Approved Without Adequate Safety Studies".

These are very important questions that the writer is addressing. I don’t want to say that she did a bad job presenting the material, but i feel that if my post was going to reach such a large reader base, such as Nation of Change, I would be more careful about what I said because people will really give it to you if you post sub-par content (just scrolling through her comment section, she really received mixed reviews). 

There are legitimate concerns about the safety of GMOs but a lot of activist are approaching the situation wrong. Here’s a great example of somebody doing excellent research to debunk the “top ten myths about GMOs” 

And besides that there is a lot of research pertaining to GMO safety.

HERE is an awesome blog that helps you navigate GMO safety assessments.

Side note, I’ve come to the realization that even though I’ve had some experience through biology and chemistry classes, I still am far behind the biotech and biochem PhDs doing this research. The GMO fight is not something that can be effectively done by "lay people" unless they have received extensive training on the matter. People are making outlandish claims based on things they think they understand (claims that would be laughable in academia). The only thing us “lay people” can do is push the agenda on scientific study and provide the funds necessary for its advancement (or the alternative, receive extensive education on the matter so we can conduct our own research). I try to avoid writing about dense science, and honestly, I find it difficult to read articles by freelance journalists on scientific matters for they often fumble through the material and in some instances create wicked conspiracies of misunderstandings. I picture a journalist walking into an operating room and criticizing the physicians technique. Journalists are good writers (usually), but I don’t trust their understanding any more than I trust my own (unless they were former biochemists etc...) It’s sad because people take their word as scripture. 

End Rant.

Okay, now begin blog post.

First I wanted to complain about this:

Sarich states: 

"A new study published by the risk-assessment journal Environment International states that of the GM crops approved for planting and marketing globally” 

while the source she links you to states: 

"The authors identified 47 GM crop plants that were approved by at least one food safety regulator somewhere.”

while the final source and scientific article states:

"Our search found 21 studies for nine (19%) out of the 47 crops approved for human and/or animal consumption.”

and lists in there results the years in which each “product” was "first approved somewhere in the world for human and/or animal consumption”.

It seems like a bad game of telephone. Each succession after the original lost important content/context. Where is she getting the “marketing globally part”, maybe i’m missing it...

The most important part of this article, a point that I feel the writer was trying to pass over without much though was their claims about industry-biased data. What I feel they don’t realize is why this practice is in place.

"The FDA policy (unchanged since 1992)²⁰ places responsibility on the producer or manufacturer to assure the safety of the food, explicitly relying on the producer/manufacturer to do so: “Ultimately, it is the responsibility of the producer of a new food to evaluate the safety of the food and assure that the safety requirement of section 402(a)(1) of the act is met.” source

FANTASY: I can understand public concern with “industry-biased data” but could you imagine the governments expenses (aka tax money) on research alone if the FDA had to personally fund the research to test EVERY product that came to their door. There are not enough scientists (or tax dollars) in america for that task.

As I continued to read, the large majority of these GM crop varieties may fall under what the FDA likes to call “biosimilar”.
  

In fact, after a short scroll, the FDA calls this specific example “substantial equivalence”. The answer to this whole article lies in this scientific paper, i’m not really sure what they’re trying to prove… It almost seems like common sense why there are not exorbitant amounts of studies out there.

"Substantial equivalence relies on the premise that the safety of GM food can be assessed through a comparison with compounds or organisms of known safety. "

"The test for substantial equivalence… assesses the toxicity of the new protein the plant has been designed to produce, such as an insecticidal protein or a protein conferring herbicide tolerance. Based on the safe history of consumption of that protein in its wild-type form, the protein is deemed safe (Kuiper et al., 2001). If the test for substantial equivalence shows no differences outside what could be obtained through natural variation, then food regulators may not require further examinations.” source

FANTASY: Why would any company spend valuable money and time on a something that is not required of them? This is the sole reason that there is a lack of scientific research surrounding GMOs; the research that has been done already has been excepted as sufficient evidence of their safety in Americas case, by the FDA. 

The crops are being approved because the genes that are being used have been approved. 

I guess I should also add that by the FDAs standards, is there a lack of research surrounding GMO safety? I believe the FDA feels they would be beating a dead horse if they required any more studies. This is a common practice in the scientific world, and in fact a key question when requesting grant money is "Are you repeating experiments that have already been undertaken?"

The third most important part of this that the study was not just for crops approved in the USA, in fact the study only states that the crop was approved “somewhere”. I would be intrigued to see data on just GM crops approved for human consumption (and feed I suppose) in the US vs. scientific studies outlining their safety for consumption. 

One complaint that I have about this scientific paper is the same complaint the writer of the article had (which is actually not their point but rather a weakness the paper stated it had): the study is limited to "long-term rat feeding studies of no less than 90 days duration”. The scientific article authors try to support their short coming with this statement: 

"The present review limited the search to only include feeding studies done on rats so that the results may be comparable. It is possible that more studies may be found if the search were to be extended to other animals. However, based on what has been found for rat studies, it is unlikely that any additional studies would involve a thorough safety investigation and a detailed report of all of the 47 approved GM crops possessing one or more of the three traits. Moreover, the rat model is the accepted OECD standard for toxicological studies of this type.” source

Allow me to paraphrase: “there could be more studies out there… we just didn’t look. But hey, our study is great and I doubt anyone could do a better job than us in comparing results, don’t worry about it. And if you’re worried about it, and us using one model, forget about it, the rat model IS THE ACCEPTED OECD STANDARD FOR TOXICOLOGICAL STUDIES OF THIS TYPE BECAUSE IT IS SUBSTANTIALLY EQUIVALENT TO OTHER MODELS”. 

Doesn’t that seem a bit hypocritical? The basis for the validity of their study is the basis for the invalidity of the FDA’s substantial equivalency. Toxicological studies are done in rats to determine safety in other animals, could this possibly be the same for a gene within a plant? Idk maybe this is a null point. 

My final complaint (I swear) came to mind when Sarich stated: "There are obviously other ways to conduct safety tests, but these were not conducted either.” She doesn’t offer any support for this statement, and the original article even states that "It is possible that more studies may be found if the search were to be extended to other animals.”

Devils advocate:

A two second google search gave me an awesome website to compare scientific results pertaining to GM crop investigation. 

I searched their website for Bt maize (a herbicide resistant maize):

The results highlighted studies done using the Bt maize in the following systems:

1. honey bees
2. arthropods
3. dairy cows
4. nematodes

and many others. It’s a shame this website hasn’t been updated since 2012.

I’m still stuck on the notion that I don’t think our government would feed us poison if they knew about it. If we’re all dying, who will pay the taxes? 

There’s also a lot of mistrust and disbelief in science’s current understanding of genetic information. But, it is surprising how much we do know and understand. There is ALOT of funding and consequently research going into something called gene therapy, it’s just incredible.
Gene Therapy 1
Gene Therapy 2

This all aside, I knew there wasn’t a huge research base surrounding the safety of GMOs but i would have never guessed that this was because the FDA already feels their safety has been established. 

Do I think there should be more research surrounding GMOs? Yeah, probably (if only just to end this argument). If only there was money in independent research to determine the safety of GMOs once and for all (I feel like that’s something people would do if they were really concerned). But then again someone will always point the bias-finger at whoever funds the research. It’s a sad paradox.