Genetically Engineered Foods: Too Many Unknowns

An Interview with John Fagan
By Rozella Kennedy
Issue 99, March/April 2000

Related Articles:
Sidebar: The People Fight Back
Sidebar: Breaking the Agriculture/Biotech Bond

If you live in the US, more than half of the groceries in your shopping cart could contain the products of genetic engineering. Genetically engineered (GE) crops cover over 70 million acres of US farmland, comprise half our soybean crop and a third of our corn, and fuel one of the most controversial economic, consumer, and health issues of our times. Some would even call it a moral issue, as profit-seeking agribusiness and zealous scientists continue to churn out new varieties of what some have called “Frankenstein foods.”

Certainly, humankind has engineered food for centuries--through traditional plant breeding, a practice familiar to recreational gardeners whereby two plants are crossbred in order to create hybrid strains containing favorable traits from both original plants. In this way, prettier, more flavorful, or simply hardier plants can be formed. In recent years, however, biotechnology has upped the ante considerably, enabling scientists to inject genetic material forcibly from one living thing straight into another. The term “living thing” is used quite deliberately; while the crossbred species traditionally had to be close--apples and pears, for example--it is possible today to blend genes from vastly different species. Bacterial, viral, even insect or animal (including human) genes can be injected into other species. This practice becomes a cause for concern more particularly when we are dealing with seeds and plants used for food sources, and therein lies the crux of the controversy over GE foods.

As the leading exporter of soybeans, and one of the primary producers of the world’s corn, wheat, and other grain supplies, the US has a multibillion dollar interest in fortifying its agricultural output. There are many crop-ruining pests such as insects, weeds, and viruses, as well as manmade hazards such as insecticides and chemical weed killers. On the surface, therefore, the idea of either injecting a bacterium into a plant’s DNA or using a “gene gun” to propel genetic material into a group of plant cells might seem like a scientifically sound and economically reasonable thing to do. After all, giving a tomato a flounder’s genetic code might prolong its shelf life, and creating more insect-and herbicide-resistant plants might allow us to feed more people for less money. Or so say the kingpins of agribusiness, biotechnology, and the USDA--as they nervously eye the nation’s export balance sheet.

Genetic engineering, however, has become a fiery trade issue, as other nations who have traditionally imported our grain and food products are coming to reject gene-altered food. In the UK, consumer pressure has forced leading supermarkets, restaurants, and even school cafeterias to ban GE foods. In Mexico, where corn is not only a dietary mainstay, but a part of life and folklore, the country’s biggest tortilla maker has said it will stop importing genetically modified grain. Mexico is, incidentally, the third largest importer of US food. Australia has shunned GE foods for much of its produce as well as its world-leading beef exports. Japan’s largest soybean company, Fuji Oil Co. Ltd., agreed in September 1999 to stop manufacturing GE soy protein products. The European Union issued a moratorium on GE crops in June 1999. And several other countries are avoiding imports of GE foods and seeds.

Altering the genetic structure of living organisms through biotechnology is a revolutionary technology whose long-term ramifications are simply not yet known. Some of the risks include: disruption of the ecosystem and food chain leading to loss of biodiversity creation of new weed varieties that are resistant to existing chemicals genetic pollution which could weaken the vigor and fitness of a species disruption of soil ecology and reduction of soil fertility water pollution through increased and long-term use of toxic, carcinogenic, and mutagenic agricultural chemicals crossbreeding between GE plants and wild relatives When genes are injected into another species, a “marker gene” is also included to determine if the gene splicing worked.

By accompanying the insertion gene, the marker gene, which usually provides instructions for antibiotic resistance, enables cells that have taken up the new DNA to survive when grown in the presence of an antibiotic. In this way it can be ascertained which cells have incorporated the new DNA. Cells which do not have these genes do not survive. Marker genes have the potential to produce unexpected results, such as making harmful bacteria in the environment resistant to antibiotics.

Most risky, perhaps, is the fact that once a new gene structure is released into nature, it cannot be recalled. Therefore, new genetically modified life-forms will be unleashed forever-and they may be far from good.

One of the strongest voices warning of the hazards of GE foods is that of John Fagan, a molecular biologist specializing in genetic techniques in cancer research. Increasingly concerned about the dangers of genetic engineering to humans and to the environment, he decided in 1994 to take an ethical stand against genetic applications, returning a $613,882 grant to the National Institutes of Health, withdrawing grant applications worth another $1.25 million, and urging scientists to take safer, more productive research directions. Dr. Fagan has now become one of the major spokespersons calling for better safety and environmental assessment of GE foods, and he was gracious enough to take the time to answer some of Mothering’s questions concerning GE foods and our health.