New GMOs pose one of the most current threats to the ecosystem, biodiversity and public health. Their deliberate release into the environment–in the absence of prior analysis of the actual risks, which must also be assessed over the long term, to human, animal and plant health (1)–is not acceptable. Authoritative scientists admonish politics, which in Europe as in the U.S. declares itself bent on deregulation.
New GMOs, status quo and prospects in Europe
The EU Court of Justice, on 7/25/18, disregarded the opinion of Advocate General Michal Bobek. Claiming that the new GMOs – surreptitiously called ‘new plant breeding techniques’ (NPBT,
New Plant Breeding Techniques
, or NBT, New Breeding Techniques), must be subject to the same rules already established in Europe for ‘classic’ GMOs.
What is new in genetic engineering is indeed the adoption of ‘mutagenesis’ (or ‘cisgenesis’) instead of ‘transgenesis.’ That is, genetic manipulation is carried out on the genome of a single organism, without inserting genetic traits of other organisms. In both cases, nonetheless, the plant undergoes DNA modification, which is functional in achieving different purposes. These include resistance to broad-spectrum herbicides and pesticides (e.g., glyphosate, dicamba) that are instead lethal or severely harmful to every other living species (plants, humans and animals, bees and pollinating insects).
The outgoing Commissioner for Agriculture and Rural Development, Ireland’s Phil Hogan, had already expressed disappointment with the Court of Justice’s ruling. On 24.1.19, in a meeting with a group of journalists, Hogan had stated that ”2019 will be an opportunity for global reflection and to see what the legal options are at the highest level of governments on whether we accept science or not as a basis for making decisions on these issues‘. (2) Announcing that his Lithuanian colleague Vytenis Andriukaitis, outgoing Commissioner for Health and Food Safety, ‘has already prepared the ground for a new initiative on genetic modification to revise the current GMO legislation.’
The pro-tempore chairman of the AGRI Commission in the newly elected European Parliament, Hon. Paolo De Castro, has in turn identified the de-regulation of ‘genome editing‘ techniques as a priority of the new legislature. 4.6.19, in Bucharest. Resorting to a familiar dialectic, proposed as early as the late 1990s by the biotech industry lobbies, Monsanto in the lead. Déjà vu. Behind the false vestiges of competitive industrial agriculture, the monopolistic interests of the Big 4, whose aggregate concentration on a global scale ritually eludes the authorities responsible for overseeing competition(antitrust), are carried on.
A fiery quadrennium lies ahead in the inequitable struggle between the agrochemical giants — who aim to sell the most lucrative agrotoxics, to farmers forced to depend on them thanks to new seeds (GMO or NBT as you like) — and the myriad citizens who instead clamor for Respect. Respect for ecosystems and their inhabitants, workers and children. No longer willing to believe the lies of the ‘green revolution,‘ instead ‘smoke gray,’ which continues to poison the planet.
New GMOs, the invisible empire
The deregulation of new GMOs has two main consequences:
– allow the release of genetically modified organisms into the environment without prior assessment by the competent authorities of the risks that may result. Direct and indirect risks, also related to the interaction of plants with the ecosystem and substances used in agriculture. With completely unpredictable and irreversible effects, in the short term as well as in the long and very long term. Various levels of toxicity, from allergies to endocrine interference to mutagenesis and carcinogenesis, may be added to the safe but unexplored interaction with the microbiome,
– conceal genetic manipulation from end consumers. Who are effectively excluded from the information necessary to make – precisely, informed – purchasing choices. This defeats the premise of #Ivotocolportfolio, as no one can distinguish the fruits ofsustainable agriculture from Franken-food anymore. As is already the case, on the American continent, for products derived from cloned animals and their offspring (in the absence of requirements on traceability and information).
More than 45 thousand new GMOs, in 2018 alone, were given the green light in the US. And consumAtors, in Europe and around the world, will suffer the exposure without even hearing about it. The new world order decided by the financial oligarchies is thus an uncontrolled genetic Babel unknowable to the multitudes. It is no coincidence that the United States and Canada have increased political pressure on Europe to demolish all our rules to protect the environment and health. By means of trilateral clauses, included in the CETA treaty and provided for in the TTIP, as well as threats of new tariffs on imports.
The empire of Evil unravels. The aggregate concentration of the global pesticide and seed market will allow the 4 Corporations to exert control over the needs and yields of the planet’s crops, on an ongoing basis. A noose around the throats of farmers and countries’ economies, accompanied by impunity for any ecological and public health crises that may emerge. Impunity was grabbed through special clauses, such as Investor-State Dispute Settlement, ISDS, inserted in various international agreements and toxic treaty. It is precisely in order to put an end to this abomination that we reiterate our call to our readers to sign and promote the #StopISDS and #BindingTreaty petitions for the United Nations to affirm the non-derogation of the duty of reparation for wrongful act damages. #WhoPaysPay, #WhoProvidesPay.
New GMOs, the voice of independent scientists
A molecular geneticist at King’s College London, Dr. Michael Antoniou, spoke on Euractiv on 9.7.19 to comment bluntly on statements by outgoing European Commissioners for Agriculture and Health, Phil Hogan and Vytenis Andriukaitis. (2) ‘It appears that these commissioners are following up on long-standing pressure from the biotech lobby to remove or weaken the safeguards traditionally applied to genetically modified organisms (GMOs) when it comes to products derived from new genetic modification techniques.‘ The EU Court of Justice’s 25.7.18 ruling, the researcher explains, ‘is in line with the precautionary principle and states that genetic modification techniques do not have a long history of safety and may pose risks similar to old-style GM techniques. However, it has upset the biotech lobby, which sees it as a barrier to companies‘.
‘As a genetic engineer using both old-style gene transfer and new tools of genetic modification for medical research, I can confirm that the ECJ ruling is true to the science.
In the medical research community, it is not disputed that genetic modification techniques are GM techniques that generate GMOs and that these procedures and their products carry risks that require strict regulation. Only in the biotech field is deregulation required. (…)
The truth is that genetic modification tools are still far from perfect. Research shows that they are not as precise as claimed, nor are their results predictable. They produce many unintended effects, not only at the ‘off-target’ sites but also at the intended genetic modification site. (4)
Many unwanted effects occur after the gene editing tool has finished its task, when the editing process is at the mercy of the cell’s DNA repair machinery, over which we have little or no control. (…)
Genetic manipulation causes new combinations of gene functions and thus can change the composition of plants in unexpected ways, which means they could produce new toxins or allergens or have harmful effects on wildlife. This is not pure speculation.
Numerous studies on the feeding of animals with the first generation of GM crops show how the GM diet has damaged animal health. In most cases, we do not know whether the effects were caused by the GMO or the pesticides used in its cultivation, but this is just another symptom of how incomplete our knowledge is. Would similar effects be observed by gene-modified plants? No one knows. No studies on feeding ‘new GMOs’ to animals have been published. Other studies show that GM crops have harmed wildlife in unexpected ways. (…)
Studies showing risks from GMO foods and their associated pesticides are under attack by biotech lobbyists and their allies in the scientific community. But much of that community is now dependent on industry funding and/or influenced by personal financial interests in agricultural biotechnology. This situation has led environmental anthropologist Glenn Davis Stone to lament that the scientific community has largely lost the ‘honest agents’ who should inform public policy on the risks of genetic modification technologies.‘ (5)
Networks of independent scientists have already gone public to call on European policymakers to adopt the precautionary principle on new GMOs. These organisms ‘must come under strict rules, with full recognition of the uncertainties of the genetic modification process, and must be labeled to allow farmers and consumers to choose.’ (6)
Not one but millions of Davids are taking sides against Goliath, to demand the consistent application of the rules on which European agribusiness law is based. Without demanding a priori bans but rather adequate scientific risk assessments based on independent studies. As a premise of the licensing procedures that must involve the scientific community and provide for civil society consultations. At the outcome of which there should also be full traceability and mandatory information, to operators and consumers. ‘Fromseed to fork’ and ‘from feed to fork‘, bar none. ‘Profit over People‘, enough is enough!
#Égalité!
Dario Dongo
Notes
(1) Regarding the analysis of risks associated with the release of genetically modified organisms into the environment, reference is made to the free book ‘GMOs, the Big Scam,’ at https://www.greatitalianfoodtrade.it/libri/ogm-la-grande-truffa
(4) Wolt JD, et al. (2016). Achieving Plant CRISPR Targeting that Limits Off-Target Effects. Plant Genome. 2016 Nov;9(3). doi: 10.3835/plantgenome2016.05.0047
Michael Cosicki. (2018). Repair of double-strand breaks induced by CRISPR-Cas9 leads to large deletions and complex rearrangements. Nature Biotechnology, volume 36, pages 765-771 (2018). doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/nbt.4192
Zhu C et al. (2017). Characteristics of Genome Editing Mutations in Cereal Crops. Trends Plant Sci. 2017 Jan;22(1):38-52. doi: 10.1016/j.tplants.2016.08.009
Rubina Tuladhar et al. (2019). CRISPR/Cas9-based mutagenesis frequently provokes on-target mRNA misregulation. BioRxiv. doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/583138
(5) Excerpts from Dr. Michael Antoniou’s letter referred to in footnote 3, informal translation by the author of this article
(6) Michael F. Eckerstorfer et al. (2019). An EU Perspective on Biosafety Considerations for Plants Developed by Genome Editing and Other New Genetic Modification Techniques (nGMs). Front. Bioeng. Biotechnol., 05 March 2019. doi: https://doi.org/10.3389/fbioe.2019.00031
ENSSER, The European Network of Scientists for Social and Environmental Responsibility. (2017). ENSSER Statement on New Genetic Modification Techniques: Products of new genetic modification techniques should be strictly regulated as GMOs. 25.9.17. https://ensser.org/publications/ngmt-statement/
Dario Dongo, lawyer and journalist, PhD in international food law, founder of WIISE (FARE - GIFT - Food Times) and Égalité.