Genetically Modified Food: Unsafe Until Further Notice

By Martha R. Herbert

c.2001 Hearst Newspapers

Bioengineering companies, the federal government, and even the American Medical Association (AMA) are asking consumers to take a leap of faith with respect to foods containing genetically modified organisms (GMOs).

While defects in an experimental car would become quickly apparent, it will take far more exhaustive genetic and environmental testing before we know whether or not a particular genetically altered corn oil or potato is safe for human consumption.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration, however, recently announced plans to approve new genetically altered foods: All that is required is for manufacturers to notify the agency 120 days before putting the product on the market and promise that it is ``substantially equivalent'' to a conventional counterpart. And don't look for labeling on genetically altered foods and ingredients; the FDA has ruled that labeling is purely voluntary.

After years of evidence pointing to the risks of GMO ingredients, the FDA appears to have no interest in testing to protect consumers from known and potential risks.

``Substantial equivalence,'' an unsubstantiated hypothesis, asserts that plants whose fundamental genetic structure has been permanently altered are no different from naturally occurring varieties. In making this claim, manufacturers only have to perform cursory tests for safety, nutrition, flavor, and texture.

Although scientists are well aware that genetic engineering can produce unexpected, often highly undesirable, effects, there is no current testing or health monitoring to detect these health and environmental curve-balls.

In 1989, for example, tryptophan, an essential amino acid sold in the U.S. as a nutritional supplement, was manufactured in a new way from a genetically altered bacteria. Over time, thousands of people who took tryptophan from this batch became ill, 1,500 were permanently disabled, and 37 died.

Subsequently, very sensitive chemical testing showed that although the tryptophan was 99.6 percent pure, and thus ``substantially equivalent,'' the genetically engineered bacteria had unexpectedly introduced a tiny amount (0.01 percent) of an extremely toxic Contaminant. If the FDA had insisted on more thorough testing, using animal or human subjects, this product would never have been allowed on the market.

The headlong race by the biotech industry to genetically modify hundreds of commercially valuable plants is worrisome enough, but the recent ``clean bill of health'' for these products by the AMA is inexcusable. In sharp contrast, the British Medical Association called for a moratorium on planting GMO crops in the U.K. several years ago.

Even in this country, the National Environmental Health Association passed a resolution calling for clear labeling of GMO foods. Overseas, the 15-member European Union is about to impose "the toughest legislation in the world'' on genetically engineered organisms.

The recent declaration by the AMA's Council on Scientific Affairs that foods with altered genes are completely safe runs totally counter to the rising tide of world medical opinion. The AMA's recommendation that ``there is no scientific justification [now] for special labeling . . . of [such] foods'' was the product of an uncritical examination of the few studies published during a period when there has been no real requirement for corporate testing results that are unavailable for outside safety verification. While scientists question how these in-house tests are done, the AMA goes right along with the FDA, ignoring the matter entirely. If the AMA were truly serious about upholding ``sound science'' to protect public health, it would acknowledge that adequate scientific research has not been done, and that there is no basis for assuring food safety.

Finally, the AMA has forgotten the physician's basic credo ``first do no harm'' - by timidly suggesting that the common use of antibiotic resistance marker genes to implant foreign genetic material into cells should ``be avoided, if possible.''

The British Medical Association is very clear on this point: These ``marker genes'' are capable of entering disease-causing bacteria, making them, too, resistant to antibiotics and thus harder to control. Still, the AMA reaches the astonishing conclusion that there is ``no scientific justification for special labeling'' of GMO foods.

It is unreasonable to ask the American public to risk so much with - no choice in the matter -when fundamental questions are still unanswered. Until thorough and independent scientific research provides genuine assurances about the long-range safety for health and the environment of these unprecedented products, caution is the only rational course.

--Martha Herbert is a pediatric neurologist and researcher at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, and a board member of the Council for Responsible Genetics.