"Frankenstein's Food" and the Right to Truth

From 1 July 2004, Russia significantly tightened requirements concerning products derived from genetically modified (GM) organisms. Whereas previously unmarked products were permitted to contain up to 5% GM-derived ingredients, they may now contain no more than 0.9%. By this decision, Russia brought its legislation into line with the norms of the European Community. The initiators of the new rules emphasised that labelling of GM-containing products is necessary, since every person has the right to know what they are consuming. The first transgenic plant was cultivated in 1983, and in 1992 the use of GM organisms in agriculture began (in China). The growth of the agricultural sector in the United States and attempts to supply cheap GM products to Europe gave rise to a powerful social movement directed both against American economic expansion and against the technology itself (anti-globalisation protests are partly linked to the fact that transnational corporations are involved in the creation of GM organisms). Having won one of the battles in Russia, the opponents of GM lost a more important one in Western Europe, where, after a lengthy ban, imports of agricultural GM products were ultimately permitted. Nevertheless, the campaign achieved a certain degree of success. Difficulties in marketing GM products slowed the growth of their production, although the United States, Canada, Argentina, Brazil, India and China continue to increase their volumes. Because of the intense heat of the debate, it can be difficult to evaluate the arguments put forward by the parties. The typical tactic of opponents of GM products is as follows: some adverse property of a particular food is studied not in its natural form but in its transgenic form. For example, proteins from Brazil nuts can cause allergic reactions. If these proteins are transferred into soya, the possibility of an allergic reaction to them is retained. A single registered case of such a reaction is one of the widely used arguments for banning the GM procedure. However, the allergenic properties of these proteins would also be retained when natural nuts are used in a salad, yet somehow the demand to ban the preparation of salads does not find support among activists. Probably the most widely known experiments based on this dubious logic were conducted in 1998 by Arpad Pusztai, a researcher at the Rowett Institute in Aberdeen (United Kingdom). He fed rats lectin (a toxin found in both transgenic and ordinary potatoes) and recorded adverse health consequences (an expert review found that Pusztai's experiments did not permit comparison of natural and modified potato). One of the latest pieces of news reports that phytohormones contained in GM soya provoke impotence. To discuss this conclusion seriously, it would need to be verified, and in the context of the debate about GM products it would be necessary to assess whether the recorded effect is connected with the consequences of the GM procedure (phytohormones that are adverse to libido may also be present in natural soya). However, for the majority of the population, a hasty sensation is certainly sufficient reason to stop buying not only soya but any other GM product. Remember the story of the well-off family whose spoons disappeared after a visit from poor relatives? "The spoons were found, but the bad taste lingered..." In any event, significant harm to health caused by consumption of GM products has not yet been registered. American citizens, who are adept at extracting astronomical compensation from companies that failed to warn them that spilling hot coffee on themselves could result in a burn, have not — over ten years of intensive consumption of transgenic food — found grounds to bring legal action against its producers. The possibility of GM organism genes spreading through natural processes appears not to be fabricated: it has been documented in several quite rigorous studies. However, opponents and proponents of GM products differ greatly in their assessment of this fact. The former speak of ecological catastrophe. The latter point out that horizontal transfer of genetic material (facilitated in particular by viruses, which genetic engineers also employ) has occurred in nature since time immemorial and has not caused any catastrophe. What GM products are we talking about? In introducing the category of GM organisms, we group them not on the basis of common properties but according to the criterion of the specific method used to produce them. Examples of GM organisms: — tomatoes that can be stored for several months at a temperature of 12 degrees Celsius and then ripen rapidly when placed in warmth (optimal for the production of ketchups); — so-called golden rice, enriched with carotene, designed to combat vitamin deficiency in poor countries; — soya resistant to Roundup (a pesticide whose application to fields is guaranteed to eliminate weeds); — soya whose amino acid composition of proteins (and their nutritional value) is brought closer to that of animal products; — potato that accumulates a toxin from a soil bacterium, lethal to the Colorado beetle but harmless to humans; — crop varieties (both food and industrial, such as cotton) resistant to disease, drought, frost and soil salinity; Currently on sale are sausages, pates, chocolate, sauces, crisps, carbonated drinks and other products containing transgenic proteins and DNA. In a number of cases, the producers themselves may not be aware of all the characteristics of the raw materials they use. However, the situation can be clarified by analysis that determines the presence in a product of DNA sequences characteristic of the vectors used in the GMO procedure to transfer new information into the genome of the modified species. Mythology In addition to the merits and drawbacks of GM technology, one should also recall the myths that have attached themselves to it. We shall cite only one example from among many. — Remember what you get when you cross a hedgehog with a snake? Barbed wire. But tomatoes that receive genes from deep-sea sharks remain tomatoes, while acquiring the ability to be stored at room temperature for more than six months without spoiling. <...> After all, before swallowing food, does a person not have the right to know whether it contains the genes of a scorpion or a deep-sea shark? — G. Shishkin. The same theme was developed on air by Mayak Radio by T. B. Dmitrieva, a member of the Presidium of the Academy of Medical Sciences, and A. G. Golikov, Director of the Centre for Risk Management Policy in the Genetic Engineering of Living Organisms. Dmitrieva: ...we were talking about a tomato that can keep for six months. They added one gene from a North Atlantic herring, or something of that sort. Golikov: You are referring, obviously, to the gene of the flounder. That is one of the oldest myths and tricks. A tomato with a flounder gene never existed. People began to wonder why a deep-sea flounder is resistant to cold. It emerged that it has cryoproteins, and two businessmen (and all of this took place at some reception over cocktails) fell into conversation about the fact that if these cryoproteins could be obtained in a tomato, it too would become frost-resistant... This is truly anecdotal, and as for the tomato with delayed ripening, they simply removed the gene responsible for ripening. That is all. What drives proponents of GM to overcome fierce resistance? On the one hand, of course, profits. But their opponents are not unmindful of business either. A paradox emerged in Russia, where at conferences demanding a ban on GM organisms, so-called "ecologists" ("the greens") sit alongside producers of pesticides. Unlike the hypothetical harm from transgenic organisms, the harm from pesticides has been demonstrated repeatedly and very convincingly. For example, in debating the permissibility of spreading GM potato resistant to the Colorado beetle, one must take into account, among other things, the damage caused by chemical pest-control agents. The Centre for Bioengineering of the Russian Academy of Sciences offered a prize of $10,000 to anyone who could provide substantiated data on the harm inflicted on human health by the Colorado-beetle-resistant potato. The prize has not been claimed. The potato varieties created by this centre have been undergoing safety testing for the past three years; the stipulated research will be completed next year. What will become of the business of pesticide producers if this potato enters widespread use? On the other hand, apart from immediate market conditions, there are weighty strategic considerations that drive the transition to GM varieties. Their productivity is 15-25% higher than that of conventional varieties, they require far fewer pesticides and fertilisers, and the agricultural technologies needed for their cultivation are less resource-intensive. United Nations experts see no possibility of meeting the food requirements of the Earth's population, which in the coming decades will grow by several billion. The development and introduction of GM technologies could feed all the new mouths until such time as population growth rates decline for natural reasons. One of the technologies of particular importance to hungry nations is the introduction into plant proteins of essential amino acids characteristic of animal food. This would not only save the lives of many who are starving but would also spare them from alimentary dementia (a weakening of mental capacity caused by inadequate nutrition). Humanity stands before a sobering fact. Its population is far greater than what could be sustained by "natural" technologies. The call to "return to the way of life of our great-grandparents" must be supplemented with specific recommendations as to what to do with those for whom resources would be insufficient. Until such recommendations exist, dreams of a simple and natural life remain a utopia. As public opinion surveys show, a significant proportion of the population does not know what genetically modified organisms are, and yet considers GM products to be dangerous — if only because they contain genes that are foreign to humans. But all food contains genes that are foreign to humans. Like all other animals, we can subsist only on other organisms or their remnants, which virtually inevitably contain DNA. Bread, for instance, is a product made from the seeds of plants (which contain DNA) processed by unicellular fungi (whose cells contain their own DNA). The dough is kneaded with water containing living or dead microorganisms — and therefore their DNA as well. One can also add other DNA-containing products to bread (eggs, spices), spread it with butter containing bovine DNA, and place on it fish roe containing the DNA of fish... A cell is not an environment in which any foreign genetic information can simply be set running. The method for obtaining a dinosaur — popularised in Jurassic Park — by transferring its DNA into a toad's egg cell is implausible. The result would merely be a toad's egg cell with a destroyed hereditary apparatus. In the procedure of genetic modification or treatment of genetic diseases, two non-trivial problems must be solved: how to deliver the required DNA to the nucleus, and how to make it function there. So does a person have the right to know what they eat? Of course they do. But they also have the right to a proper understanding of that knowledge. What does the average person know about modified organisms? That they are somehow dangerous. That people protest against them. That their presence is specially flagged with warnings (harmful, presumably). That scientists, as always, say something incomprehensible. No — it is frightening all the same! The earliest democracies, in which the form of governance now recognised as optimal was taking shape, had serious electoral qualifications. For instance, only a free adult male who owned a certain amount of property might hold the right to vote. Beyond the understandable reasons connected with the ruling class's desire to retain power, there was also a fairly sensible idea at work here. Only those people from whom independent opinion could reasonably be expected were able to influence decisions on matters submitted to the democratic process. The opinion of an illiterate slave or of a girl who had never ventured beyond the women's quarters of the house was not counted — it was not independent. Only comparable votes can be counted on a one-for-one basis! We live in an era of universal literacy and the potential for inner freedom that extends to all members of society. Any electoral qualification is now meaningless. But how does one account for the difference in the degree of independence of different people's points of view? A person of sufficient culture will not seek to impose their opinion in a field in which they have no expertise — but are all people such? The rapidly improving technologies of advertising, public relations, campaigning, propaganda, social campaigns, and other forms of brainwashing only reduce the proportion of opinions that can be considered independent. On the one hand, the question of what should be consumed as food is the most democratic of all, requiring consideration of the opinion of every member of society. On the other hand, what is the value of the opinion of a person who does not know what genetically modified products are, yet is convinced that they are harmful? D. Shabanov. "Frankenstein's Food" and the Right to Truth // KT, Moscow, 2004. Issue 26-27 (550-551). Pp. 18-19.