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GENE FOOD AND HEALTH
Rainer K. Liedtke, M.D.
 
The small-print parts of this paper may be skipped. They serve as supplementary background information.
 
IS GENE FOOD "HEALTHY" ?
From a medical point of view, a clear and strong No. According to currently available independent scientific findings, it is to be assumed that, for consumers, the consumption of genetically manipulated food plants involves a clearly higher health risk than the consumption of their usual biologically natural food. Therefore, the disapproval among the population*) to a substitution of natural biologically conformal food by genetically manipulated products is absolutely justified. That disapproval is further increased by the fact that manufacturers of such genetically manipulated products apparently try to play down their risks and consequences by means of obscure information**).
*) As shown, among other things, by the Swiss Referendum against the production of gene food, that risk potential now is increasingly noticed by the general public. According to an Emnid survey, also 70% of the people in Germany generally refuse a genetic manipulation of food. In other EU countries, the situation is comparable. This means, under regular market-economy aspects, such a kind of products should not exist on the market at all.
**) In 2005, the Higher Administrative Court of Münster had to force the firm Monsanto by judgement not to hide from the public results of a feeding study on its genetically manipulated maize (MON 863). That study showed toxic effects (see below). Although they were significant, Monsanto regarded that as meaningless and was "disappointed" about the decision obliging it to publish data that are also of relevance to the consumers.
WHAT IS "GENE FOOD"?
Although colloquially often designated as Gene Food, this is not usual "food", but new, artificial bioproducts, plants in which the natural (evolution-compliant) genetic material (genome *)) has been altered . The main objectives of the manufacturers of such products are their merely economic aims, such as extension of the production of certain kinds of plants that are "resistant" to insects or certain external influences, such as pesticides or herbicides. In part it is also argued that they can or want to "nutritionally enrich" certain components that way.
BASIC MECHANISM. When the genetic material (DNA*)) of a food plant is manipulated, it will also produce new proteins (foreign proteins) **).
*) Gene is a genetic factor that forms an individual unit of the genetic material and corresponds to one section of DNA. DNA is the abbreviation of deoxyribonucleic acid. It is the molecule in which the entire genetic information is stored. Genome means the entire genetic material of a cell or of an individual.
**) Endogenous (natural) proteins are important physical building blocks. Being natural components of our food, they play a leading role in the metabolism, among other things for growth, structure, repair of tissues (muscles, connective tissue, cartilage, bones) as well as transport processes. They are composed of numerous individual elements (amino acids) being lined up in long chains and in part forming sophisticated three-dimensional structures. Foreign proteins, on the other hand, have considerable toxic properties. They are, among other things, a component of numerous highly effective animal and vegetable poisons and act i.a. as inhibitors of vital enzymes ("biogenic poisons").
Genetically manipulated plants therefore always contain a share of new types of proteins. These are not "natural" substances, but foreign substances (xenobiotics*).
*) Xenobiotics means substances foreign to the body that neither are produced by the body itself nor belong to the group of food components (such as vitamins) essential for the human metabolism. They may include e.g. chemically synthesized substances (such as medicaments) or also substances in the food that have been newly formed.
This technique that is also designated as so-called "green" biotechnology means, technically seen, that the genetic material is rather freely poked around in because the insertion*) of individual new properties is done without sufficient knowledge of the superordinate regulation of the plant (so-called epigenetics). Therefore, one does not know in advance how the plant as a whole will respond to such an intervention by an individual new genetic factor.
*) It is a commonly used method for "inserting" genes that they shall be "injected" into the DNA in a technically mainly random manner. It is hoped that at least a few of them will find their place here and there in the DNA of the host cells. That kind of roulette then is described as a "highly precise method" in the manufacturers' PR.
**) Technically, this process is also called "recombinant DNA technology", which does not mean anything else than that natural genetic material is chemically "newly combined" with an added DNA insert ("fragment", "shred") that comes from a different organism.
The scientifically proven knowledge that a gene moreover can also generate several proteins explains some of the "surprises" that occur every now and then. As a consequence, the plants manipulated that way also show "unforeseen" changes; the genetically manipulated soy plants of Monsanto, for example show higher heat sensitivity, they are smaller and more branched, have an increased lignin*) content and an altered hormone**) balance.
*) Lignin is a constituent of the cell walls of lignified plant tissue.
**) Hormones are vital substances (so-called "messenger substances") that exercise a regulation and control function in many metabolic processes.
RISK OF THE PROCEDURE. In principle it is foreseeable that a "punctual" genetic manipulation of a plant with a foreign "DNA shred" (e.g. also from animals) will interfere with and destabilize its biological organization that has been adjusted in accordance with life so far. In the evolution of plants over thousands of years, there have occurred millions of such individual trial-and-error events, so-called mutations*). However, many of those "new productions" that resulted from mutations have not survived. Therefore, our current plants are working surviving biosystems that only resulted from that long-term experiment of nature. Now genetic manipulators again interfere, by means of arbitrary individual manipulations, into the already biologically working organisms. They do that in order to force new properties into the plants that they call "economical". Unlike in case of evolutionary mutation, that is done without taking the embedding of a plant in its natural biological environment into consideration at all. Therefore, such an activity is biologically senseless and may rather be considered a kind of warfare by chemical means against the current natural role of the plant. It is highly probable that such a procedure will also produce disorders of the biological system (e.g. disorders of the plant physiology, resistances, separation from the biological environment, new diseases) rather than "improvements".
*) Mutation is a permanent alteration of the genetic material by external influences.
ATTENTION: Often a misleading comparison with gentechnological DRUGS (e.g. human insulin) is made. This mixes apples and oranges. A drug production by means of genetically modified microbes has absolutely NOTHING to do with "green" Biotech. Only a different technical production method is used here. The resulting drug is IDENTICAl with the natural one. Consequently it does not contain - in clear contrast to a genetically manipulated plant - a contamination with toxic proteins.
A RISK CLASSIFICATION OF "GENE FOOD"
Distribution & Spreading
Food made of genetically manipulated plants, just like for example the quality of our water, affect every human being worldwide. Therefore, they are a global problem the consequences of which nobody can evade. The biological self-spreading (see below) of the plants is biologically comparable to a global infection (a pandemia) that, however, has been artificially created.
No Physiological Food
Genetically manipulated products are not natural food, but introduce into our food new foreign substances that may have considerable toxic properties. Consequently, they are a potential new risk to health that may also be regarded as "biogenic toxins". Therefore, they must be generally classified toxicologically (toxicity*), poisonousness).
Toxicity Potential
The potential dangerousness (toxicity*) is caused by new proteins**) produced by the manipulated genetic material. In most cases only little or nothing at all is known about the toxic or immunological (i.a. allergies) properties of these substances that are new to the human metabolism. With regard to the toxicity of the new proteins, the effects are not necessarily long-term effects. A study involving genetically manipulated peas showed serious pulmonary damage in mice within 2 weeks already (see below). The manufacturers of genetically manipulated products often refer to the only "low content" of such new proteins. Therefore, a toxic or allergic risk is said to be low. That is scientifically untenable. Even smallest quantities of toxic proteins from "nature" (snake venoms, jellyfish venoms, etc.) are well known and it is basic medical knowledge that allergic effects are reactions of the body already to smallest quantities of certain foreign substances. Moreover, it is also basic medical knowledge that even small doses of toxic substances when torpedoing the body regularly and over longer periods may cause massive damage there. Referring to toxic influences of proteins, it shall be additionally pointed to the fact that the lethal Creutzfeld-Jakob brain disease (BSE) is accompanied by the toxic effects of "abnormal" proteins (so-called prions), which is caused by intake with the food.
What other "creative pharmacological" effects are possible with genetically manipulated plants is shown by the creation of a gene-maize variant in Mexico that has a "spermicidal" effect, or plainly spoken: men who eat such products may become sterile.
*) Toxicity means poisonousness, harmfulness. Depending on dose and duration, a foreign substance may have a harmful effect on every biological organism. The same applies also to food components and genetically manipulated food products. In medicaments, the mostly dose-related toxicity is partly responsible for the risk involved in every medicamentous therapy. For a general determination of the toxic risk, there exist various figures on the basis of which the relation between useful (e.g. in medicaments 'therapeutic') and toxic effects can be estimated. When administering a medicament to a patient, a physician therefore always must compare the appropriateness of the positive effects to be expected with the possible toxic risks. Such risk consideration applies in the same manner to components of or residues in food - there it is part of the so-called commercial toxicology. For healthy persons, a toxic food risk therefore should be zero on principle!
**) Endogenous (natural) proteins are important physical building blocks. Being natural components of our food, they play a leading role in the metabolism, among other things for growth, structure, repair of tissues (muscles, connective tissue, cartilage, bones) as well as transport processes. They are composed of numerous individual elements (amino acids) lined up in long chains and in part form sophisticated three-dimensional structures. Foreign proteins, on the other hand, have considerable toxic properties. They are, among other things, a component of numerous highly effective animal and vegetable poisons and act i.a. as inhibitors of vital enzymes ("biogenic poisons").
THE TIP OF THE ICEBERG: examples of effects of toxic protein from genetically manipulated food:
▪ Maize. After feeding with MON 863 (Monsanto), mice showed renal alterations (inflammations), increase in white blood cells (leukocytes), frequently increased blood-sugar level.
▪ Peas. After 10 years, Australian researchers discontinued their experiments with genetically manipulated peas because they had caused immunologically induced lung diseases in mice. According to the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization, the genetically manipulated pea was resistant to insect infestation, but mice had reacted strongly to that new food. The reaction to the protein "might reflect something that might also happen in humans."
▪ Maize. Independent scientists appointed by the American Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) found that a genetically manipulated animal maize (StarLink) involved a "mean probability" of triggering allergic reactions.
▪ Maize: Prof. T. Traavic (Institute for Gene Ecology, Tromso University, Norway) examined the blood of farmers in a Philippine village who suffered from massive intestinal and respiratory diseases and found the "virus promoter" CaMV. CaMV came from the pollen of genetically manipulated "Bt-maize" (Bacillus thuringiensis) (Monsanto) that was cultivated in the surroundings of the village. In 2004, he reported at a scientific conference in Kuala Lumpur: There was a well-founded suspicion that those diseases were an immune response to that maize. There was measured an increased level of three antibodies in the blood that respond to the pesticide toxins generated in the Bt-maize.
FUTURE RISK GENE FOOD
There is a medically founded reason to fear that the manipulation of vegetable food by genetic engineering and its uncontrolled spreading will develop into such a serious health risk as it has never existed before with regard to food. In the longer term, one might even imagine a disastrous scenario corresponding to a basic health danger to the population with a pandemic character.
▪ Irreversible Long-Term Effect.
Unlike manipulations by means of mechanical devices, genotype manipulations of new "biocreations" are profound biological long-term effects like for example in global infections that continue to develop independently and cannot be turned back by external influence anymore. The medical consequences may manifest themselves at first in a creeping manner by increased allergy rates*) and/or an increase in (at first "unexplainable") "food intolerances" (long-term toxicity).
*) This is also called incidence, that is the number of new cases of a disease occuring in a population.
▪ Economic & Social Consequences.
Apart from the medical problems, the expanding production of genetically manipulated plants will also cause considerable economic and social damage. From an economic point of view, this sector (apart from a short-term advantage of individual manufacturers) can even be regarded as highly absurd because it contains the element of an increasing economic self-strangling behaviour. Under social aspects, the overall consequences appear to be disastrous: Increasing health problems among the population due to an increased use of pesticides (as a consequence of new resistances), waste of land by additional land clearance (monocultures). Such areas are only usable for a short period because the soil nutrient resources are quickly exhausted (monoculture), resulting in more fallow land (which in turn is exposed to soil erosion with additional negative climatic effects). A (moreover expensive) "alternative" would be an additional loading of the soil by increased application of chemical fertilizers. The reduced food variety in the producing regions forces them into increased and expensive new food import dependencies (that to an increasing extent cannot be economically financed by exports from such regions): increasing regional unemployment and economic dependencies of the farmers*). To even try and fight the "hunger in the world" with the help of such mechanisms can be considered nothing but absurd.
* This overall economic and social mechanism has already been described in the "Long-term Study Argentina" (Monsanto Soy) in a TV report entitled "Argentinien: Der Teufelskreis Gen-Soja" (Argentina: "The Vicious Circle of Gene Soy" ) (October 27, 2005, ARTE by M. Robin, G. Martin, F. Boulègue, www.arte-tv.com). The activities of Monsanto have also been analyzed for different world regions such as e.g. South America (Paraguay, Brazil), India and the USA, within a further TV documentation "Monsanto, mit Gift und Genen ("Monsanto, with poison and genes") by M. Robin et al. Arte TV, broadcasted by the German WDR, May 29, 2008). This report deals specifically with Monsanto's questionable market strategies, PR and legal campaigns against farmers that focus on the production of natural biological food.
Abuse Potential.
In principle, the doors are open for the technical possibility of a biological manipulation of food consumers by the manufacturers. The above-mentioned "spermicidal" variant appears to be one of the examples more harmless to health.
Consequences for Food Variety and Landscape.
By destroying the diversity of plants and also animals*) that are in conformity with nature, the current variety of nutrition will be restricted. In connection with that, the currently existing natural landscape will also drastically change its outer appearance. Just imagine a region like for example Tuscany in Italy with only one kind of plants or with only one sort of grapes (those, however, with potentially toxic additives). Moreover, genetically manipulated plants are infiltrating the gene pools of natural plants in a creeping manner**). The argument of a "peaceful coexistence" of natural and genetically manipulated plants spread by manufacturers of genetically manipulated goods is a myth that can be considered to have been scientifically disproved.
*) Studies in the United Kingdom (over quite a long period of 4 years) showed that gene rape on the field is also threatening the biodiversity of insect populations. A Hungarian study found a species of butterflies that had eaten gene maize to have an increased mortality rate.
**) In 2004, two independent laboratories in the USA published their test results on conventional seeds (maize, soy, rape; cited in the English paper "The Independent"): According to that, it was found that already 67% of that grain was contaminated with genetically manipulated material (by wind, dusting and other causes).
WHAT SHOULD A CONSUMER OF GENETICALLY MANIPULATED PRODUCTS PAY ATTENTION TO?
The risks connected with so-called gene-food products inevitably lead to a new dimension of personal risk prevention among the consumers of food. It seems to be the basic situation that, solely caused by a few manufacturers who arbitrarily release that new risk in the market, the consumers now are exposed to a kind of "Russian roulette" in their nutrition and moreover shall cope themselves with these risks.
  • Clear Labelling.
Food products with genetically manipulated contents must be clearly identifiable by the consumers*). Every false or misleading labelling of products made of or containing genetically manipulated plants and offered as foodstuff therefore should be classified as substantially illegal because it would have to be considered an attempt of the manufacturer to deceive the consumers and withhold their basic right of decision on their own health from them.
*) According to European (EU) directives, a label must include a respective statement if a product is genetically manipulated, contains genetically manipulated material (more than 0.9 %) or has been manufactured with the help of genetic manipulation (irrespective of whether or not foreign genome is still detectable). The statement must be in normal font size and clearly formulated as: "genetically altered", "made of genetically altered …" or "contains genetically altered …". And also restaurants or canteens must point to genetically manipulated products on their menu according to this regulation.
  • Comprehensive Proof of Safety
The manufacturers must be required to provide a complete proof of harmlessness*) of the product, a certificate on long-term toxicity (i.a. teratogenicity**), mutagenicity**), carcinogenicity**)) as well as on biological interaction (i.e. its interaction with other food). Altogether, there should be demanded more stringent rules than e.g. for medicaments because the average food consumer must not be classified as belonging to a risk group (sick persons), but generally as healthy. Due to the new risk brought into the market by the manufacturer, there must be demanded a more stringent liability (just like in the case of medicaments) that will economically indemnify the food consumer against health damage caused by the manufacturer.
*) Harmlessness is a relevant criterion e.g. for medicaments that the risk of undesirable effects connected with an application is in a justifiable proportion to the benefit. In general, it can be said that e.g. medicaments only applied in case of a mild disease should never have any serious side effects. Since such a benefit/risk relation does not exist at all with regard to natural food, genetically manipulated products must not even involve a "minimum risk" for the consumer since there did not exist a risk beforehand (such as a disease).
**) Teratogenicity means an effect to the unborn child triggering a deformation. Substances with a teratotenic effect therefore cause damage to the outer appearance that, however, are not passed on. Mutagenicity, on the other hand, is a property of substances to cause a permanent alteration of the genetic material that consequently is passed on to the descendants. Carcinogenicity is the property of substances to have a cancer-causing effect.
  • Individual Risk Prevention.
Formal control as mentioned above is one thing. Beyond that, consumers of genetically manipulated products should change their current habits with regard to food (their usual safety-related behaviour). It is recommendable to keep a kind of nutrition books, i.e. what genetically manipulated products were consumed, as well as a physical self-monitoring (like in case of medicaments) so that a connection with side effects or an "unexplainable" occurrence of diseases, if any, can be determined at an early stage.
***
 
© 2010 Rainer K. Liedtke