* Commissioned by La Via Campesina, this document was delivered to Pope Francis on April 30, 2014 by Ana Maria Primavesi, Andres E. Carrasco, Elena Alvarez-Buylla, Pat Mooney, Paulo Kageyama, Rubens Nodari, Vandana Shiva and Vanderley Pignati
Introduction
Almost twenty years of transgenic crops. What have they given us? Contrary to what the companies promised, the reality of transgenic crops, based on official statistics from the United States – the largest producer of transgenic crops worldwide – shows that they have had lower productivity per hectare than the seeds that were already on the market, but have meant an exponential increase in the use of agrotoxins. (Benbrook, 2012; Gurian-Sherman, 2009).
This also resulted in strong negative impacts on both public health[1] and the environment in every country where they have been grown on a large scale. GM crops have been a key instrument in facilitating the largest corporate concentration in the history of food and agriculture.
Six transnational corporations control all of the GM crops grown commercially in the world. These same six are the largest global manufacturers of agrochemicals, which explains why 85% of GM crops are engineered to resist high doses of herbicides and pesticides, since this is the sector that brings them the greatest profits (ETC Group, 2013b).
Have they served to alleviate world hunger? No. Furthermore, as a result of the advance of the industrialization of the food chain by agribusiness corporations, since 1996, the year in which GMOs began to be planted, the number of malnourished and obese people has increased, a phenomenon that is now synonymous with poverty, not wealth. (FAO, 2012; WHO, 2012).
The planting of transgenic crops accelerated the displacement of small and medium-sized producers, impoverishing them, while replacing a large part of the workforce with machinery, increasing rural unemployment. For example, in Argentina, transgenic crops and their so-called “sowing pools” led to a real “reverse agrarian reform”, eliminating a large part of small and medium-sized agricultural establishments. According to the censuses of 1988 and 2002, 87,000 establishments disappeared in those years, of which 75,293 were smaller than 200 hectares, a process that continues with the same trend (Teubal, 2006). The consequence is that today, 80% of the cultivated surface is leased by 4,000 investment funds: it is not a model to feed, it is an agricultural platform for speculation.
They have aggravated the problems for the foundations of the planet’s survival. In the same period in which GM crops began to be planted, the climate crisis became seriously aggravated and eight of the nine most serious environmental problems on the planet, defined by the Stockholm Resilience Center as the “planetary limits” that we cannot transgress if we want the Earth to survive, became more serious. Seven of them: climate change, loss of biodiversity, ocean acidification, pollution and depletion of fresh water, soil erosion, excessive amounts of phosphorus and nitrogen dumped into seas and soils and chemical contamination, are directly related to the corporate industrial system of food production, in which GM crops are its central paradigm. (Rockström, 2009; ETC Group, 2013a, GRAIN, 2011).
Do we need GM crops? A wide variety of small-scale and peasant food systems currently feed 70% of the world's population: 30-50% of this figure is provided by small agricultural plots, 15-20% by urban gardens, 5-10% by artisanal fishing and 10-15% by wild hunting and gathering (ETC Group, 2013a). This is a healthier food production, mostly free of pesticides and GMOs. Food from the agro-industrial food system, on the other hand, only reaches 30% of the population, but uses 75-80% of arable land and 70% of water and fuel for agricultural use (GRAIN, 2014). From harvest to homes, 50 % of food in the industrial chain ends up in the trash.
To feed the world, we do not need uniform, high-tech, high-risk crops in industrial systems. We need a diversity of seeds, in the hands of millions of small and medium-sized farmers and producers. The advance of agribusiness corporations, with GMOs and agrotoxins, seriously threatens this option, which is the one that already feeds the poorest and the majority of humanity.
1. Technology full of uncertainties and inaccurate
Contrary to what the biotechnology industry claims, transgenic technology is an inexact technique, over which there is no control over its consequences. It is fairly easy to isolate different DNA sequences from different organisms and to glue them together to form a transgene. However, it is currently impossible to introduce this sequence intact into a given locus of the genome. It is also not possible to control how many intact copies or parts of the modified sequence will be integrated into the genome of the host organism. And even more difficult is to prevent any interaction of these sequences with the other genes of the host. It is impossible to control the gene expression of the inserted transgenes, or the dispersion or disruption of the transgenes into new locations in the genome.
For all these reasons, it is impossible to predict what the impact of transgenes will be on the genomes or genetically modified organisms and on the environments where they are released. In these artificially modified organisms, restrictions of life have been broken, limits that are not even well understood in science. They will give rise to unprecedented forms of biological interaction and evolution with consequences and uncertainties for biodiversity that we cannot enumerate either (Filipecki and Malepszy, 2006). Releasing transgenic organisms into the environment implies a global experiment that impacts the natural dynamics of life and of all humanity, unilaterally decided by a handful of corporations and some governments.
In contrast to the scientific evidence supporting the above, the sectors that defend the genetic modification of organisms assume as true that genetically modified organisms (GMOs) will have the same behaviors as those observed in the laboratory once released into nature, that is, they are equivalent to non-genetically modified organisms.
They claim that GMOs “are natural” and that “they are new varieties” assuming that the experimental technique used is precise, safe and predictable and that it is equivalent to conventional breeding done in agriculture.
This is a serious mistake and shows a lack of knowledge on the part of the biotechnology field regarding the theories and knowledge of contemporary biology. The conception of those who generate GMOs does not take into account the natural restrictions on genetic recombination, the role of time in the genesis of diversity and the appreciation of the natural mechanisms that sustain it through organic evolution. Both the evolutionary process and the varieties of species are based on sexual reproduction, the recombination of genetic material, and biological and environmental mechanisms that restrict and regulate the dynamics of the genome within each generation and across them during evolution. Recombinant DNA biotechnology, on the other hand, has broken important restrictions on the evolutionary recombination of genetic material, without us yet understanding the nature or the role of many of these restrictions that have been established by organic evolution itself.
It is crucial to understand that in any engineering modification of the genome, the biological time necessary to stabilize the varieties and the evolutionary process and history of the species, which are not altered in breeding using conventional methods, disappear for the sake of the technological procedure. This happens because the instantaneous nature of genome manipulation is used to obtain “new varieties.”
Insisting that traditional crop adaptation and food species improvement procedures can be equated with the genetic modification techniques of designer organisms proposed by the industry is a reductionist, obsolete and frivolous idea, given the level of knowledge we currently have.
To claim that 10,000 years of human agricultural improvement and laboratory design modification are the same thing is to ignore human agricultural culture, developed by millions of peasants in thousands of different biogeographical and climatic situations, which has respected natural mechanisms over all this time, selecting new varieties from populations originating through crossbreeding until finding and stabilizing the appropriate phenotype. These processes of adaptation and adjustment of crop characteristics carried out by agricultural communities over the years also permanently test their impacts on human health and on the environments where the new varieties are generated.
But more importantly, this improvement is not the result of a simple change in the DNA sequence, or of the addition or loss of genes, but rather the consolidation of an adjustment in the functioning of the genome as a whole (the notion of a fluid genome) that respects the genome's restrictions against recombination, which therefore makes the resulting variety useful and predictable (that is why it becomes a new variety). This adjustment may involve genes associated with the new phenotype, but accompanied by many adjustments of an epigenetic nature (non-genetic factors or chemical processes of the development of organisms) and which are mostly unknown to us. Thus, a new variety represents a comprehensive improvement of the phenotype for a given condition where surely the entire genome was affected, given its fluidity, with a physiological adjustment in accordance with the time of nature and respect for the history of each species.
This new knowledge of genetics is not taken into account in the analysis, projection and risk assessment of GMOs that are developed and released, since for the conceptual framework that supports transgenics, a gene or a set of genes introduced into a plant or animal embryo in a laboratory are sufficient elements of analysis. By definition, the natural conditions of the natural biological processes of epigenetic regulation and “fine tuning” that lead to the construction of phenotypes in nature are not respected, as occurs in traditional improvement and in the natural evolution of organisms.
In reality, genetically modified organism technology violates biological processes by using rudimentary, dangerous procedures with uncertain consequences that involve mixing genetic material from different species. Transgenesis not only alters the structure of the modified genome, but also makes it unstable over time, produces disruptions or unwanted activations of host genes and directly or indirectly affects the functional state of the entire genome and the regulatory networks that maintain its dynamic equilibrium, as demonstrated by the variation in the phenotypic response of the same genotype to environmental changes (Álvarez-Buylla 2009, 2013).
The classical concept of the gene as the fundamental unit of a rigid genome, conceived as a “meccano”, as a machine predictable from the sequences of the genes and the assumption that their products can be isolated, recombined and manipulated without consequences, is an expression of an obsolete scientific reductionism, which has been widely refuted and whose falsity has been demonstrated. This epistemological level has been widely criticized by thinkers such as Richard Lewontin.[2] and others, and supported by various scientific articles on the importance of interactions between genes, the importance of the mechanisms of regulation of their expression at the epigenetic level, which confirm dynamic changes in the effects of an organism's own genes and also of the genomes in their responses to the environment and even to food.
The insistence on epistemologically considering GMOs as “natural” varieties instead of assuming them as foreign bodies or industrial artifacts, which, when installed by human hands in nature, alter the course of evolution, is more of an arrogant and omnipotent position than a scientific one, which does not take into account the most up-to-date scientific knowledge. This apparent ignorance is in most cases driven by conflicts of interest, since there are direct or indirect financing relationships between those who support these positions and agribusiness transnationals that profit from GMOs. In other cases, pro-GMO scientists defend their careers, anchored in outdated paradigms, and their prestige, which depends on the same agro-industrial interests, as well as their ability to do business by licensing their patents to large companies.
Complexity is not a theoretical position, but rather an integral configuration of nature. In the process of understanding it, disassembling nature into fragmented pieces “for its understanding” is increasingly insufficient.
What the transgenic industry intends to do by avoiding the debate on the logic that sustains it is to bring about a virtuous closure of a technology that was born in laboratories to understand processes at a limited level at a molecular level, expanding it in nature without credible or predictable criteria.
The process of generating organisms, we repeat, is ungraspable. We can study it, but we must take into account the limits that the physiology of the fluid genome has been showing. Altering an organism with a piece of its own or someone else's DNA will impact its entire physiology, and using the natural environment —or human food— as a laboratory is an unacceptable experiment.
There are several studies on this type of unpredictable alterations. One very illustrative one reports the alteration in the protein profile of a transgenic corn variety (MON810) that expresses 32 different proteins, compared to the protein expression of conventional corn (Agapito-Tenfen et al, 2013).
GMOs, which are currently in the eye of the storm, bring to the forefront the strange and increasingly evident relationship between reductionist scientific thought and the ideology that sustains neoliberal hegemony. The need to establish a legitimising narrative from science that denies any impact of GMOs on nature or health, that supports the simplification that there is equivalence between non-modified foods and GMOs, that defines them simply as new varieties, is the equivalent of silences about the complexity of the genome and the consequences of interfering in it.
In the concept of “genome fluidity,” genes lose their ontological definition and become part of a relational complexity that challenges the hierarchical linearity of classical genetics, replacing it with a complex functional network. Examples of complexity include, among others, the controlled changes during DNA development (amplification or reduction) in normal embryonic cells under the regulation of the cellular environment, transgenerational epigenetic inheritance, or the network of modulating regulatory processes (cytoplasmic and/or nuclear) of transcription products, which sustain the variability of phenotypes. These are examples of genome fluidity where genes appear subordinated to cellular signals to sculpt each phenotype (Fox Keller, 2013).
In short, industrial agriculture and its introduction of genetically modified crops not only filled the environment with agrotoxins and transformed global food production into a commodity for the interests of transnational corporations, but also created the device of a science that legitimized the procedures used for genomic modification, ignoring its uncertainties and risks.
This genetic colonialism deliberately ignores current genetic knowledge in order to justify genomic manipulation, challenging the integrity of ecosystems and putting human beings at risk. Transgenesis as an industrial process turned to nature has little to do with science and a lot to do with rudimentary methods.
Cutting-edge technologies for generating GMOs not only collide with peasant knowledge and ancestral wisdom, but also with the most current scientific views on biological complexity. This conceptual fragility questions the scientific basis of transgenesis and displaces it from the realm of science to that of lucrative speculation.
2. GM crops, rather than an agricultural technology, are a corporate instrument of agricultural control
Never in the history of agriculture and food has there been such a concentration of seeds, the key to the entire food web, in so few corporations. The six largest agrochemical manufacturers in the world control 761 TP3T of the global agrochemical market. The same six are among the largest seed corporations in the world, controlling 601 TP3T of that market. And these six control 1001 TP3T of the global market for genetically modified seeds. (ETC Group, 2013a and 2013b).
Since practically the same companies control the development of GMOs and the trade in agrotoxins and seeds, both GMO and non-GMO, they give priority to the promotion of GMOs for two reasons:
to) Being resistant to certain herbicides, they ensure sales of seeds and inputs;
b) Because seeds are engineered, they are patented, making it illegal for farmers to save part of their crop for the next planting season, ensuring companies new sales each season and even extra profits by suing farmers whose plots become “contaminated” with patented transgenes. Hundreds of lawsuits have been filed against farmers in the United States for this reason, and this is the path that is being followed by all countries that adopt them (Center for Food Safety, 2013).
To ensure that they have complete control over farmers, agribusiness corporations have also developed a technology that acts as a “biological patent”: Genetic Use Restriction Technologies (GURT), popularly known as “Terminator” technologies. This method develops suicidal seeds: they can be planted, they produce grain, but they become sterile once harvested, forcing farmers to buy new seeds for each planting. This technology has been condemned internationally as immoral and there is a moratorium against it in the United Nations, but due to pressure from companies, it could be legalized in Brazil in the coming months (Convention on Biological Diversity, 2000; ETC Group, 2014).
For all these reasons, allowing GMOs in a country means handing over sovereignty, the decision-making over a vital aspect of survival, such as food, to a few transnational corporations. It violates the rights of farmers to replant their own seeds, a recognition even recognized by the FAO, due to the legacy of 10,000 years of agriculture with which peasants have contributed to the sustenance of all humanity.
3. The reality: they produce less
There are several academic studies on the productivity of GM crops (from the universities of Kansas, Nebraska and Wisconsin, among others), which show that GM crops, on average, produce less per hectare than hybrid crops.
The most comprehensive and detailed study of GMO productivity to date is the one coordinated by Dr. Doug Gurian-Sherman of the Union of Concerned Scientists of the United States, entitled “Failure to Yield,” which analyzes 20 years of experimentation and 13 years of commercialization of transgenic corn and soybeans in the United States, based on official figures from that country (Gurian-Sherman, 2009).
It shows that genetically modified crops played a marginal role in increasing agricultural production in the United States, while conventional hybrids or organic crops contributed significantly to the increase in agricultural yields in the country as a whole.
In the case of soybeans, GMOs decreased production per hectare in net terms (a fact that is repeated everywhere), while in herbicide-tolerant corn there was neither a decrease nor an increase, and in insecticidal corn (with the Bt toxin) there was a slight increase of 0.2-0.3% annually, which accumulated to 3-4% in the 13 years analyzed. This increase was recorded in areas of very frequent attacks by the pest for which they are manipulated, a pest that practically does not exist in the countries of the South.
The most significant fact is that the total increase in productivity per hectare of corn in those years, throughout the United States, was 13 %, meaning that 75-80% of the increase was due to non-GM varieties and production approaches. In short: if GM crops had not been planted in the United States, total corn production would have been higher.
4. They use many more agrochemicals, which are increasingly more dangerous.
Genetically modified crops have led to an unprecedented increase in the use of agrotoxins (increasingly toxic herbicides and pesticides). This translates into very serious environmental and public health problems. In the three countries that are the main producers of genetically modified crops (the United States, Brazil and Argentina), which together produce almost 80% of the global harvest, there is already clear and worrying evidence of this.
A scientific report published in 2012 (Benbrook) analyses the use of pesticides in the United States on transgenic soybeans, corn and cotton from 1996 to 2011 and shows that transgenic varieties increased the use of pesticides by more than 183 million kilograms in those sixteen years. The United States is the largest and oldest producer of transgenic crops, so the data on the performance of transgenic crops in that country are significant at a global level. The report specifies that while crops with the Bt toxin could have reduced the use of pesticides by 56 million kg, herbicide-tolerant crops caused an increase of 239 million kg in the use of these pesticides, which explains the general average increase of 183 million kilos of pesticides in 16 years.
The study shows that the reduction in herbicide use with Bt crops—which has been used by the biotechnology industry to argue vaguely that GMOs reduce the use of pesticides—has been minimised each year, since due to the resistance generated in pests, it is necessary to use more and more pesticides. On the other hand, the industry is removing seeds that only contain the Bt gene from the market. The new generations of transgenic seeds are a combination of Bt toxin and genes for tolerance to one or more herbicides, thus prioritising the heavy use of these pesticides. In the case of Bt corn, the magnitude of the increase in increasingly toxic herbicides “cancels out any modest one-off reduction in pesticides that has occurred in the 16 years analysed.” (Benbrook, 2012).
On the other hand, due to the intensive use of herbicides, there are dozens of weeds resistant to pesticides, which has motivated companies to genetically manipulate crops to make them tolerant to increasingly stronger herbicides, such as 2-4,D (one of the components of Agent Orange used as a biological weapon in the Vietnam War); ammonium glufosinate, dicamba and others. This new generation of herbicides is much more toxic and has greater carcinogenic potential. Farmers in the United States have expressly expressed their opposition because spraying dries up crops on neighboring farms. Charles Benbrook maintains that if crops resistant to 2-4,D are approved, the use of this powerful pesticide will increase by 50% (Union for Concerned Scientists, 2013).
In Brazil, since the planting of GMO crops in 2003, the consumption of agricultural toxins has increased by more than 200% and continues to increase by approximately 15% per year. Brazil has become the largest consumer of agrotoxins in the world since 2008, using more than 850 million liters annually, equivalent to 20% of the world's production of these. The average consumption rate of agrotoxins in Brazil is 5.2 kg of active ingredient per hectare, which, together with Argentina, is among the highest averages in the world (Menten, 2008).
In studies carried out in Mato Grosso, the Brazilian state with the largest volume of industrial agricultural production and also of transgenic soy, serious environmental and health damages have been confirmed, not only in rural areas but also in urban areas. In 2006, in the municipality of Lucas do Rio Verde, MT, toxic rain fell on the urban area due to the spraying of the area with paraquat by farmers to dry soybeans for harvest. The wind spread the toxic cloud, drying thousands of ornamental plants and gardens, 180 beds of medicinal plants and all the vegetables in 65 farms around the city, which has 37 thousand inhabitants. (Pignati, Dores, Moreira. et al.: 2013). Subsequently, studies carried out between 2007 and 2010 in the same municipality found contamination by various agrochemicals in 83% of drinking water wells (city and schools), in 56% of water samples in school yards and in 25% of air samples taken over 2 years. High percentages of residues of one or more agrochemicals were also found in breast milk, urine and human blood. (Pignati, Dores, Moreira et al.: 2013).
In Argentina, there are 23 million hectares of genetically modified crops out of 33 million hectares of cultivated land, which has resulted in an exponential increase in the use of agrochemicals, particularly glyphosate. 250 million liters of glyphosate are used per year out of a total of 600 million liters of agrochemicals, on an area occupied by 11 million inhabitants, which on average means 6 liters of glyphosate and 10 liters of agrochemicals per inhabitant. In 2012, new versions of soybean and corn seeds were approved that carry several “stacked” genetic modifications, that is, they combine the expression of the insecticidal toxin Bt with resistance to the herbicides glyphosate and glufosinate (the latter induces malformations in laboratory animals by competing with glutamine). This will enable producers in the near future to spray these crops with both chemicals at the same time, which will increase the level of contamination and the risk to environmental and human health.
5. They involve high risks to agrobiodiversity and the environment
Superweeds. The existence of at least 24 invasive weeds or grasses resistant to glyphosate and other pesticides has been documented, a direct result of the massive increase in the use of poisons associated with GMOs. In a study published in December 2013, the Union of Concerned Scientists of the United States indicated that there are resistant weeds in 50% of agricultural farms, and in southern states, where the problem is greater, one or more glyphosate-resistant weeds are found in 92% of farms (Union of Concerned Scientists, 2013). Similar situations are repeated in Argentina, Brazil and India, where resistant invasive weeds are an increasing problem, both in number of species and geographic spread.
Contamination of native and creole seeds. The erosion and potentially irreversible alteration of natural and agricultural biodiversity is a serious global problem, which is rapidly becoming more acute with transgenic crops. (Alvarez Buylla, Piñeyro Nelson, 2009). Biodiversity and local and peasant knowledge are the keys to the variety and diversity of adaptations to climate change. With transgenic contamination, this diversity is threatened, both by the consequences on plants and by leaving peasants with damaged seeds, with patented recombinant sequences (transgenes) or without access to their seeds.
It is important to emphasize that transgenic crops are not “just another option,” as could be said of hybrids. Once transgenic crops are in the field, contamination of other non-transgenic crops and accumulation of recombinant sequences in the genomes of varieties, whether hybrid, native or criollo, is inevitable; either through pollination by wind and insects or through transfer, transportation and storage of grains and seeds.
In addition to affecting biodiversity, GM contamination is the cause of lawsuits for “misuse” of patented genes promoted by agribusiness corporations. Although commercial planting of GM crops is only permitted in 27 countries and 98% is only allowed in 10 countries, 396 cases of GM contamination of crops have been found in more than 50 nations (GeneWatch 2013).
The contamination of native seeds represents a new risk for them: transgenic seeds contain genes from species that would never naturally cross with crops. There are scientific studies (Kato, 2004) that indicate that the accumulation of transgenes can have serious harmful effects, including the deformation or sterile nature of native or landraces due to the rejection of the unknown genetic material in the species.
This results in serious economic, social and cultural impacts on peasants, farmers and indigenous peoples who have created all the seeds we have today and who continue to conserve them. Of particular concern is the transgenic contamination in the centres of origin and diversity of crops, such as corn in Mesoamerica and rice in Asia.
In Mexico, the centre of origin of corn, this is the transgenic contamination of the genetic and biodiversity reservoir of one of the three most important grains in the diet of the entire planet, so the consequences are not only local but global. The same would happen with the release of transgenic rice in Asia (ETC Group, 2012).
In Mexico, transgenic contamination of corn was found before its experimental planting was authorized. In view of the imminent commercial release, the Union of Scientists Committed to Society, UCSS-Mexico, prepared a report on the multiple risks to biodiversity, food, health and food sovereignty that the release of transgenic corn entails. Based on this report, UCSS issued a call to the president of that country not to allow the commercial release of the crop. The report and the call were supported by more than 3,000 scientists in Mexico and around the world (UCCS 2012). In 2013, UCCS and several universities in the country published an extensive compendium of the problems related to the release of transgenic corn in Mexico, with the participation of 50 scientific specialists in the subject (Álvarez-Buylla and Piñeyro-Nelson, 2013).
In addition to a large part of scientists, the vast majority of the population in Mexico, including its 60 indigenous peoples, peasant and family farming organizations, consumers, unions, intellectuals, artists and many other social, cultural and educational movements and organizations are opposed to the release of GMOs in their center of origin, a position also shared by the technical bodies of the Mexican State co-responsible for biodiversity policies.
Water and soil contamination. The massive use of agrochemicals, as well as the adjuvants and surfactants that are added to them, have produced accelerated and deep contamination of water and soil, even far beyond the sowing site. The problem of contamination with agrochemicals already existed due to the industrial agriculture model, but with GMOs, because they are manipulated to resist agrochemicals and therefore the volumes used are multiplied, the problem has acquired devastating proportions that are also reflected in very strong impacts on health.
In Mato Grosso, in the municipality of Lucas de Rio Verde, residues of various types of pesticides were found in 83% of drinking water wells and in two lagoons, as well as in the blood of toads from these places. The congenital malformation of these animals is four times higher than in samples taken from a control lagoon. In addition, the presence of pesticides was found in 100% of milk samples from mothers who were breastfeeding at the time. Residues of pesticides (glyphosate, pyrethroids and organochlorines) were also found in the urine and blood of 88% of teachers analyzed in schools in that municipality. (Pignati, Dores, Moreira et al., 2013).
6. Health risks
The companies' rhetoric is to claim that "no evidence has been found that GMOs cause harm to health." They abuse an inverted logic, because in order to market them, it must be proven that the food is healthy, not that evidence of harm has not yet been found. In the case of GMOs, it is impossible to prove that they are harmless products. Therefore, to avoid lawsuits, corporations refer to the impacts on human health with this inverted logic, and every time there is a scientific study that shows potential harm, they attack it fiercely. The most evident and possibly the most obvious impact of GMOs on health is related to the unprecedented increase in the use of agrotoxins. The poisons required by transgenic crops are added to the quantities of agrochemicals that already existed due to industrial agriculture, but increasing the volumes, concentration of active ingredients and residues in food exponentially.
Contrary to industry claims, there is growing evidence of negative health effects. The American Academy of Environmental Medicine made public its position on GMOs in 2009, urging authorities, “for the health and safety of consumers,” to urgently establish a “moratorium on foods derived from genetically modified crops and the immediate establishment of independent, long-term safety testing.” (American Academy of Environmental Medicine, 2009).
An important conclusion on which they base their position is that, based on dozens of scientific articles analyzed, “there is more than a casual relationship between genetically modified foods and adverse health effects.” They explain that according to the Bradford Hill criteria, widely recognized academically to evaluate epidemiological and laboratory studies on agents that may pose risks to human health, “there is causality in the strength of association, consistency, specificity, gradient and biological plausibility” between the consumption of genetically modified foods and adverse health effects.
Among the negative effects, proven by various animal studies, they mention “serious risks” such as infertility, immune deregulation, accelerated aging, deregulation of genes associated with cholesterol synthesis and insulin regulation, changes in the liver, kidneys, spleen and gastrointestinal system. They cite, among others, a 2008 study with mice fed with Monsanto’s Bt transgenic corn, which links the consumption of transgenic corn with infertility and weight loss, in addition to showing the alteration of the expression of 400 genes. (American Academy of Environmental Medicine, 2009).
This is consistent with another independent review of scientific articles conducted by researchers Artemis Dona and Ioannis S. Arvanitoyannis from the Universities of Athens and Thessaly, Greece, which show that GM crops are associated with toxic, hepatic, pancreatic, renal, reproductive effects, hematological and immunological alterations, as well as possible carcinogenic effects (2009).
Health effects of GMOs with Bt toxin
The use of Bt toxin in GMOs is very different from the use of the bacteria as a whole for pest control in various agricultural production systems, since in genetically modified organisms the Bt toxin is present throughout the plant cycle and even remains in the soil for up to 240 days after harvest. (Saxena, Flores, and Stotzky: 2002) It forces exposure to the toxin at doses and times never seen before. There are studies and documented cases of allergies to Bt toxin in humans, and there is evidence of feeding Bt transgenic corn to rats and pigs that demonstrates inflammation of the stomach and intestine as well as damage to tissues, blood, liver and kidneys (Schubert, 2013).
Health impacts of pesticide-resistant GMOs
The 85% genes of transgenic crops are manipulated to make them resistant to one or more herbicides, either separately or in combination with insecticidal genes. This has caused an unprecedented increase in the use and concentration of agrotoxins, which has multiplied the level of residues in food by hundreds of times. One proof of this is that in order to authorize transgenic soy, several governments had to change their regulations to allow up to 200 times more glyphosate residues in food (Bøhn and Cuhra, 2014).
The contamination of water sources with agrotoxins and residues in food were already a health problem in areas of intensive rural production, which has now become dramatic with the increase in the use of herbicides due to the cultivation of transgenic crops, in addition to expanding to urban areas.
In 2013, groups of urban volunteers in Mar del Plata, Argentina, tested positive for one or more agrochemicals when their blood was tested. In Europe, where GM soy consumption is high through processed foods and animals fed GM feed, traces of glyphosate were found in the urine of 45% citizens sampled in 18 cities in 2013. (Friends of the Earth Europe, 2013).
Malformations and cancer caused by glyphosate in transgenic crops
Scientific experiments with animals and studies published in peer-reviewed journals show that glyphosate, the herbicide most commonly used with genetically modified crops, has teratogenic effects, i.e. it is capable of producing birth defects (Carrasco, Paganelli, Gnazzo et al. 2010; Antoniou, Brack, Carrasco et al., 2010; Benachour and Séralini, 2009).
In 2009, a simple experiment in animal models (birds and amphibians) in Argentina showed that dilutions of RoundUp (the most widely used commercial formulation of glyphosate) or the introduction into the embryo of an equivalent of 1/200,000 of the glyphosate present in commercial formulations, produced effects on gene expression during embryonic development, capable of inducing malformations during early periods of the same. (Carrasco, Paganelli, Gnazzo, et al 2010).
We know that glyphosate inhibits the production of aromatic amino acids in plants and they die. In animals, glyphosate inhibits enzymes from the cytochrome P450 (CYP) group that play a crucial role in the functioning of the detoxification mechanisms of xenobiotic (synthetic) substances, acting on the residues of toxins incorporated into the body. In this context, glyphosate would inhibit forms of P450 associated with the degradation and distribution of retinoic acid in the embryo, causing an increase in the same in the developing embryo, and therefore the teratogenic effect: the increase in retinoic acid is capable of altering the normal development of tissues when its synthesis or degradation is altered in the embryo.
Experimentally induced malformations are the closest evidence to what is observed in the field and should motivate the corresponding health authorities to strictly apply the precautionary principle to protect human and animal health, something that they have, however, systematically avoided. In Chaco, Argentina, an increase in malformations of 400% has been reported (Carrasco, 2010). In Santa Fe, a doubling of malformations, abortions and low weight has been observed in the last 10 years, a percentage similar to that found in areas of Mato Grosso, Brazil.
Another chronic disease related to glyphosate is cancer. The strongest relationship between glyphosate and cancer arises from the fact that glyphosate is able to block the enzymatic system of DNA repair in cells, which induces the accumulation of damage in the genetic material. This can be detected with highly sensitive tests that detect the degree of damage. Genotoxicity tests in animals show that in populations of exposed individuals, the values increase several times compared to controls of unexposed individuals. (López, Aiassa, Benítez-Leite, et al., 2012).
This evidence of genome damage from exposure to agrotoxins, particularly glyphosate, is a warning of possible chronic effects and the gateway to cancer. In both Brazil and Argentina, a very significant increase in congenital malformations and cancer has been reported in the states or provinces with the highest production of transgenic crops.
Localities in the province of Santa Fe, Argentina, show an increase in cancer that doubles the normal national average of 206 cases per 100,000 inhabitants. In Chaco, Argentina, several localities in agricultural areas show an increase of 30 to 40% of malformations and cancer compared to localities dedicated to livestock farming. (Report presented to the Ministry of Health).
More recently, Samsel and Teneff (2013b) showed the relationship between the increased use of glyphosate and numerous metabolic diseases as a consequence of the inhibition of P450 and the imbalances in the physiological detoxification processes carried out by these enzymes. This shows that interference with CYP enzymes by glyphosate acts synergistically with the disruption of the biosynthesis of aromatic amino acids by the intestinal flora together with the impediment of serum sulfate transport. As a consequence, these processes influence a diverse group of diseases: gastrointestinal as well as obesity, diabetes, heart disease, depression, autism and cancer among other conditions.
In their latest publication, both researchers associate the increase in celiac disease with the use of glyphosate, establishing that it is due to the inhibition of CYP enzymes that produces an increase in retinoic acid, one of the causes of gluten intolerance. This reinforces the proposed mechanism of action for the induction of malformations (Samsel and Seneff, 2013a).
Political decisions promoting a production model that combines direct sowing of genetically modified seeds with its entire technological package, including high use of herbicides, mean the approval of a large open-air experiment, with enormous impact on human health, to favor the economic interests of transnational agribusiness companies.
Censorship and persecution of those who demonstrate the worrying impacts of GMOs on human health
A recent case of censorship that has received much publicity concerns the studies of Dr. Gilles-Eric Séralini at CRIIGEN, at the University of Caen, France. Séralini conducted the most extensive feeding studies of laboratory rats with GM corn, grown without pesticides, to date, covering the entire life cycle of the rats, which could be compared to consumption over many years in humans. His results included that 60-70 % of the rats fed Monsanto GM corn developed tumors, versus 20-30 % in the control group, as well as liver and kidney problems and premature death.
The study is so important that the biotechnology industry immediately began a campaign of discredit through sympathetic scientists, who argued, among other things, that the study was done with an insufficient number of rats and that the rats used in the experiment had a tendency to develop tumors. However, Séralini used the same rats and a larger number than those used by Monsanto in the tests it submitted to the European Union to approve the same type of transgenic corn, except that Monsanto did the experiment for only three months, with the negative effects beginning to appear after the fourth month. Pressure from the industry even got the scientific journal where the study was published to retract it, although the editor admitted that Séralini's article is serious and "not incorrect" but affirms that its results "are not conclusive," something that is part of the process of scientific discussion and concerns a large number of scientific articles. Séralini and his studies received the support of hundreds of scientists around the world. (Bardocz, Clark, Ewen, S. et al, 2012) and the original article was later published by another scientific journal.
The Séralini study and case are serious because they show that the consumption of foods derived from GMOs can have very serious negative effects and that many more, more extensive studies should be carried out before they are put on the market. The position of the GMO industry and the scientists who support them is that if there is any doubt about their safety, they should be put into circulation anyway, putting consumers in the role of laboratory rats, despite the fact that there are abundant alternatives for producing the same crops, even industrially, without GMOs. [3] (Séralini, 2012)
7. Are there advantages to GM crops?
The reality, not the promises of the biotechnology industry, is that after almost 20 years on the market, more than 99% of the transgenic crops planted in the world are still only four crops (soy, corn, canola and cotton); all are commodities, that is, industrial goods for export; all are managed by large companies, from seed to marketing; all are for animal feed in confinement, agrofuels or other industrial uses.
The 98% of transgenic crops is planted in only 10 countries. 169 countries do not allow its commercial planting. The transgenic crops currently cultivated have only 2 genetically engineered traits: resistance to one or more agrotoxins (85 %) and self-produced insecticide with strains of the Bt toxin. (International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications, 2013)
Any other type of GMOs are more of a propaganda feature, they have not been established in reality. For example, drought-resistant crops or crops with genetic manipulation to improve their nutritional quality, such as the so-called “golden rice” which is said to provide vitamin A, are not on the market, mainly because they do not work.
In both cases, this malfunction is related to what we described in point 1 about the rudimentary nature of GMO technology. In the case of drought resistance as well as vitamin production, these are multifactorial characteristics that do not depend on a single gene, or on the genome itself. Due to the complexity involved and the limitations of the reductionist vision of those who promote GMOs, these projects have failed and will continue to fail. But sadly, this does not mean that they will not be put on the market, if their promoters ever have the opportunity, despite their risks and the poor and harmful results obtained.
The drought-resistant trait found in non-transgenic crops is the product of long-term environmental and local adaptation by farmers, which can be fostered without GMOs or high research costs. Because it is the product of a multiplicity of factors, trying to reduce it to genetic manipulation is a costly and unsafe feat, and at best would only work for some areas, not for the great diversity of areas and bio-geo-climatic situations where poor farmers and the majority of small-scale farmers work.
The research projects of transnational corporations with some international research centers are based, precisely, on the appropriation of peasant knowledge, since the companies use and patent genes from plants that have been domesticated and adapted by peasants. They convert those crops that were adapted, accessible and for collective use, into the product of very costly technological processes, despite which their results are extraordinarily scarce and their eventual application is uncertain and very narrow. (Union of Concerned Scientists, 2012).
If what is needed is to affirm the capacity of crops to adapt to drought, this cannot be done centrally for the entire planet, but rather diversified peasant processes and collaboration with national public research centres must be encouraged, without introducing the risks that GMOs entail.
The myth of golden rice
The case of crops with supposed nutritional benefits added by transgenics, such as “golden rice” or rice with pro-vitamin A, suffers from the same type of flaws. It is an expensive research, financed with public-private investments, with multiple problems. It involves all the risks of transgenics that we have already mentioned, and adds others due to the type of manipulation that is done, different from those that already exist on the market.
The first type of rice with beta-carotene (GR1), which was announced in 2000, developed by Ingo Potrykus and Peter Beyer of the Swiss Institute of Technology, was an accident. The researchers were looking for another result with genetic engineering in rice, but “to their surprise” as they themselves stated, a precursor of beta-carotene was produced. This in itself should have been a wake-up call to these researchers that their work did not take into account many variables of the complexity of the process. On the contrary, they presented it as if it were a great success, despite the fact that to obtain the minimum daily amount of vitamin A that a child needs, he had to eat several kilograms of this rice every day. Later, these researchers licensed the research to the multinational Syngenta, which in turn in 2004 donated the license to the Golden Rice Humanitarian Board platform, to which the Syngenta Foundation was integrated; however, the company retained the commercial rights. In 2005, Syngenta announced a new transgenic event called golden rice (Paine, Shipton, Chaggar, S. et al., 2005) that would have a higher pro-vitamin A (GR2) content. However, in this case, it has not been proven that the pro-vitamin is stable in this rice either, since once harvested and in the normal storage process, it is easily oxidized, decreasing the declared pro-vitamin A content to 10%.
After 20 years and many millions of dollars invested in this research, according to the International Rice Research Institute, “golden rice” is still far from being commercialized. This is due to the difficulties involved in trying to create a completely new biochemical pathway through genetic engineering (IRRI, 2013). In fact, golden rice is not a transgenic operation like those that already exist, but rather it involves manipulating a metabolic step, which involves complexities, uncertainties and additional risks to those already known about other transgenics. There is no certainty that the genetic constructs are stable or that the synthetic metabolic step will not act differently than when it grows in the plant, or that it will affect other metabolic pathways with unpredictable consequences for plants, the environment and those who consume it. In fact, these examples have already occurred in laboratory experiments (Greenpeace, 2013). Furthermore, it could increase or decrease the beta-carotene content and promote other precursors simultaneously, with consequences that can be serious for human health. There is scientific evidence that the process from beta-carotene to vitamin A can also generate components harmful to human health if it occurs in high quantities (Schubert, 2008). These types of secondary components can block important cellular signals for organisms (Eroglu, Hruszkewycz, Dela Sena et al., 2012). The metabolic results of this type of genetic engineering are poorly understood. As if that were not enough, how this type of beta-carotene from golden rice would be processed in the human body and what secondary components it could produce, unlike what happens with natural beta-carotene, are completely unknown.
In short, in addition to the problems already demonstrated with commonly used GMOs (insecticide-treated Bt crops and glyphosate-resistant crops), there are serious potential health problems related to controlling the levels of retinoic acid and other retinoids in the process. Beta-carotene is transformed into retinal in the presence of the enzyme oxygenase, but is reduced to retinol, better known as vitamin A. However, retinal is also oxidized, forming retinoic acid, which in high quantities becomes a potent teratogen (Hansen, 2014).
Rice is an essential part of the daily diet of Asia and a large part of humanity, so these risks are serious and unnecessary. Moreover, it would be rice that is intended to be introduced precisely in its centre of origin. If this were done, transgenic contamination of rural rice would inevitably occur, which would have impacts on native seeds, as well as on the rights of farmers and on the health of the farmers who consume it. Although rice is not open pollinated, there are many routes of contamination in storage, transfer and transport. Studies in China have already found transgenic contamination of wild rice and its relatives. (Canadian Biotechnology Action Network, 2014)
The transgenic golden rice project has consumed more than 100 million dollars from institutions and “philanthropy”, including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and various national and international development aid institutions, money that could have been used to address vitamin A deficiency in many of the countries where it exists in a sustainable way and without high technology.
For example, vitamin A exists in different herbs that accompany crops, which are commonly consumed by farmers who grow rice. If rice is produced in uniform industrial plantations and with agrochemicals, these types of herbs that contain many more nutrients than just one vitamin disappear. In other words, the supposed “solution” creates new problems. It is the same with the case of transgenic corn grown in the Mesoamerican area. In addition, the necessary dose of vitamin A can be obtained by diversifying crops and with different fruits and vegetables whose planting is appropriate for each place, a situation that can be resolved by farmers without falling into dependence, either on the market or on public programs that change according to changes in government policies. However, inducing dependence may be an intention of the transnationals with this project, since their purpose as companies is not charity.
Amaranth, spinach, cabbage and many other vegetables common in Asian cuisine have at least five times the beta-carotene content of a normal serving of food found in golden rice (Shiva, 2014).
Are public GMOs better?
The Brazilian agricultural research institution Empresa Brasileira de Pesquisa Agropecuária (Embrapa) genetically engineered a common bean to make it resistant to golden mosaic, a disease that can plague this species. This event, called Embrapa 5.1, is presented as an emblematic case, because although it is patented, it is the product of public research and has not yet been licensed to transnationals. However, its approval by the country's biosafety commission (CNTBio) was hardly "public", since significant parts of the research and information about the transgenic construct were marked as "confidential", such that neither other independent scientists nor some biosafety reviewers had access to all the information (Agapito and Nodari, 2011).
This transgenic bean also falls within the uncertainties and potential impacts that we described regarding genetic engineering in point 1. But like “golden rice,” it adds new risk factors, since it was developed with a technology that has not been used for large-scale dissemination in any country in the world.
The technology used in the 5.1 bean, called small interfering RNA – siRNA – produces a direct reaction to the pathogenic virus. The plant produces a molecule that silences or interferes with the production of a molecule in the pathogenic virus, preventing it from replicating in plant cells. But this siRNA molecule can also affect the expression of other genes in various organisms, since its mechanism of action is not yet well understood.
There is scientific evidence that points to possible risks associated with this type of technology. In 2006, a review of articles on the use of this technology in transgenic plants was published in the scientific journal Genes and Development. It describes that RNA agents are capable of moving between plant tissues and therefore their action not only affects the cell in which they are produced, but can trigger other reactions (Vaucheret, 2006).
There is evidence that these molecules can affect other non-target molecules, with unexpected and potentially negative results (Agapito and Nodari, 2011). Subsequent studies, including those by two researchers from the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), confirm these propositions (Lundgren and Duan, 2013).
Again, beans are a basic component of the Brazilian diet. Small-scale farmers are responsible for more than two-thirds of what is produced. Instead of offering high technology, which poses new risks to the environment and health, and whose effectiveness has not even been proven, peasants and family farmers should be supported to strengthen their own agroecological strategies, appropriate to a variety of situations, to deal with the golden mosaic disease and other problems.
EMBRAPA regularly receives millions of dollars from Monsanto for its research.
8. Who wins and who loses with GMOs?
There is no doubt that those who benefit most from GM crops are the six transnational corporations that control 100% of GM seeds worldwide: Monsanto, Syngenta, DuPont, Dow Agrosciences, Bayer and Basf. They are the six largest chemical production corporations and together they control 76% of the world market for pesticides and 60% of the world market for all types of seeds. In addition, they control 75% of all private research on crops.
Never before in the history of food has there been such a degree of corporate concentration in a sector essential to survival. This configuration also explains why GMOs mean an enormous increase in the use of agrotoxins, since this is what brings them the greatest profits: the market for the sale of agrotoxins is much larger than that for the sale of seeds.
The biotechnology industry claims that GMOs are the “most scrutinized” crops in history. This is false, because in the countries where they have been authorized, they are based on the studies and conclusions of the companies themselves. In Europe, where additional studies are required, practically no GMOs are grown and several European countries have even chosen to ban their cultivation.
The reality is that transgenic crops are full of uncertainties and risks to health and the environment and do not offer any advantage over crops that already existed. The seeds are much more expensive, they yield less on average, they use much more agrotoxins and because they are patented, transgenic contamination is a crime for the victims. Additionally, according to data from industry analysts, the research and development of a transgenic seed costs on average 136 million dollars, while the development of a hybrid seed costs one million dollars. (Phillips McDougall, 2011).
The only reason for marketing GMOs is that companies make more profits even though they are a more deficient product than the hybrids that already existed. A product that does not even work in the diversity of soils and climatic and geographical variations of the vast majority of small-scale farmers in the world.
Faced with these data, the question that many are asking is how did the industry achieve this? It has been a multi-pronged process. On the one hand, over the last three decades, large transnational corporations have been buying up national and regional seed and agribusiness companies to gain control of the market. At the same time, they convinced governments that genetic engineering was a great advance for agriculture and food, but that due to its costs and risks, they only had the capacity to develop and evaluate it within the industry itself, so they had to be supported, to the detriment of independent risk analyses and other alternatives for public agricultural research. Public agricultural research has been progressively dismantled. And to support the industry to “feed the world,” governments have been adopting national and international laws on intellectual property, seeds and biosecurity that guarantee the well-being of oligopolistic cartels (ETC Group, 2008).
If producers in the United States and Canada continue to plant GMOs, it is because they cannot choose any other option: the same agribusiness corporations control the entire seed market and only multiply the seeds they want to sell, so when it comes time to plant, they only find a supply of GMO seeds. A similar situation is repeated in the industrial markets of Brazil, India and Argentina (these 5 countries cover 90% of the world market for GMOs) with the addition of particular situations, such as low royalty payments because farmers multiply their own seed – against the will of the companies; or other resources that have nothing to do with the “advantages” of GMOs, but with the economic power of marketing and control of the transnationals over the governments.
Those who lose out from GMOs are the majority of the people on the planet, from small farmers and peasants, to urban consumers, including public researchers and all of us who have to suffer the chemical contamination of food, water and soil.
Worldwide, surveys confirm that the vast majority of consumers do not want to eat GMOs. Corporations know this, which is why they oppose labeling of their products, spending tens of millions of dollars to prevent it. If GMOs did not cause harm, as they claim, they should have no problem with labeling them.
The vast majority of peasants and family farmers oppose GMOs because they represent a further threat to their precarious economic situation, displacing their markets and contaminating seeds, land and water.
As we described in the introduction to this document, it is the small food suppliers (peasants, artisanal fishermen, urban gardens, etc.) who feed more than 701 TP3T of the world's population. The transgenic industry displaces them and threatens their seeds and their production methods in many ways, thereby increasing hunger and malnutrition far more than any "miracle" technological seed could ever address.
There are many alternative agricultural systems, diverse and more in tune with nature, that do not create dependence on transnational corporations, that strengthen sovereignty and different forms of local development, that benefit the poor in the countryside and the city, that increase job opportunities, markets and local agro-industries, without risks to health and the environment, and that are much more economical and ethical.
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[1] Impacts are clearly evident in the case of populations directly affected by the increased use of agrotoxins in areas where transgenic crops are grown. In addition, there are numerous studies that suggest other impacts on human health, extrapolated from the results of experiments with laboratory animals.
[2]Most notably in his work It's Not in the Genes (2009), Lewontin has denounced the theoretical shortcomings of genetic reductionism.
[3] All articles, responses and controversy of this case can be read at www.gmoseralini.org
Originally published in ALAINET
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