Impact on Environment, Ecosystem, Diversity and Health from Culturing and Using GMOs as Feed and Food

Background

(Carlson, 2016)

Current status of GM cultivation

• Average increase in US biotech revenue has observed growth of >10%
• Similar revenue generation can be forecasted for other GM crop adopting countries
• ISAAA has reported a forecast increase in GM crop cultivation in Asian countries (www.isaaa.org; Carlson, 2016)

Global GM cultivation has reached an aggregate land mass of two billion hectares with generated benefits of 150 billion US$

• 20^th GM anniversary and Yield Promises

In addition to benefits, it arose an ever increasing and an extremely emotional, complex and scientific cum political debate involving a larger community of offenders and defenders

20^th anniversary of GM crops resulted in fulfilment of yield gap promises, reduced pesticide application, and conservation of zero tillage

But

www.isaaa.org

Are GM food and feed safe for human and animal consumption?

Will they impart harmful impacts on environment health and biodiversity?

Precision Agriculture stance

Letter to Greenpeace Leaders (Signed by 100+ Nobel Laureates)

The main messages in the letter were as followings.

1. Greenpeace leaders has unceasingly denied and opposed modern innovations in agriculture.
2. They have criminally mispresented the risks and impacts of GMOs and rejected authentic field trials.
3. They should stop their campaign against Golden Rice as well as other GMOs.
4. Scientific community around the globe has found GMOs as safe as derived from other breeding tools.
5. The opposition is mostly based on emotion and has been contradicted by experimental data.
6. The governments should oppose Greenpeace and accelerate modern biotechnology products.
7. It is a “crime against humanity” and we must think of people dying of hunger and poverty.

(http://supportprecisionagriculture.org/nobel-laureate-gmo-letter_rjr.html)

Greenpeace stance

It is a false accusation that we are blocking modern ways of breeding especially “Golden rice”. It is evident that after two decades the cure to vitamin A deficiency “Golden Rice” hasn’t been commercialized yet. This endeavor is only meant to accelerate their profitability.

(Joel Achenbach)

Culturing and using GM plants as a food/feed

Aftermaths

• GF is the most prominent and major evolutionary force practiced by nature for more than a millennia between cross compatible species (Ford et al., 2006)
• GF being a natural force isn’t a hazard by itself, it is the genetic contamination which poses risks after the recipient specie has received the transgene.

Gene flow and its implications

• CP4-EPSPS witnessed in creeping bentgrass
• Bar gene from cultivated to weedy rice
• P-35S, T-NOS, cry1Ab and CP4-EPSPS in commercial maize seeds
• P-35S and T-NOS in maize land races in Mexico
• Cry2a in Pakistani and Indian Basmati rice

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Evidences

Watrud et al., 2004; Chen et al., 2004; Petit et al., 2007; Pineyro-Nelson et al., 2009; Reiting et al., 2011

Gene flow

• Wheat, rice, soybean, corn, oilseed rape, creeping bentgrass, sugar beet, sunflower, canola and Arabidopsis
• B. rapa × B. napus, GM sunflower × wild sunflower, GM rice × weedy rice and sugar beet × swiss chard hybrids
• GM Canola × wild hybrids containing Oxy235, CP4-EPSPS in Canada
• Glyphosate resistant wild canola in Australia, Canada and China

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Evidences

Ellstrand 2002; Mercer et al., 2006; Beckie and Warwick, 2010; Serrat et al., 2013; Hooftman et al., 2014; Sanchez et al., 2016

GM × Wild Hybrids

Weediness

• Amaranthus palmeri from Georgia to 76 countries (2004 to 2011)
• Chronological occurrence of HR weeds of corn, wheat, soybean, rice and cotton has been observed (WeedScience.Org, 2016).

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Fitness of hybrids

Gene flow

The scale of this issue is broad and beyond the limits of science, involving social studies, ecology and politics

Ecosystem complexity and biodiversity

Figure source: https://www.epa.gov/enviroatlas/ecosystem-services-enviroatlas

Ecosystem

• Complex unit of ecology
• Operates on vast scales
• Contains food chains and food webs
• Provide services

What if a single unit of ecosystem is disturbed?

Interruption in a single unit of ecosystem could possibly lead towards creation of complexity, diversification, destruction and or modifications on various levels

(Lovei et al., 2010)

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What if a single unit of ecosystem is disturbed?

• Reduced emigration and excessive feeding on cricket by wolf spider in response to glyphosate application in western US
• Significant reduction in monarch butterfly in US and Mexico
• Reduced population of milkweed in US
• Reduced insect pollinator population in HR oilseed rape fields because of reduced flowering and seeding of plants on field margin
• Increased aquatic life mortality in response to increased application of glyphosate
• Higher fungal biomass and reduced nutrient turnover in soil biota of HR maize and soybean

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Evidences

Ecosystem complexity and diversity

• No short term shift in food web in response to cultivation of GM maize (glyphosate, Coleopteran and Lepidoptera)
• GM rice (cry1Ab/1Ac or cry2A ) is safe to zooplanktons
• Cultivation of GM maize (MON 88017) did not effect tri-trophic interactions

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• GF has resulted in reduction of genetic diversity and variable population frequency of many insects and weeds has been witnessed (NAS, 2016)

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Wrinn et al., 2012; Marchetti, 2014; Brower et al., 2012; Bohan et al., 2005; Powel et al., 2009; Szenasi et al., 2014; Li et al., 2014; Devos et al., 2012

Toxicity of GM food and feed

• Genetically engineered plant inherits only transferred gene

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• Conventional breeding inherits many unnecessary genes and it takes time to remove them

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• GM food and feed have health implications

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Toxicity of GM food and feed

2011

Toxicity of GM food and feed

2012

Toxicity of GM food and feed

2013

Toxicity of GM food and feed

2014

Toxicity of GM food and feed

2015

Toxicity of GM food and feed

2016

Pusztai affair (1998)

Arpad Pusztai revealed his unpublished results of thickening of gut mucosa in response to GM potato harboring GNA (Galanthus nivalis agglutinin). He conducted twelve experiments and reported statistically significant differences in gut mucosa thickening, however, in an explanation he reported that there were some differences in protein level (20%) as well as sugar and starch contents, which lead to discontinuation of the experiment. The crypt length of two experimental groups of rats i.e. rats fed with raw modified GM potato and non-GM potato, were significantly different. The third group of rats fed with cooked potato did not show significant differences from the control which lead to generation of results that the only reason for thickening of gut mucosa was the transformation procedure. However, his coworker suggested the CMV promotor may be responsible for the results. There was huge public, media, political and industrial pressure on the authors as well as the institute which lead towards suspension of the scientist. Later the work undergone through an audit by Rowett Institute and peer review by Royal Society which ended up with the comments that the experiments were poorly conducted having many uncertainties and lacked appropriate statistical methods and models. However, the data still reached to its final destination as a letter in The Lancet in 1999 with the concluding remarks that no significant difference were observed in treated and control rats. Until now the work has gone through unstoppable criticism (Pusztai, 1996).

Seralini affair (2012)

Fourteen years after the first controversy, an article reporting increased tumor size in rats fed with GM maize and roundup was published in Food and Chemical Toxicology by French molecular biologist Gilles-Eric Seralini. As soon as the report was published, it faced plenty of criticism from scientific community and public resulting in retraction of the article. The authors did not end up with retraction and arranged press conference where they released a book and documentary video in support of their research. The most arguable criticism was that the frequency of tumor appearing was higher in the strain of rats used. Many institutes including King’s College London, Washington Post, New York University, University of Calgary, Canadian regulatory agencies, National Agency for Food Safety France, Technical University of Denmark and many more ended up with the comments that the experiment had inadequacy in conducting and reporting. The work was republished in Environmental Sciences Europe in 2014 with the comments that the work is original and was presented well. However, further reports still criticize the work (Seralini, 2012, 2014).

• Statistically significant differences were observed in clinical performance of SD rats in response to consumption of amylose and starch resistant rice (Zhou et al., 2011)
• Song et al., (2015) concluded that biochemical and hematological blood parameters were comparable when SD rats were fed with Bt transgenic rice (expressing cry1Ab).
• Broiler chicken fed with GM soybean (expressing imidazolinone tolerance gene) had lower body weight in comparison to control.
• Losey et al., (1999) who reported mortality of Monarch butterfly caterpillar when affected by Bt maize pollen
• Hendriksma et al., (2011) reported toxicity of Heliconia rostrate pollen to honey bees
• Feeding Dekalb 818 to Daphnia manga resulted in reduced egg production (Szenasi et al., 2014).

General results? What about specific results?

• HR crops invite broad spectrum herbicides with higher intensities which end up with higher concentrations in farmland soil and water and effect life residing in soil and water

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Other unintended implications

• Selective pressure of herbicides and insecticides ends up with evolution of resistance development (e.g. horseweed, Asiatic dayflower, wild buckwheat, annual ryegrass, western corn rootworm and common lambsquarters)

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• Shift in weed population due to higher usage of herbicides (higher sensitivity to reduced sensitivity)

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• Addition of naked DNA in the environment

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• The predominant place of policies regarding risk regulation and authorization of GM food and feed is undeniable.
• The primary assessment of GM crops is based on their agronomy, nutrient composition, repository of toxins and anti-nutrients

Global Political Stance

Basic procedure of risk assessment and regulatory procedure

US approach

EU approach

Public

Figure theme: http://sitn.hms.harvard.edu/flash/2015/same-science-different-policies/

US Says Product

EU says Process

Global Political Stance

US approves faster

EU approves slower

Labelling: Not strict policy

Labelling: strict policy

Higher approval rate

Lower approval rate

Substantial equivalence

Comparative assessment

Please link table 2 with this slide

• Duration of long term and short term assessments
• Dose-response curve
• Level of exposure in natural vs laboratory scale (Dose & Concentration)
• Who is the real counterpart of GM plant?
• What about environmental conditions and G X E of particular case?
• Non-economical characteristics of the counterpart
• Anti-nutritional factors of both GM and non-GM plant

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Shortcoming in assessment

• GM foods and feeds will perish in the Asian and African countries
• Mature GM crop markets (US, Brazil, and EU) have little space for expansion
• New technologies will prosper (Science based + fit for purpose)
• CRISPER
• Cas
• New Breeding Technologies (NBT)
• Assessment procedure will expand
• More precise
• Animal specific
• Organ specific
• Long term assessment
• Novel toxin categorization
• Combined effect of stacked traits

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Future of GM Food and Feed

1. GM crops are prospering and can spread across the globe
2. There are considerable and ground concerns from GM application
3. Environment has been affected by GM (especially by gene flow)
4. Damage to ecosystem and biodiversity is a reality
5. The most dangerous concern is the development of herbicide resistance
6. Assessment is difficult in complex food webs
7. Signals should be sent to policy makers, regulatory authorities and governments
8. Labelling is a basic consumer right

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Conclusion