I recently wrote a piece for the American Society for Nutrition's blog titled "Tardy to the Party,” addressing the relative absence of nutrition organizations in the genetic engineering (GE) conversation. I wanted to write an accompanying piece here, that's a bit longer, to explain my thoughts on GE, to try to address some of the concerns people have with GE foods, and, most importantly, to discuss some of the reasons why I feel nutritionists should be more vested in the conversation around GE. I split the post into two parts: The first establishes a common language to ground the discussion (largely presenting the way that I personally think about GE); the second will focus on why those in the field of nutrition should take a vested interest in entering the GE debate. Here we go:
1. We need to ditch the term 'GMOs' and learn about 'conventional' breeding. The popular conversation that occurs throughout the media often uses the term ‘genetically modified organism’ or ‘GMO’; movements are painted as either ‘pro’ or ‘anti’ GMO. Unfortunately, GMO is one of the vaguest terms that we can use to discuss genetically engineered crops. Not only does GMO misrepresent the topic (all foods are genetically modified, not all are GE), it allows for overly broad conversations, akin to those we have about ‘food processing’. There are many types of processing/genetic modification, which can be applied to many different foods to produce any number of different outcomes. With GMOs, we have multiple types of bacteria, seeds, and animals that one can engineered in a broad variety of ways, through a (growing) number of techniques. This is a major talking point of UC Davis plant geneticist Pam Ronald (fun fact: She's married to an organic farmer. Their book is great.). we can't simply have a conversation about 'GMOs' - we need to have a conversation about the specific crop that you're concerned with. Flood-resistant rice does not pose the same nutritional or environmental benefits/concerns as golden rice or herbicide tolerant crops, and we should stop acting like they do by saying "GMOs are xyz". Broad categorizations about highly contextual topics are inherently unscientific.
To really understand the GMO debate, we have to understand both genetic engineering, and traditional/conventional plant breeding techniques (and, in my opinion, understand the latter more than the former). One can engineer genomes in a variety of ways, ranging from the insertion of genes from another species using Agrobacterium tumefaciens plasmids as a vector, by driving gene expression with Cauliflower Mosaic Virus promoters, to RNA interference to alter the expression of certain genes,and even through the use of site directed nucleases (like Zinc Fingers, TALEN and CRISPR-cas9) to make targeted gene mutations/insertions/ replacements. The National Academy of Science 2004 report on the Safety of Genetically Engineered Foods has a nice graph depicting the techniques of plant breeding, and the likelihood of unintended effects (note: this was written long before RNAi and CRISPR were readily applied to plants, so they're not shown in the graph). The method most likely to produce unintended genetic effects is not one of genetic engineering - it is mutation breeding, a “traditional” plant breeding technique that involves inducing genetic changes randomly via some mutagen.
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http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=10977&page=64
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Kevin Folta created a more user-friendly graph: .
As a nutritional scientist, it took me a while to realize that I had to learn a lot about traditional/conventional plant breeding to understand the perspectives of authoritative scientific bodies on genetic engineering - indeed, genetic engineering, particularly newer techniques, allows for significantly more specific manipulation of the genome. A common point I hear in the GMO debates is that "we don't know the long term effects" - but when I learned more about plant breeding, I realized that we've been changing plant genomes, in sometimes crazy ways, without knowing the long term effects, for generations. If our concern is unintended consequences, don't we want more precise techniques? For a more popular science discussion of traditional breeding, both Vox and Epoch Times covered the topic of how not 'traditional', traditional breeding is, the latter noting that your organic food is likely made from crops blasted with gamma rays, while requiring no pre-market safety testing - looking above at our chart from NAS, this has the greatest chance for 'unintended consequences'. Where is the march against mutagenesis?
With the knowledge above, consider the GMO labeling movement. We have not required labels on foods produced through any type of plant breeding method to date. Now, certain movements would have us spend extra money on food so that companies can place a label on products just to note that it has in some way been genetically engineered (but no distinction as to how it has been genetically engineered). This is the crux of the argument that the GMO label would be an uninformative addition to the food label, as it tells you nothing about the plant, its traits, how it was created, what to compare it against, or its relative safety. Speaking of that....
2. Safety - Discussions of safety are often difficult to have. There is no such thing as something being 100% safe, and therefore, everything has some level of risk - a reality that can make some uncomfortable. Scientists can study something in multiple contexts, in a multitude of species, against different genetic backgrounds, looking at the effects on different body systems, but to test every single possible permutation would take a lifetime or two, and we'd never have any innovation. Scientists can only continually test something, and show no evidence of harm - but for those opposed to a technology, one can always find some uncertainty that is likely not fully characterized by safety studies.
When it comes to GE crops, the best way to characterize their ‘safety’ is not only through animal feeding studies, which consistently show no evidence of harm, but by comparing the risks associated with GE to those presented by traditional methods. This takes us back to our graphs/tables above - the risk that the methods of GE create some unintended consequences is quite low, and lower than many ‘traditional’breeding techniques. One can certainly sit around and theorize about all of these 'unintended consequences' that could arise due to genetic engineering, but none of these are unique to GE - they apply to traditional breeding as well (even traditional breeding can lead to supposed 'superweeds'). To understand the safety of genetic engineering, one must compare this to the safety of traditional breeding techniques.
This is why the general consensus of virtually every major health organization in the world is that the process of genetic engineering poses no unique harms, relative to traditional breeding - this position is held by the National Academy of Sciences, the Royal Society, the World Health Organization, The American Association for the Advancement of Science, and Food Standards Australia New Zealand. The European Union, in 2010, released the second volume of 25 years of independent research on the health/safety of GMOs concluding that GMO foods are not more risky than conventional plant breeding. The report looked at not only food safety but also the environmental impact. These statements are not stating the definitive safety of any product that might be genetically engineered - they only highlight that there is no evidence that they are more likely to be harmful than non-GE breeding techniques. If you're interested in the safety testing/GE studies, Biofortified's GENERA compiles them all, and includes their funding sources (no - they're not all industry, see corporations below).
Sometimes I get the feeling that those broadly opposed to GMOs are just waiting for the day that they wake up and the news reports that finally, GMOs were proven to be unsafe. Hopefully, if you've internalized everything from my first point (that GMO is not just one thing), you'll see why that notion is increasingly unscientific. I'm perplexed by those trying to show that "GMOs" are unsafe, not only because they represent multiple methods applied to multiple crops for multiple purposes, but also that, if we want to consider risks and safety, 'traditional' methods of crop reproduction have a clearly poor record of safety- every known allergen has come from non-genetically engineered plants. Given the anti-GMO logic, why aren't we marching against natural methods of breeding? We have clear, quite definitive evidence that 'natural methods' have produced detrimental compounds to human and animal health.
Something that further nails home the ' these are not uniquely dangerous' statements is the application of -omics technologies to compare the metabolomes and transcriptomes about GMO and non-GMO foods. The studies that have looked at these continue to affirm that crops produced through genetic engineering are indeed quite similar (differences are minimal/don't exhibit a cause for concern), and that the environment contributes overwhelming to differences seen between GMO and non-GMO crops. Check out some publications here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here. Scientists have even specifically looked at the levels of the compounds found within GE food crops that might cause some harm, if unintentionally raised, (think lectins, glucosinolates, solanine, phytates, oxalates) and have failed to find differences outside of the normal variation that occurs.
Many have likely heard reports of dangers from GE foods. There are a couple infamous studies like Judy Carmen's pig study, and Seralini's rat study - for good discussions and dissections of that data, see here , here, here, here, and here. If you have other studies you'd like addressed, I'll gladly discuss them with you or find someone more knowledgeable who can. Beware the activist spin that can come with the reporting of news headlines regarding GE foods (sites like NaturalNews and Food and Water Watch). As of now, there continues to be no evidence of harm from GE foods, nor do they appear to be more risky than other types of breeding. Whenever someone tries to cite evidence that 'GMOs are harmful', keep in mind the first point that I made above - unless the study has tested virtually every crop that can be modified, every way in which it can be modified, through every technique, then the study did not prove that 'GMOs' are harmful.
For what it's worth, it's quite easy to believe that genetically engineered foods are harmful, when the health of our country seems so terrible. We have obesity and allergies and autism, all issues that have taken the interest of the public in the past couple decades. When people go searching for the why, GMOs are often one of the many, many things that get thrown under the bus as a way that humans are killing themselves (if it's not GMOs, it's vaccines, or fluoride, or gluten, or dairy, or sugar, or chemtrails, or microwaves, etc etc). The media and its cultural brokers glorify a non-existent idyllic past, free from disease, and allow for virtually anything new to presented as being culpable for all of society’s woes. Unfortunately, these overly simplistic correlations are little more than spurious, often with little to no data backing them up; these don't hold as science, and this shouldn't be how we look at evidence. Often, these conversations get wrapped up in the 'possibilities', which we could endlessly discuss - when you find your mind wandering into this realm of 'but what if GMOs..', remember that all forms of plant breeding hold similar risks to genetic engineering (if not more than).
3. Corporations - One can't talk about genetic engineering without discussing 'it which shall not be named', the big 'M', the big ol' Monsatan. I really don't want to talk about corporations or Monsanto, so I'll mostly let other people do it for me. Finding out even remotely close to objective information regarding this company, in the sea of conspiracy that finds itself on the internet is quite difficult (the myths have gotten as utterly ridiculous as 'Monsanto's cafeteria only sells organic food!') can seem impossible - I have been following this debate for years, and have found that one truly needs expertise in so many disciplines, especially farming and agriculture, to make sense of why the business of genetically engineered seeds is the way that it is (you probably don't need NaturalNews' perspective though). If you're open to learning more about Monsanto than the perspective of your top 5 google hits:
6. Here's one from the BigM themselves on suing farmers, noting that money that they win in settlements is donated.
7. Generally, I'd suggest you peruse both GMO-skeptiforum and Food and Farm Discussion Lab - these are not simply facebook groups, but rather communities of highly intellectual individuals,coming from different disciplines, who passionately discuss and debate these topics.
If you're convinced that Monsanto is totally evil and nothing will change your mind, that's fine. But that alone is far from reason to be anti-GMO. Actually, in my opinion, if you're against Monsanto, you should be pro-GMO. Let me explain: We have an outdated, unbalanced, super pricey regulatory system put in place that crops must go through before they are allowed to hit the market. Outdated, because it was written at a time when newer GE techniques weren't available (The Obama administration actually just stated that they're going to revisit the regulatory system and hopefully update it.) Unbalanced, because there is no evidence that GE crop breeding is anymore dangerous than non-GE (remember, mutagenesis bred crops are not regulated at all). Super pricey because the regulatory system can costs tens of millions of dollars to navigate, on top of the startup price to develop the engineered crop. Guess who can afford to navigate this regulatory system? It's definitely not your local biotech company - it's the big corporations we hate so much. The irony of the whole anti-corporation reasoning behind being anti-GMO is that if one were truly against corporate control of the seed market, you would be pro-GMO, encouraging competition within the market, and allowing for public sector scientists to develop GE crops with more broadly desirable traits (big companies making these products generally cater to farmers, ensuring that traits that are most valuable to farmers get developed i.e. yield, pest/disease resistance, but not necessarily consumers). Being anti-GMO and fearmongering about the safety of GMOs hasn't made GMOs go away - it's just created this inefficient system that allows for a market that a few companies dominate. We've essentially guaranteed that, over the past 10-20 years, only large corporations could afford to get GE crops to market, likely an 'unintended consequence' of immediately jumping to the government to regulate the science.
Many have conflated GMOs with Glyphosate/pesticides (note: something I'm not inherently opposed to) and Monsanto, and see GMOs as only a means to 'more chemicals' and 'corporate control' - but this is only possible if we keep over-regulating a technology that is no riskier than the technology we've been using (totally unregulated) for decades. We've actually seen a few small non-Monsanto companies popping up with products (like the Innate Potato and the Arctic Apple); hopefully these products will make it to market and do well, but fear-mongering about the safety of GMOs hasn't really helped these smaller companies in the marketplace, due to fear of consumer acceptance. I'm pro-GMO because I'm pro-competition, and against large corporations dominating the GE market. And as you'll see in part 2 of this post, I'd really like for allergen free peanuts to become a thing, which I don't see big companies that cater to farmers doing anytime soon.
For those who find themselves continually convinced by corporation arguments, I'd urge you to read Steve Savage's post in Forbes on the issue of "Who Controls the Food Supply?". This question is not only asked by the anti-GMO movement, but also by the pro-GMO movement. When you believe that the product is poison, the small activists versus big corporations narrative is quite convincing. However, when you acknowledge the scientific consensus (that genetic engineering doesn't pose unique threats), you start to notice the political clout of the organic/natural movements. We're not too different here than the Europeans, whose scientists have continued to fight for the ability to use these technologies, but politics continue to get in the way. Speaking of Europe, it often gets romanticized in the context of GMOs - check out the European Food Safety Authority's positions on individual GE crops, you may find them surprisingly at odds with what activists here state about the 'superior' system in the EU.
That's enough on corporations for now. Feel free to comment with any things you've heard or concerns that you have, and I can point you to some resources on the topic. There is so much reading of points/counterpoints on these issues, and strongly encourage you to challenge preconceived notions about GMOs and corporations.
4. Why is the technology useful? Is it necessary? - Before going into specific examples about why this is important for nutritional scientists in part 2 of this post, let's address some reasons why one might use GE technology. A common argument lodged against GE is that it's not necessary. One great example of why this technology is 'necessary' is the current situation with citrus greening. Amy Harmon more masterfully crafted a post on this issue in the NYT - I'd highly encourage you to read it.
An example more familiar to me, as someone in the field of nutrition, is the dichotomy between golden rice and orange maize (I've discussed this briefly before). We're all familiar with rice and corn, and you'd likely never go to a dietitian and have them tell you to choose either to get a good source of beta carotene, a precursor to vitamin A. However, both golden rice and orange maize are great sources of beta carotene, and both have been touted as ways to reduce the prevalence of vitamin A deficiency. What's the difference? Well, corn naturally can make its own beta carotene, and plant breeders can capitalize on the natural variability in this crop, selecting for those with higher beta carotene content (note: this isn't your classic Mendel-style selection - a lot of this breeding is enhanced by molecular markers #yourfoodismadeinalab). Alternatively, rice does not have the complete set of enzymes necessary to make beta carotene, and thus, plant breeders are unable to capitalize on natural variability to produce rice with large amounts of this vitamin A precursor; in rice’s case, scientists can add the missing genes so that rice can make its own beta carotene. Note that Syngenta created Golden Rice 2, which has substantially more beta carotene relevant to human physiology, by taking the phytoene synthase gene from corn (instead of daffodil) and placing it into rice to make this version. In this example, as opposed to the citrus greening one, you can get to the same end goal (enhanced beta-carotene) through both GE and non-GE methods.
While one may say, hey look, 'traditional plant breeding' can get you the same phenotype as GE, there are a couple things to note here. For one, food is often cultural, and cultures don't randomly shift from rice to orange maize because it has higher levels of beta carotene. GE can put the desired traits into the already accepted foods that cultures are accustomed to growing and eating -- especially helpful in the case of rural areas of still-developing nations, where the transportation infrastructure, agricultural extension networks, and/or planting and harvest machinery needed to switch crops may not be in place. Second, traditional breeding and crosses can often get you some unwanted genetic changes. Let's think about a hypothetical situation where you did find rice that grows in India and naturally makes significant amounts of beta carotene. Now we want that rice to be able to grow in China and serve as a source of beta carotene. But we've got a problem - the strain of rice that has a genetic background that is optimal for the environment in India, is going to be bred with a strain that has been adapted for growing in China. When you hypothetically cross these two, you'll get some offspring that have your desired beta carotene trait, but you'll also get other, unwanted genetic chances, that may make this crop no longer suitable/ideal for growing in China. Breeders would end up needing additional generations of crosses to get a plant that has the desired beta carotene content, while retaining the genetics for optimal growth in China. Retaining the genetics is not only important for growth in an environment, but also for maintaining a similar phenotype so that it is culturally accepted. Plant breeders could attempt to jump through these massive hoops to get the traits they need alongside the traits they like, or, they could've just used genetic engineering to transfer the genes that conferred the beta carotene trait in your Indian rice to Chinese rice, and produce a strain with all of the desired phenotypes much more quickly. Alison Van Eenennaam recently gave a great example of this, in the context of hornless cattle, on Kevin Folta's Talking Biotech podcast.
People that I would suggest following on twitter, that didn't get shout-outs above:
1. Tamar Haspel
2. Keith Kloor
3. Nathaniel Johnson
I definitely welcome any feedback or thoughts - this is certainly a complex issue, and one that can't be had in a single blog post!
See part 2 here.
1. Tamar Haspel
2. Keith Kloor
3. Nathaniel Johnson
I definitely welcome any feedback or thoughts - this is certainly a complex issue, and one that can't be had in a single blog post!
See part 2 here.
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