A former member of the European Food Safety Authority's (EFSA's) GMO panel, Jean-Michel Wal, has said that a study suggesting that GM Bt crops could be allergenic has "solid scientifically grounded results", according to a report in EU Food Policy.

The study performed in mice found that the GM Bt toxin Cry1Ac is immunogenic, allergenic, and able to induce anaphylaxis (a severe allergic response that can result in suffocation).

Dr Wal was a member of the GMO panel until July. He issued two minority Opinions during his time at EFSA, arguing that risk assessments of the potential allergenicity of the new proteins expressed in stacked-trait GMOs were inadequate and based on assumptions rather than data.

In the EU, the risk assessment of GMOs is no longer systematically associated with the requirement to provide data. This is how the recent evolution in the field of GMOs could be summarised. After having described this evolution through emblematic applications for commercial authorisation, Inf’OGM focuses on this issue from a legal point of view.

Since 2013, commercial authorisations covering both a GMO with several transformation events (GMO ABC for example, called stacked GMO) and the GMOs combining the transformation events of the stacked GMO (GMOs AB, BC, and AC) have multiplied. However, Regulation 1829/2003 – on which most commercial authorisations are based – is silent on the question whether a single decision can authorise the commercialisation of several GMOs.

In 2013, the entry into force of Regulation 503/2013 put an end to this silence. The Regulation requires that “the applications for genetically modified food and feed from segregating crops [...] include all subcombinations independently of their origin and not yet authorised . This cleared the way for a preferential treatment of sub-combinations and for an exponential growth of the number of GMOs authorised in the European Union.

GM maize is super-resistant to herbicides and produces six insecticidal toxins

EU Member States will today vote on whether a new GM maize that is super-resistant to the herbicides glyphosate and glufosinate and produces six insecticides can be imported. The maize is produced by crossing five different GM plants. Bayer wants approval for import and use in food and feed. The health impacts resulting from the specific combination of potential toxic substances have not been investigated.

The GM maize was produced by Monsanto, which is now owned by Bayer. The maize is part of a business strategy to market the herbicide and patented seeds as a package: the plants inherit duplicate genes for glyphosate and glufosinate resistance and each of the herbicides can therefore be sprayed at higher dosages. As a result, in addition to the insecticidal proteins produced in the plants, the harvested kernels may have a high load of herbicide residues from spraying.

The potential detrimental effects on health from the consumption of food and feed derived from these maize plants were not tested in any feeding study. The EU Commission and the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) are of the opinion that in general such combinatorial effects do not require investigation.

Many images may come to mind when one thinks of Hawaii: tropical beaches, big wave surfing, a fruity beverage underneath palm trees swaying in a light breeze…But what about GMOs? Would it surprise you to know that the Hawaiian Islands have been home to some of the largest GMO experiments in the United States—most of which have nothing to do with the highly celebrated Rainbow Papaya?

Hawaiian Agriculture in a Macadamia Nutshell

Since the arrival of Captain Cook in the 18th century, Hawaiian agriculture has been dominated by foreign interests. Native Hawaiians were increasingly alienated from their land and natural resources as plantation crop agriculture flourished. While remnants of the sugarcane and pineapple industries can still be seen on the islands today, the majority of the plantations have given way to a new type of agriculture: seed crops.

Caution required for using CRISPR in potential gene therapies – and food plants

Scientists at the Wellcome Sanger Institute have discovered that CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing can cause greater genetic damage in cells than was previously thought. These results create safety implications for gene therapies using CRISPR/Cas9 in the future as the unexpected damage could lead to dangerous changes in some cells. Potential consequences could include triggering cancer.

Reported on 16 July 2018 in the journal Nature Biotechnology, the study also revealed that standard tests for detecting DNA changes miss finding this genetic damage, and that caution and specific testing will be required for any potential gene therapies.

As usual we see far more honesty about the off-target effects of CRISPR from genetic engineers in the field of medical research than we see from the plant genetic engineers. However, the technique as used in plants is the same, as are the mechanisms of DNA repair. These off-target effects in food plants could have possible knock-on effects on food safety, including unexpected toxicity and allergenicity.

A retreat in science-based policy

Download a PDF of the fact sheet.

Setting the table

The proposed new NAFTA, dubbed the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), would expedite exports and imports of food and agricultural products, purportedly based on “scientific principles” and “science-based decision making,” (Article 9.3.1h). However, the Trump administration’s attacks on the science, economic analysis and budgets of government agencies, the so-called “administrative state” which former presidential adviser Steve Bannon vowed to “deconstruct”, weaken trade policy implementation and enforcement capacity.1 Inconsistent implementation and weak enforcement could both disrupt trade and pose risks to consumers of imported foods. The agreement, if approved by Congress, would institutionalize the Trump administration’s anti-consumer, anti-environmental protection and anti-food safety enforcement agenda for a generation in the new NAFTA text.

Why we need an international moratorium on so-called “gene drive”

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Gene drive allows for modification of entire wild populations

Concerns around the contamination of natural populations seem to have been completely ignored in the development of this new technique, known as gene drive, which if unimpeded will enable humans to modify entire populations of living organisms in just a few generations. Gene drive allows for the bypassing of hereditary laws and the passing of a gene from one parent to almost all its descendants, whatever the genes of the other parent. In this way, it is, for example, possible to pass a female sterility gene through genetically modified males and - in theory - eradicate a whole population.

Proponents of this technique usually present extremely exciting possible uses like a reduction of the number of mosquitoes responsible for the malaria epidemic, or the eradication of an imported rat population that is endangering the ecosystem of New Zealand. These indeed sound great if we forget that the consequences could be dire.

A controversial and unproven gene-editing technology touted as a silver bullet against malaria-bearing mosquitos could wind up being deployed first in commercial agriculture, according to experts and an NGO report published Tuesday.

So-called "gene drives" force evolution's hand, ensuring that an engineered trait is passed down to all or most offspring, and from one generation to the next.

If that trait is being male or female, for example, genetically altered specimens released into the wild could lead to the local extinction of a targeted species within a dozen generations.

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"Gene drive is headed toward agriculture," said Jim Thomas, research director at ETC Group, a Canadian-based NGO that tracks potentially dangerous bio-technologies, and lead author of a report on the technology's inroads into Big Agriculture.

In the United States, at least, it already has a foothold.

By forcing laboratory-made genes on an entire population or species, cutting-edge gene-drive technologies have the power to transform entire ecosystems in one fell swoop. But where leading industrial agriculture firms see dollar signs, farmers in the regions where gene drives could be unleashed see a mortal threat to their livelihoods.

LAGOS – First, the agribusiness giants came to take our land and disrupt our food systems with synthetic pesticides, fertilizers, proprietary seeds, and genetically modified organisms (GMOs). Now, these firms’ hired hands are upping the ante with “gene drives,” a deliberately invasive technology designed to propagate genetic material across an entire population or species. As a result, Africans are now confronting a new and serious threat to our land, biodiversity, rights, and food supply.

New Report exposes how a controversial genetic forcing technology is targeting the farm

Rome, 16 October 2018 (World Food Day) – Global food movement leaders and organizations representing hundreds of millions of farmers and food workers today set out their clear opposition to "gene drives" – a controversial new genetic forcing technology. Their call for a stop to this technology accompanies a new report, Forcing the Farm, that lifts the lid on how gene drives may harm food and farming systems.

Gene drives are a genetic engineering tool that aim to force artificial genetic changes through entire populations of animals, insects and plants. Unlike previous genetically modified organisms (GMOs) these gene drive organisms (GDOs) are deliberately designed to spread genetic pollution as an agricultural strategy – for example, spreading 'auto-extinction' genes to wipe out agricultural pests. Agri-research bodies now developing these extinction-organisms include the California Cherry Board, the US Citrus Research Board and the private California company Agragene Inc. Next month, the United Nations Biodiversity Convention will meet to discuss measures to control this technology, including a possible moratorium.

"There is no place in a good food system for these deliberately spreading organisms," says Mariann Bassey, chair of the African Food Sovereignty Alliance, whose 34 member organisations are among the 200+ groups and individuals who have signed the call against gene drives. "Gene drives may drive species to extinction and undermine sustainable and equitable food and agriculture," Bassey continued.

Those launching the call for a moratorium on gene drives in food and agriculture include all past and present UN Special Rapporteurs on the Right to Food; the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements; IUF (the International Union representing Food and Farmworkers); and La Via Campesina, the largest network of peasant movements representing 200 million peasants in 81 countries. Signatories also include well-known commentators on food matters including seed activist Vandana Shiva, World Food Prize winner Dr Hans Herren, International President of Friends of the Earth International Karin Nansen, Activist and Food entrepreneur Nell Newman, and environmentalist and geneticist David Suzuki.

"Applying gene drives to food systems threatens to harm farmers' rights and the rights of peasants as enshrined in international treaties," explains Dr Olivier De Schutter, who served as the UN Rapporteur on the Right to Food from 2008-2014. "Gene drives would undermine the realization of human rights including the right to healthy, ecologically-produced and culturally appropriate food and nutrition."

"La Via Campesina is firmly positioned against the gene drive technology. It is a threat to peasant economies, to people, countries and even the world's food sovereignty – a technique which threatens life, biodiversity and social systems, " said Genevieve LaLumiere, a Canadian young farmer of La Via Campesina. "This uncontrolled technology is dangerous and can contaminate our seeds, our animals and our soil; destabilize our ecosystems; and destroy our fundamental resources." Marciano Da Silva from Brasil Peasant Organisation (also of La Via Campesina) continued, "gene drive technology is, fundamentally, a tool for patentability of native traits of our peasant seeds."