Day: July 1, 2014

Anti-GMO advocates try to scare diabetics off life-saving genetically engineered drug treatment

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insulin

In the late 1970s scientists used genetic engineering to piece the gene for human insulin production into E. Coli or yeast cells, essentially turning them into tiny insulin factories. Before this technology, diabetics had to inject themselves with insulin from ground up pork and beef pancreases. The human stuff offers a lot of benefit over the animal variety: it’s more useful for controlling blood sugar levels and it causes many fewer allergic reactions than the animal-derived insulin.

But, because synthetic human insulin is derived from genetically modified yeast or bacteria cells, no amount of evidence, including 40 years of intensive study and millions of diabetics who would have died without the treatment, will convince some anti-GMO activists of its safety. Why? Because it’s ‘not natural.’

A number of anti-technology activists launched a coordinated campaign over the past week by misrepresenting a recent small Japanese study that identified six patients with Type 2 diabetes who began developing Type 1 diabetes after starting insulin. The actual study makes no mention of GMO insulin or the animal-produced variety, which is perfectly safe, as Kevin Folta, head Horticultural Sciences at the University of Florida and an expert on genetic engineering, points out on his blog.

We all depend on insulin, a hormone synthesized in the Pancreas, to control blood sugar levels. Elevated blood sugar can lead to a variety of metabolic disorders and long-term damage to various organs. Type II diabetics produce too much at first, leading to insulin resistance, a state where the body just does not respond to the hormone and blood sugar levels remain high. Eventually type II’s do not produce enough, so they need to control blood sugar with drugs, or in some cases administer insulin injections to manage their levels. Insulin for human use used to be purified from the pancreas of slaughtered animals. The preparations obviously would contain other potentially reactive proteins, which presented an attractive solution for recominant DNA technology.  Recombinant insulin was first generated way back in the 1970’s, and today is generated in yeast or E.coli in massive fermeneters. The recombinant (GMO) insulin is infinitely more pure, safe and available.

But for ideologues, facts be damned. GMO Free USA posted the ridiculous infographic featured on this page, taking it down just this morning after they were swamped with ridicule. Another soldier in the anti-GMO demonization campaign, Sayer Ji, a blogger at GreenMedInfo, tried to argue that recombinant human insulin causes an autoimmune reaction for two reasons: one, because it comes packaged with other ingredients to keep it in soluble, injectable form; and two, because it is not identical to human insulin because the protein folds up differently. Ji argues this 3D folding difference makes synthetic human insulin an immune system target and subsequently causes the reaction that develops into type 1 diabetes.

Ji’s argument make no sense if you know anything about the pathology of type 1 diabetes. The autoimmune response is caused because the body makes antibodies against proteins on the surface of the pancreas cells that make the insulin and kills them. The insulin molecule itself has nothing to do with with the immune reaction responsible for the disease. Saying the reaction found in the study is a result of ‘GMO insulin’ and implying it would not be the case of pork-produced insulin is just fallacious.

GMO insulin has long been on activists’ hit list. The Internet is filled with misleading stories. For example, something called EcoGlobe wrote this on its website four years ago:

It is vital that the word is spread about the true effects of this stuff (including sudden and unexpected deaths) on many diabetics. It is vital too that pro-GM scientists in America are NOT allowed to get away with making out that GM insulin has been this great GM success story. It is far from being so. I don’t recall a single instance where a diabetic has felt better on the GM insulin than the animal; I’d be glad to hear from any.

Mike Adams over at Natural News has been on attack for years, cherry-picking elements from articles and studies to hype the alleged dangers of insulin injections. His crackpot stories are invariably followed by a commercial plug

You can also learn more about how to cure diabetes naturally, without drugs, by visiting: http://www.naturalnews.com/030150_diabetes_Americans.html More: http://www.naturalnews.com/039664_insulin_diabetes_death_risk.html#ixzz36Dsr17QY

How is genetically engineered insulin made? Biofortified has an excellent post that illuminates why activists hate it: because the GM technology being used to save millions of lives every year is identical and just as safe as the GM technology used in food:

Insulin is made, in principle, the same way GMO corn starch and GMO sugar in cereals are. To start, the DNA sequence for human insulin is inserted into the bacteria E. coli, which creates an organism that now has DNA from two very different species in it. This new E. coli is a genetically modified organism (GMO) and serves as a cheap factory for mass-producing the human insulin protein. After a while, the E. coli bacteria has produced large amounts of the human protein to the point where the protein can be extracted from the bacteria cells and purified before being packaged into insulin shots. The insulin protein produced via genetic engineering is chemically identical to the insulin protein made in a healthy human body.

Another issue, which Ji and his ilk leave out, is that the patients in the study all had genetic markers that conveyed a high risk for development of Type 1 diabetes. In the past, type 1 diabetes was called juvenile diabetes because it was mainly diagnosed in kids and teenagers. But, in recent decades more and more adults are coming down with autoimmune diabetes. Basically the patients included in this study were already at high risk of Type 1.

Why mislead the public about recombinant insulin using this study? To convince people to buy an unregulated and untested product? To get more clicks on a ’10 foods that stop diabetes list’? To further the anti-GMO demonization effort? That’s all easy to do when no one could possibly hold your irresponsibility at fault for harm caused by misinformation writes Folta:

Once again, anti-GMO activists like those at GreenMedInfo and GMOFreeUSA rub their crystals and align their shakras in a message that stands to strike fear in those using safe and dependable insulin therapies. This kind of fear mongering is just an extension of their normal routine– condemning good technology and products to fit their own agendas, even if it causes harm or death to others in the process.

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Rust threatening wheat crops worldwide could be thwarted with genetics, but anti-GMO fervor remains challenge

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Stem rust close up

In the past month, France reported “unprecedented” levels of rust in its wheat fields that is forcing growers to use extra fungicide treatments in order to curb the disease. Shortly after, severe infections of wheat rust were also reported in wheat fields in Alberta, Canada.

Wheat rust, an infectious fungal disease that affects wheat crops, is known to cause crop losses of between 50 and 80 percent or even total crop failure. Major wheat-growing regions in the world, including the Middle East and North Africa, are afflicted with the disease. A severe outbreak in Ethiopia last November caused farmers to lose on average 50 percent of their wheat crops. Concern is mounting among scientists as the disease is spreading farther to Europe. Last year, Germany reported its first outbreak of a severe form of wheat rust, stem rust, in over fifty years.

“Because wheat is such an important crop, stripe rust is one of those diseases that could have a major, major impact on cereal crop production,” Denis Gaudet of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada said. “To me, it represents one of the most serious pathogens and potential threats to crop production anywhere in the world.”

New strains of wheat rust have been mutating and evolving constantly to overcome unfavorable weather conditions and the efforts of plant scientists to breed resistance into wheat crops. While chemical fungicide methods exist to control wheat rust infections, scientists are calling for the development of more rust-resistant wheat varieties to combat the disease.

“Production of new seed varieties is critical,” Fazil Dusunceli of the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization has said.

“Polio of agriculture”

Wheat rust is an infectious fungal disease, affecting wheat in almost every country in which it grows. Also known as the “polio of agriculture,” wheat rusts spread by releasing billions of spores in the wind, each of which can start a new infection, and can cause massive crop failures within a few weeks. The fungi associated with the disease infect wheat crops, their hosts, and weaken the crops by removing sugars and nutrients for itself. There are three important types of wheat rust: stripe rust, stem rust and leaf rust.

Stripe rust, also known as yellow rust, shows up in infected wheat crops as yellow stripes.

Stripe rust is caused by the pathogen Puccinia striiformis, of which scientists are most concerned about a particular new strain Yr27. The pathogen attacks the plants early in the growing season, stunting plant growth and weakening crops. Yr27 is an aggressive new strain that has demonstrated abilities to mutate and adapt quickly to overcome rust resistance in wheat. In 2010, an epidemic of Yr27 hit wheat fields in Central and West Asia and North Africa, and caused crop losses up to 40% in the region, according to a recent commentary in Nature Middle East calling for greater united regional efforts to combat the disease.

Stem rust is perhaps the most devastating form of wheat rust, caused by the pathogen Puccinia graminis. Stem rust is a feared disease through history; the Romans sacrificed dogs to Robigus, the Rust God, in attempts to ward off the disease. In the 1940s when North American wheat fields were severely hit with the disease, Norman Borlaug, father of the Green Revolution, crossbred wheat plants to introduce a gene, Sr31, that confers resistance to stem rust. Ten years of effort paid off, and by the 1970s, Borlaug’s rust-resistant varieties of wheat had been widely adopted. It appeared that stem rust had been wiped out. But in 1999, researchers confirmed that stem rust had evolved and returned with a vengeance. The new strain, Ug99, was able to overcome Borlaug’s resistance gene Sr31. By 2007, Ug99 had spread from Uganda, its country of origin, to wheat fields in Kenya, Ethiopia, Yemen and Iran, mutating into more deadly forms along the way.

Image via the Economist, July 2010

Leaf rust occurs to some extent wherever wheat is grown and normally causes yield losses of less than 10 percent. Leaf rust is caused by the pathogen Puccinia recondita and is not yet as troubling to scientists as stripe or stem rust.

Outbreaks of wheat rust can be controlled by monitoring the diseases closely and spraying fungicides. But a better way is to use genetics, by introducing rust resistance into wheat plants and developing rust-resistant varieties of wheat like Borlaug did, according to the FAO.

How genetics can help

Researchers worldwide working to confer wheat rust resistance through breeding or genetic modification have a few key strategies. Kerry Grens reports in a recent article for the Scientist on research efforts to curb Ug99:

Most wheat researchers and breeders agree that to protect plants from Ug99, they must develop wheat varieties with several rust-resistance genes, so that if the fungus mutates to outwit one defense, there are others there to take on the pathogen.

Because of the constantly changing nature of Ug99 and Yr27, researchers now see the need to “stack” different types of resistance genes in order to protect wheat plants against the diseases effectively. There are two main types of resistance: major and adult resistance. Major resistance defend the wheat plant against infection by specific strains of rust. Adult resistance, on the other hand, stunts the fungal infection and limits its nutrient intake from the host wheat plants. While adult resistance is only partial, it protects against multiple rust species and lasts for decades before a mutated form of wheat rust overcomes it.

“The goal is to provide cultivars with more than one resistance gene, hopefully three,” said Matt Rouse of the USDA’s Cereal Disease Laboratory in Minnesota. “It might slow down the virulence.”

“Rust never sleeps“

But as Borlaug famously said, “rust never sleeps.” Its constantly changing nature makes it difficult for time-consuming traditional breeding strategies to keep up. In Grens’ report, James Anderson, head of the wheat-breeding program at the University of Minnesota says that it takes about eight to nine years to develop a strain with one gene of interest in a typical wheat-breeding program. If a researcher is looking to stack three or more rust-resistance genes, that would add several more years to the time line.

And climate change adds another dimension to the problem. Plant pathology experts at the International Wheat Stripe Rust Symposium in 2011 said that the rapid spread of rust, especially stripe rust, could be driven by climate change:

Climate change is driving the speed and frequency of today’s new wheat rust problems. It provides the ideal conditions for these new rust races to spread, unchecked, across many countries.

In the Middle East, East Africa and South Asia regions where farmers have been planting the same varieties of wheat for 20 – 30 years, the vulnerability of those wheat crops to the new Yr27 and Ug99 wheat rusts is very high. Experts at the Symposium called for diversity in wheat crops and to have various types of rust-resistant varieties of wheat available. But because the appearance of new rust strains is unpredictable, it is unclear how much time crop developers have before the next new form of the disease strikes.

“Our hands are tied”

Genetic engineering could be a faster route for developing new rust-resistant varieties of wheat. In his report, Grens explained that researchers can create a “chunk of chromosome,” also known as a cassette, that contains several resistance genes. Crop developers can then achieve stacked resistance in wheat with a single insertion of the cassette. It would also allow breeders to select more easily for wheat plants with the entire set of resistance genes as they are all carried on the same chromosome.

Genetic engineering would also open up the available genetic resources for rust resistance to include wild relatives of wheat. When breeders cross wheat plants with their wild relatives, the rust resistance genes get transferred together with other unappealing traits such as reduced yields. With genetic engineering, researchers can select the rust resistance genes and insert them into existing high-yielding wheat plants without the undesired traits.

“When you look at what wild crop relatives can contribute to cultivated species, it’s just a phenomenal amount of allelic diversity,” Brian Steffenson, a plant pathologist at the University of Minnesota said.

But many of the research groups working on the problem of wheat rust are academic groups and cannot afford the huge regulatory expenses associated with developing genetically modified crops. Additionally, widespread anti-GMO sentiment needs to be overcome, as unlike most genetically modified corn or soy crops that are used as animal feed, wheat is directly consumed as bread and other wheat products.

“We could do millions of things with transgenics,” Jorge Dubcovsky, a wheat geneticist and breeder at the University of California, Davis, said, “but we have our hands tied.”

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Vermont pro-GMO labeling groups play Monsanto ‘fear card’ in deceptive fund-raising effort

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vermont sq

You may have read recent posts on activist blogs about how “Mighty Monsanto” is taking the “tiny state of Vermont” to court over its labeling laws. “Monsanto Sues Vermont,” screamed one headline. According to the Organic Consumers Association, “Monsanto and the Grocery Manufacturers Association filed a lawsuit” to block the bill.

To recap, back in April, Vermont passed a law mandating all foods to be labeled if they are made with genetically modified crops. The law is to take effect in July 2016. The text, which can be read here, has a section titled “Genetically Engineered Food Labeling Special Fund”.

The purpose of the fund is to “to pay costs or liabilities incurred by the Attorney General or the State in implementation and administration, including rulemaking, of the requirements  … for the labeling of food produced from genetic engineering.” Its text makes it clear that lawmakers anticipated a lawsuit by making provisions for the fund in case there is no “ongoing litigation” surrounding the law by July 2018.

Many analysts stated that a lawsuit was almost inevitable. The attorney general said he had advised lawmakers as they deliberated that the measure would invite a lawsuit from those affected and “it would be a heck of a fight, but we would zealously defend the law”” He was right, as a joint suit was filed earlier this month by a group of defendants.

In fact, this is not Vermont’s first experience with a lawsuit surrounding food labels, so one may say that the fund was set up based on “lessons learned”.

The lawsuit, whose full text can be found here, describes why the plaintiffs (i.e. the people who are suing) think that the law is illegal. These are the two points that standout:

The act is premised on a legislative finding that some consumers want to avoid food derived from genetic engineering because they distrust the FDA’s findings or otherwise object to the use or prevalence of biotechnology in agriculture. The State does not purport to share those views, however, and it has exempted broad categories of foods that contain genetically engineered ingredients from these requirements.

The plantiffs are asking: “why do I have to label my products, but they don’t have to?” I agree here. Doesn’t make sense why some categories are exempt if the premise for the law is “right to know”.

The proscriptions in Act 120 are beyond Vermont’s power to enact. The State is compelling manufacturers to convey messages they do not want to convey, and prohibiting manufacturers from describing their product in terms of their choosing, without anything close to a sufficient justification. The State is forcing the costs of this experiment on out-of-state companies and citizens to which it is not politically accountable, and it is undermining and impeding the federal government’s interest in uniform, nationwide standards for food labeling prescribed by duly authorized expert federal agencies.

Here, the plantiffs claim the law is in violation of the First Amendment guarantee of free speech by forcing a company to say something that it doesn’t want to say as long it is not violating any laws. Additionally, they are stating that labeling is regulated at a federal level, and it doesn’t make legal sense for a state to impose its own labeling requirements at the expense of everyone else.

The FDA provides guidelines on food labeling, and its website does a good job describing the regulations that genetically modified foods are subject to and the evaluations that the crops undergo. Regarding the labeling of genetically modified foods, it supports voluntary labeling of foods:

“We recognize and appreciate the strong interest that many consumers have in knowing whether a food was produced using genetic engineering. Currently, food manufacturers may indicate through voluntary labeling whether foods have or have not been developed through genetic engineering, provided that such labeling is truthful and not misleading. FDA supports voluntary labeling that provides consumers with this information and has issued draft guidance to industry regarding such labeling.

So that’s the outline of the lawsuit. Oh! One important point. Here are the plaintiffs:

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What the…?? Where’s Big Bad Monsanto that we’ve been reading so much about??

The loudest voice behind the claim that Monsanto is suing Vermont is SumOfUs.org, which is raising money to “defeat Monsanto.” At the moment, more than 22,000 people have contributed towards this fundraising effort.

Here’s the text of the SumOfUs fundraising campaign:

Just hours ago, the world’s most hated corporation got even more evil. Monsanto and its allies in the Grocery Manufacturers Association have just announced they’re suing the tiny, rural U.S. state of Vermont to stop a new law that simply requires genetically engineered foods to be labeled. In fact, the mere threat of a multi-million dollar lawsuit nearly caused the state to back off the labeling law altogether.

But Vermont is refusing to back down — and they’re asking for our help. They’re getting ready to fight back against Monsanto, and have even created a legal defense fund so people around the world can make donations to help them beat back Monsanto’s lawsuit.

The SumOfUs community is already fighting Monsanto on every front, but we need to show Monsanto now that we won’t be intimidated. We won’t let Monsanto bully our elected officials into submission. Will you chip in to stand with Vermont and fight back against Monsanto?

Hell yeah!! Who wouldn’t be frothing at the mouth after reading that??

Except that Monsanto isn’t a direct plaintiff in the lawsuit.

I wrote to SumOfUs.org to find out how the money would be spent. Here’s the full text of its response:

Thank you so much for your email and your question regarding our recent email to support Vermont as it begins its legal battle against Monsanto and its allies. SumOfUs is committed to helping the State of Vermont fight back, and that’s where your donation truly makes a difference. We do not have a breakdown at the moment.

Staff from the Vermont governor’s office reached out to us directly before we ran this fundraiser, and we’re talking with them about how we can best support the campaign. We’re planning to make a very significant contribution to the legal defense fund on behalf of our supporters, but if we have enough funds it might also be strategic for us to continue to campaign outside of the legal process to defend this law and undermine Monsanto’s position — in strong consultation with our partners. Vermont is very aware that they won’t be the last fight over GMO labeling in the US or around the world, and that other states need support too.

You can be confident that your gift will go towards fighting Monsanto and defending this law in Vermont, including through the legal defense fund. But if you’d rather donate directly to the fund exclusively, then you can do so here: Foodfightfundvt.org/donate-online

I wrote back to them and asked how a contribution would help in the legal “fight against Monsanto” if the company is not one of the plaintiffs. Here’s their response:

I wanted to provide you with the membership list from the GMA’s website, before it was removed earlier this year, to confirm that Monsanto is a member. It’s attached.

I’d also flag that in a political fight over labeling that did require disclosure, the Washington state ballot over labeling of GMOs, Monsanto contributed more than $5 million to the campaign to defeat it, while the GMA itself donated more than $7 million. GMA only disclosed their donors (as required under WA law) on that campaign after the WA Attorney General sued them to acquire that information.

Unfortunately, federal disclosure laws governing where GMA’s funding comes from are not as strong. It is clear, however, that both Monsanto and the GMA are prepared to spend large sums of money defeating labeling laws that do enjoy public backing, as in Vermont, and that their interest in transparency is minimal.

The attachment included in their email was a full list of GMA’s membership, which included Monsanto and Syngenta, as well as any food manufacturer you could rattle off the top of your head. The breakdown of corporate contributions through the GMA for the labeling law in Washington State can be found here.

Monsanto is one of 300 members of the GMA. The GMA told the Genetic Literacy Project that its public policy decisions are guided by a consensus of the companies; and that a decision was made three years ago by the membership to support a national standard on labeling and fight against piecemeal legislation. The GMA said it was prepared to file a similar suit in California if the labeling law had passed there last year.

One might argue that it’s a naïve perspective to think that Monsanto doesn’t have a huge stake in this issue. However, my perspective is that the food manufacturers have more to lose in this battle. Monsanto sells seeds (which are labeled, so any purchaser knows immediately if they are genetically modified or not). They do not sell the packaged foods that would be affected by this legislation.

If Chipotle’s and Ben & Jerry’s efforts to go GMO free have shown anything, it’s that ridding your supply chain from GMOs is not easy. General Mills, who now makes GMO-free Cheerios, has stated that it would not change the formulation for other products. This excellent depiction of the many aspects of the supply chain that would have to change in order to change a product from GMO-containing to GMO-free illustrates the difficulties inherent in any substantial change.

If this law is not overturned, I don’t think that Monsanto’s sales on existing products would drop very much; after all, Monsanto sells seeds to the non-GMO and organic market as well. No doubt future innovations would be impacted. As such, food manufacturers would be the parties with the greatest and most immediate costs to bear as a result of a labeling law. But you don’t see Pepsi or Mars’ name on any fundraising campaigns.

My theory is that SumOfUs and other anti-GMO groups put Monsanto’s name on this pitch to help fuel their fundraising campaigns.

If I were to participate in a survey, and were to be asked, “What image comes to mind when you think of ‘Grocery Manufacturers Association’?”, I’d say “Mr Hooper from Sesame Street.” No idea why, but it’s probably the word “grocer” in the phrase that evokes that memory. I’d be willing to bet that for the average American, the amount of money they’d donate for a campaign against “the world’s most hated corporation” versus a campaign against the “Snack Food Association” would be very different. The brands that the plaintiffs represent are your favorite snacks and beverages advertised each week during your favorite NFL games. Who would want to donate money against Coca-Cola or Mars? Because Coke ads have cute polar bears and Snickers ads have Betty White. We love polar bears and Betty White.

SumOfUs.org should not be singled out in this tactic. MoveOn.org has several petitions hoping to “block Monsanto from suing Vermont.” The Organic Consumers Association is raising funds to “help defeat Monsanto and the GMA.” It seems pretty clear that the reason why Monsanto is being used is to play on people’s sentiments and biases against the company.

I believe that these campaigns are misleading at best. Regardless of your feelings towards Monsanto, its customers (i.e. farmers) buy their products so they obviously need and want them. A dishonest campaign against Monsanto and farmers is not the way to go.

One thing is certain: the amount of money being spent for and against labeling is money wasted. The labeling debate will not be going away: in my home state of California, it was again brought before lawmakers last month despite being struck down in a referendum less than 2 years ago, and I have no doubt that it will be brought up again. The members of the GMA, including Monsanto, might want to consider making better use of their money educating the public about their products and their safety. Such efforts may help sway the public into realizing that a generic label that says “May Contain Genetically Engineered Crops” is not informative.

Layla Katiraee, contributor to the Genetic Literacy Project, holds a PhD in Molecular Genetics from the University of Toronto and is a Senior Scientist in Product Development at a biotech company in California. All opinions and views expressed are her own. Her twitter handle is: @BioChicaGMO

Shaking up science with transgenerational epigenetics and blurred species boundaries

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Screen Shot at AM

Michael Brooks, author of At the Edge of Uncertainty: 11 Discoveries Taking Science By Surprise recently wrote a piece for The Guardian on how five of sciences “unshakable truths” have been shaken up. Of these five truths, two are aligned with the topics du jour here in Gene-ius.

Transgenerational Epigenetics: Death of genetic absolutism

Number one on his list is is epigenetics, under the heading “Lifestyle can change genes.” Even here at the Genetic Literacy Project, where we gather the cutting edge of genetic science day-to-day, the allure of genes-as-immutable is strong. Brooks writes:

We have come to think that if something is “in our genes”, it is our inevitable destiny. However, this is a gross oversimplification. We have each inherited a particular set of genes, but the outcome of that inheritance is not fixed. Our environment, diet and circumstance flood our bodies with molecules that switch the genes on or off. The result can make a huge difference to our destiny – and that of our descendants.

Yes, we have an hard-coded ‘instruction manual’ built into our cells, but the instructions are highly modular and each bit can be turned on or off; and if a gene is ‘off’ we might as well not have it at all. But the really dogma-shattering idea — the one that prompted me to explore if famed-for-being-wrong biologist Jean Baptiste Lamarck might be vindicated — is that these on-off settings might be passed down along within genes themselves. In other words, not just an instruction manual but a set of notes scribbled in the margins. This is the idea of transgenerational epigenetics.

Brooks lists as examples the effect of mehtyl groups on the DNA of newborns; the lingering genetic effects of starvation on Dutch women captured by Nazis and their post-capture children; and boys who take up smoking before 11 having overweight children later in life. His examples are becoming de rigeur in the growing body of evidence for transgenerational epigenetics, but his final note on the topic offers the clearest conception of the process I’ve read so far:

Standard biological thinking says that the body strips away molecules such as a methyl group from sperm and eggs so that they are “reset” to their default state. However, a study published by Cambridge researchers last year showed that approximately 1% of the changes get through the erasure process unscathed. What you eat, what your mother ate, the age when your grandfather started smoking, the amount of pollution in your neighbourhood – these factors have all been linked to epigenetic changes that get passed down through the generations. Armed with this new insight, we can take far more control of our health – and the health of future generations.

This idea of control seems poised to take root among science-minded health enthusiasts, who now have reason to believe what they eat can influence their genes and those of their offspring. The Epigenome NoE public site offers a page titled “Eating for your epigenome.” As to how much control we actually have and whether anyone can say with authority just how you should eat to ensure epigenetic health … well, that science is still very much coming in.

Blurred species boundaries: We’re not so different, you and I (and chimps and sparrows and sponges)

The other Gene-ius relevant topic of note is that “Humans are nothing special.” Brooks writes (emphasis mine):

We have been taught to think of ourselves as the pinnacle of creation, but that pinnacle is getting rather crowded. In many cases, crows and chimps can use tools – and sometimes abstract reasoning – better than humans. If it’s culture that makes you feel superior, visit the Tanzanian Gombe chimps, Canadian killer whale communities or Australian dolphins: they all show distinct cultural practices in the way they relate with one another, hunt or sing. Animals show personality and morality – elephants can be empathetic or insensitive, rats can be lovers of fair play, spiders can be bold or spineless, chipmunks can be extrovert or shy. Cockroaches have feelings, too, it turns out.

Even the hard facts are letting us down: at the moment, researchers know of only a handful of genes unique to humans; it’s thought that, when the count is finished and the numbers are totted up, fewer than 20 of our 20,000 genes will be exclusively human.

Brooks’s observation highlights one of the themes of this column, though it’s never explicitly stated: Genetics is the great equalizer. We post often about the blurring of species boundaries, about hybrids coming to the fore in a changing world, and about the tenuousness of the categories into which we place groups of animals — including ourselves.

Consider the recent news that there may, in fact, be more than one evolutionary way to build a brain — the organ we prize so highly as one of the things that supposedly separates us from the rest of animalkind.

In many ways, part of what Gene-ius aims to do is to show the mutability of the seemingly immutable. Genes are not the deterministic arbiters of fate they once (and often still are) considered; species do not exist in neat categories and humans do not sit above and apart. These ideas may seem strange, but strange is and should be one of the defining traits of Gene-ius. In the words of famed French writer Victor Hugo:

All science […] commences by being strange. Science is successive. It goes from one wonder to another. It mounts by a ladder. The science of to-day would seem extravagant to the science of a former time. Ptolemy would believe Newton mad.

Kenrick Vezina is Gene-ius Editor for the Genetic Literacy Project and a freelance science writer, educator, and naturalist based in the Greater Boston area.

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Anti-GMO sentiments lean to ‘obsessive’ in Arizona

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His story is typical of those who preach the dangers of eating genetically modified organisms: Four years ago, Jared Keen lived on fast food and a daily jumbo soda. Since moving to a “plant-based diet,” he has shed 140 pounds and says his health and mood have improved greatly. He became an evangelist of vegetables.

And it was while researching healthy eating that Keen read about genetically modified organisms, known as GMOs, and their prevalence in the nation’s food supply. He also read about political movements that ask for all GMO food to carry a label. This spring, he filed paperwork to get an initiative on the Arizona ballot. His deadline to collect 172,809 signatures is 5 p.m. Thursday. Late this week, he estimated he had about 80,000 signatures.

“I think it’s one of the greatest health disasters inflicted on Americans by an American corporation, ever,” said Keen, who lives in Tucson. The corporation he was referring to is Monsanto, a St. Louis-based company that is among those that created genetically modified crops.

That combination — of those who embrace the idea of “natural” and those who question the protection of public officials — is driving a movement to affix a label to foods containing GMOs, whether or not studies or science give reason to provide what will amount to a warning for consumers.

It’s why, in March, Keen found himself collecting petition signatures at Prepper Fest. His table was among those offering information on dehydrated food, water purification and gun safes in anticipation of a disaster or anarchy. The anti-GMO message, with its undertones of corporate greed and government corruption, found a welcome audience at this exhibit hall on the state fairgrounds in Phoenix.

Francine Romesburg, facilitator of the GrassRoots Tea Party Activists of Glendale, stopped by the booth to greet volunteers. GMO opponents spoke to her group a few months back. “Think about it. It’s an easy way for the government to kill off people,” Romesburg said. “Our government is trying to kill us through foods, and we’re just trying to find out about it and they’re trying to keep it from us.”

Peter Ellsworth, director of the University of Arizona Cooperative Extension’s pest management center, said that those against GMOs are as hardened in their decisions as those who deny climate change. Most often, he said, it is people who lean liberal who refuse to accept the scientific consensus on the safety of GMO.

“It tilts to the obsessive,” Ellsworth said. “Be interested in your food, that’s good. But there’s no bogeymen when it comes to the production of food.”

Read the full, original article: GMO-debate injects emotion into food science

Republished Seralini GM corn toxicity study now ‘infamous’ for poor quality

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The strange odyssey of the paper, Long term toxicity of a Roundup herbicide and a Roundup-tolerant genetically modified maize, by Seralini et. al., just got stranger.

The paper was published in 2012 in Food and Chemical Toxicity. It was greeted with intense criticism from the scientific community for its many shortcomings, culminating in the journal retracting the study. Now the study has been republished by a new open access journal, Environmental Sciences Europe. The paper was not re-peer-reviewed, despite Seralini’s claim. It was just republished, with the addition of more raw data and commentary by Seralini.

The Seralini GMO rat study is now infamous for its poor quality and overstated conclusions. The republication of the paper extends the saga, but does nothing to correct the many failings of the study.

There is a further problem with publishing preliminary or exploratory research. Such studies are meant only as an indicator of future confirmatory research, not as a basis of conclusions or recommendations. However, preliminary research is often treated by the press, and therefore the public (and often encouraged by authors overstating their data) as if it were confirmatory.

This problem is exacerbated when the topic is controversial, like GMO. I would argue that the threshold for publication should be higher for controversial topics, otherwise unreliable data is likely to confuse the public discourse.

Still, scientists need preliminary data to guide later research. The compromise I have suggested is that preliminary research be published with an editorial warning label – this is preliminary research meant only for professionals to guide later research and should not be used as a basis for recommendations, policy, or scientific conclusions. Publishing this study is not a statement by the editors that the results are likely to be true.

Read the full, original article: Seralini GMO Study Republished

Dispute over use of GM seeds in El Salvador cited as cause of delay on aid package

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Even as the White House scrambles to deal with the flood of child migrants from Central America, a $277 million economic aid package for El Salvador is being delayed by the administration because of a trade dispute over a modest seed program to help small farmers grow staples like maize and beans.

The trade dispute stems from how the ministry of agriculture procures the seeds for distribution. Government contracts for seed purchases are estimated at about $30 million a year, and the question is whether units of U.S. corporations like Monsanto Co. are being cut out in the effort to buy more seed from smaller, Salvadoran producers.

Supporters of the program argue that the ministry is seeking only to allow small and medium producers to better compete, while fostering a sustainable seed industry inside El Salvador. Critics say the process in recent years has violated the principles of transparency and nondiscrimination under the Dominican Republic-Central America Free Trade Agreement, or CAFTA-DR, approved in 2005.

Given Monsanto’s presence, activists have sought to make the fight about the giant company’s genetically modified, or GMO, seeds. And the political optics feed into the charge from critics that the administration is manipulating the approval of the compact in order to advance the interests of U.S.-based, transnational agribusinesses.

The U.S. Embassy in Salvador denies any effort to promote GMO seeds. But in a recent posting on its website, the embassy acknowledges that a resolution of the seed procurement issue is a condition for the U.S. aid.

“We are asking the government of El Salvador to implement the procurement program for corn and bean seeds in a competitive, objective and transparent manner,” the embassy wrote. “We are hoping the remaining issues can be resolved.”

Read the full, original article: Trade dispute hangs over White House child-migrant 

Parents seeking non-GMO foods driving organic sales

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Parents’ desires to avoid genetically modified organisms (GMO) are partially driving the increased sales of organic products, according to a study conducted by the Organic Trade Association (OTA) released last week.

The study, a survey of over 1,200 households across the U.S. with at least one child under 18, found that nearly 25 percent of parents already buying organic said that avoiding GMOs is a top reason they choose organic. Only 16 percent of parents said the same in 2013, OTA says.

“Each year we see an increase in parents’ self-described knowledge of organic topics,” said Laura Batcha, OTA CEO and executive director. “Parents have become more informed about the benefits of organic, and they have also become more aware of the questions surrounding GMOs. That heightened awareness is being reflected in their buying decisions.”

The news comes as the organic industry works to differentiate itself from “GMO free” and “Non-GMO Project” labels. USDA prohibits the use of GMOs in its certified organic products. As Miles McEvoy, the Agriculture Department’s National Organic Program (NOP) deputy administrator, explained last year, “This means an organic farmer can’t plant GMO seeds, an organic cow can’t eat GMO alfalfa or corn, and an organic soup producer can’t use any GMO ingredients.”

Read the full, original article: Study: GMO aversion driving organic sales

Is genetic modification of foods ‘ethical’?

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Food is cultural, social and deeply personal, so it’s no surprise that modifications to the way food is produced, distributed and consumed often lead to ethical debates. Developments in the genetic modification (GM) of foods and crops has resulted in a raft of controversies.

Ethics can help here. While science determines whether we can safely modify the genetic makeup of certain organisms, ethics asks whether we should. Ethics tries to move beyond factual statements about what is, to evaluative statements about the way we should act towards ourselves, each other and the environment we inhabit. But things are not always so clear-cut.

Ethics of GM foods can be developed by looking at virtue or character. Does the activity of engaging in the development of GM foods and crops erode virtues while producing vices? Or is GM technology a prudent use of knowledge for humanitarian goals?

There are also concerns about the moral status of the organism itself – does the modification of an organism’s genetic makeup represent a wrong to the dignity or integrity to the organism? This position depends on arguments that nature has dignity and interests beyond those of its human inhabitants. Such arguments are not readily accepted due to their metaphysical or theological overtones and dependence on essentialist idea of nature.

The most common way of framing the ethics of GM foods is to ask: do GM foods and crops present negative or harmful consequences for individuals, populations or the environment? Most scientists argue that GM foods are safe to eat and will not harm consumer health.

It is unlikely these issues will be resolved any time soon – and likely that new ones will be added – but one area that can be worked on is discourse ethics. Until productive discourse is established, barriers between opposing views will only strengthen.

Read the full, original article: Because we can, does it mean we should? The ethics of GM foods

Critical evaluation of Ecuadorian worker study suggesting glyphosate might cause extensive health problems

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ecuador farm worker x

Recently a concerned mother reached out to me[Chair of the University of Florida Horticultural Sciences program Kevin Folta] about information on glyphosate. She had read on an activist website that glyphosate damaged DNA, as demonstrated in Ecuadorian workers. Dr. Paz-y-Mino et al. published the work in 2007  in Genetics and Molecular Biology, a small Brazilian journal. This group is recognized for good work, but the data and methods presented in this report present some serious limitations that make the findings far from conclusive–and unnecessarily scary.

Even the authors have many mundane explanations for the results. However, the title becomes a headline and is part of the glyphosate=danger mantra repeated by low-science-resolution readers that seek confirmation of their biases.

This report tests assesses “DNA damage” using what’s called a “comet assay”, an assay where cells are placed into an agar matrix, lysed and subjected to an electric field.  DNA is charged, so large DNA pieces move to the positive pole. Damaged DNA moves faster because it has greater mobility- that’s the basis of the assay. The DNA smears out as a blob with a streak after it, resembling a comet.

In this report 24 people from an ag intensive area where glyphosate was used were compared to 21 in an area 80km away.  Blood was drawn “between 2 weeks and 2 months” after glyphosate application to the crops. There is one table of data showing that the DNA from those living near the farm (50 percent tested were 200m – 3km).

The results show consistently higher migration in the “exposed” group, suggesting more damage, according to the authors. But the best explanation—”Blood samples (from the unexposed group) were collected and processed as for the exposed group, but not concomitantly.”

Bingo. The authors counted on one single replicate that was processed at different times. How the blood was handled, how it was prepared… all could easily account for the results seen.  The fact that it was one replicate is also quite telling.  I’d never publish with fewer than three on this kind of test.

The best thing that could be said is that the data show a potential starting point.  It would have been good to see the data and have the controls and treatments collected and processed blindly and at the same time.

Read the full, original article: DNA damage and glyphosate? Critical evaluation of a 2007 report

Call for integrity for stem cell research amid global controversy

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Scientists around the world are campaigning in favor of sensible regulation of stem-cell therapies. We have two reactions: (1) kudos for this important work; and (2) it’s about time.

The highest-profile selling-stem-cells scandal at present is in Italy, where the Stamina Foundation has been described as a “criminal organization that has defrauded about a thousand patients since 2006 by administering a dangerous and unapproved [stem cell] treatment in exchange for money.” A profile in The Verge describes its founder, Davide Vannoni, as a “con man,” and a long article in Nature by scientists Elena Cattaneo and Gilberto Corbellini details their exhaustive (and exhausting) efforts to stop him:

We recommend that all scientists stand up for the scientific method. Science depends on public institutions and is done in the public interest — we have a duty to defend both.

The recent conference of the International Society for Stem Cell Research (ISSCR) opened with a panel discussion about how to sort the real from the bogus treatments. (Note: none of this is in any way related to the STAP cells controversy.) ISSCR’s website includes a useful fact sheet, a backgrounder on “How Science Becomes Medicine,” and even, on the front page, a link to the 2010 60 Minutes investigative report on “21st Century Snake Oil.”

Read the full, original story: Selling Stem Cells Honestly

Early human inter-species breeding results point to fourth mystery species

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The evolutionary tree for modern humans a bit of a mess – humans haven’t had a close relative on this planet for over 10,000 years, but there used to be several other closely related species living at the same time.

Genetic analyses on bone fragments from Neanderthals and Denisovans has given us new insight into our not-so-distant evolutionary past. The results indicate that not only did Denisovans and Neanderthals interbreed with modern Homo sapiens, but they also mated with an unidentified fourth hominin group. This information was presented to evolutionary geneticists last week for a meeting of the Royal Society.

There is evidence of certain populations of humans alive today getting as much as 4 percent of their DNA from Denisovans, though there is some debate surrounding it. Additionally, there are people with ancestries outside of Africa that could have gotten about 2 percent of their genomes from Neanderthals, though there is some speculation with this as well.

Right now, the identity of this fourth early human group remains a mystery. They could have come from Asia, but that has not yet been made certain. Future research will hopefully identify this unknown population and help us better understand all of the different evolutionary inputs that make us who we are.

Read the full, original story: Interbreeding among early hominins

Including vasectomies in court sentencing new eugenics

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Put this in the “can they even do that?” files. Jesse Lee Herald of Edinburg, Virginia, received an unusual sentence for child endangerment, hit-and-run driving, and driving on a suspended license: 20 months in prison, five years of probation, and a vasectomy. As part of his plea deal, Herald had to agree to get snipped when he got out of jail. He’s not allowed to undergo a reversal until his probation is up.

Herald has a fairly long rap sheet already, including a previous hit-and-run conviction, but it wasn’t just his life of petty crime that inspired the mandatory vasectomy, according to what assistant prosecutor Ilona L. White told NV Daily:

White said her motivation in offering the vasectomy option to Herald stemmed from concerns raised at sentencing hearings in earlier cases about how many children have been traced to him from different women.

“It was primarily due to the fact he had seven or eight children, all by different women, and we felt it might be in the commonwealth’s interest for that to be part of the plea agreement,” White said of the vasectomy provision.

Read the full, original story: Vasectomies should not be used as punishment

Faced with a sick brother, reporter wonders whether to get DNA tested

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In the fall of 2010, as my brother was dying of colon cancer, I learned a terrifying secret. He also had Huntington’s disease, a horrific brain disorder that is passed down in families.

Suddenly, even as I was losing my cherished sibling, my childhood soulmate, I was also grappling with my own possible death. Because Huntington’s is purely genetic, I had a 50 percent chance of having the incurable disease. And if I carried the lethal gene, that meant my children could have it too.

Only days after I last saw him, he died at home on Christmas Eve.

Even as I was grieving, waiting to hear news of my brother’s memorial service, I needed to make a decision. I was living in fear, anxiety. My siblings and I were emailing each other, sharing information, trying to decide whether to get tested. Did I want to know I was going to die a slow horrible death?

Read the full, original story: On the perils of genetic testing

Payout deadline approaches for North Carolina forced sterilization victims

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In 1948, as Naomi Schenck was rushed into a North Carolina operating room because she was having a miscarriage, the then-17-year-old newlywed heard a doctor say: “Cut her.”

“I didn’t know what ‘cut her’ meant,” said Schenck, now 83. She soon found out: Schenck said she was given a spinal tap and then sterilized against her will. Some 7,600 others were sterilized from 1929 to 1974 under the state’s eugenics program. Most were either forced or coerced into the procedure, though a small number of people chose to be sterilized.

Now, Schenck is among 520 sterilization victims and family members waiting to be paid a portion of the $10 million fund established by North Carolina to compensate victims. The Office for Justice of Sterilization Victims estimates about 1,800 victims are still alive. Their deadline to file claims is Monday.

Eugenics programs in the U.S. were widely perceived as a legitimate effort to improve society by sterilizing people the state deemed inferior citizens incapable of caring for children. Victims were disproportionately poor, mentally disabled or African-American. Eugenics fell out of favor in most states when it became associated with Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler’s ideas of racial purity during World War II, though North Carolina’s continued for some time after.

Read the full, original story: Deadline Looms for NC Eugenics Victims Payment

Woman seeks to ban surrogacy

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Jennifer Lahl is on a crusade to outlaw surrogacy, the process by which women lend their wombs to would-be mothers unable or unwilling to carry children themselves, and to men in same-sex relationships who want families.

“It always strikes me that the children are so absent in the discussions,” Lahl, 56, told ABC News. “It’s all about adults – who wants, who needs, who buys and what I can get.”

In gestational surrogacy, a woman carries a child that is not related to her, conceived through in vitro fertilization and implanted in her womb. The child may or may not be related to one or both of the intended parents.

In her new documentary, “Breeders: A Sub-Class of Women,” Lahl explores the issue of third-party reproduction, focusing on several women whose experiences point to what she sees as flaws in the surrogacy process. She argues that surrogacy has become a baby-buying operation that allows wealthy couples to exploit vulnerable women, often those of lesser means.

Read the full, original story: Woman Sets Out to Ban Surrogacy

DNA in rogue databases and genetic privacy

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DNA cigarette butt genetic privacy

The cop came on to the murder suspect, kissed him at length and juicily, and walked away spitting into a small plastic cup.

She wanted his DNA.

It was only a television show, but a number of questions popped into my head. Is this really doable? What technical problems are involved in recovering DNA from an osculation conglomeration—and separating his from hers?

Not to mention, damn, is this a scriptwriter’s fancy, or is the scene one of those ripped-from-the-headlines things? Are cops really trying to collect DNA on the sly?

According to Buzz Scherr, the answers to that last question is “yes”. Scherr is a law professor at the University of New Hampshire and an expert on forensic DNA evidence. He had no tales of DNA-collecting kisses, but on the radio show Science Friday last week, he said law enforcement officials do follow people around, collecting their used coffee cups and other cell-laden detritus surreptitiously. These items are analyzed for DNA without the warrant that the law requires for a suspect who hasn’t yet been arrested. (Arrestee DNA goes into the databases routinely and legally, it appears.) But, Scherr says, these stealth DNA results go into what he called “rogue databases,” kept secret from the public.

The art of genetic privacy

The stimulus for the Science Friday episode was the deliberately provocative art work of the artist and grad student Heather Dewey-Hagborg, who collects DNA from cells people unwittingly leave behind on cigarette butts, stray hairs, used tissues, and the like.Dewey-Hagborg says much can be learned from the DNA that each of us sheds all the time without thinking—skin cells on your sheets, hairs caught in a hat you wore, and, at the restaurant where you ate last night, saliva on your fork and wineglass and chopsticks.

The photo accompanying this piece shows a cigarette butt lying on Myrtle Avenue in Brooklyn just before Dewey-Hagborg collected it. She examined DNA extracted from saliva on the butt and learned that the smoker—a stranger to her—is a woman, that her mtDNA haplogroup is T2b, and that her ancestry is likely 25 percent European. She probably has brown eyes, a bigger-than-average nose, and a smaller-than-average chance of getting really fat.

Dewey-Hagborg says analyzing the DNA of strangers can reveal their ancestry, their genetic risks, perhaps even make possible a guess at their surnames. From phenotype information in the DNA and other technical magic such as facial recognition software and a 3-D printer, she even makes their portraits. If saliva is the original medium, I guess you could call them spitting images. Find a video of her process here.

I’m a little relieved to see that her DNA-derived self-portrait doesn’t seem to be an extremely close match for her own mobile face. I doubt it could be picked out of a lineup. But I imagine time and technical developments and research in our ever-growing genome databases will bring such a portrait a lot closer to reality.

Our abandoned DNA

Gulp.

Dewey-Hagborg’s aim is to raise the alarm about the genetic information we shed unknowingly, and how much of it is already accessible to snoops. She certainly succeeded with me.

There are some sobering numbers on her website. It declares that only half a nanogram of DNA is adequate for forensic analysis, an amount that can be retrieved from just 75 body cells. There are five nanograms in a single hair, and each of us sheds an average of 50 hairs a day. While I was writing this piece, I have picked three four hairs off my keyboard.

Also alarming is what Schurr said about all the DNA databases out there besides the official ones we know about. Schurr calls Dewey-Hagborg’s consciousness-raising “perfectly provocative at a very important time.” He has a grant from the National Institutes of Health to study the relationship between genetics, police investigation and Constitutional privacy.

Schurr notes that we’re terribly concerned about cellphone and other digital privacy, but most of us don’t even think about genetic privacy. Yet, he says, unofficial genetic spies are already out there. Police and other law enforcement officials. Paparazzi tracking celebrities.

And the privacy problems extend beyond the person being tracked. If a genetic spy cannot find the person of interest’s DNA in a database, it’s possible to do what Schurr calls a “low stringency” search. That’s an attempt to find people in a database whose DNA matches at only some of the subject’s DNA sites. Such a person might be a relative, and so makes it possible to identify the DNA-shedder indirectly.

No court has yet ruled this sort of thing unconstitutional. Most states have laws about genetic privacy, he says, but it’s not clear that they cover the sort of thing Dewey-Hagborg has done. Or what law enforcement and paparazzi are doing. The state of the law right now is that when you shed DNA, you have legally abandoned it. Anyone can take it, and do with it what they will.

For sale: Erase and Replace

Dewey-Hagborg has taken steps to further genetic privacy, founding a company called Biogenfutur.es. My hunch about Biogenfutur.es and its gorgeous website is that it’s another of her art projects rather than a genuine capitalist enterprise. The pitch is that the future of genetic privacy is to be invisible, and there are two products to make it so, Erase and Replace. Erase claims to expunge nearly all your DNA from a surface. The function of Replace is to modify any residue by swamping it with the DNA of others.

Erase and Replace are about to go on sale at the New Museum in New York City, a home for contemporary art. Price $230 (less if you’re a New Museum member.) You can save that money and get the same effect as Erase, Dewey-Hagborg says, with just about any cleaning product.

She made no suggestions about a cheap replacement for Replace. But homegrown Replace, full of other people’s DNA, might be easy enough to approximate if you were determined and not too finicky about sanitation. Collect people’s discarded tissues or a used bandage and rub them over the site you wish to disguise? Shake somebody’s pillowcase over it? If you are ambitious and technically adept, could you collect used coffee cups and chopsticks, extract the DNA on them, and strew it about to obliterate your presence?

Twenty years ago, Nobel prize-winner Kary Mullis, inventor of the polymerase chain reaction (the standard method for making zillions of copies of a piece of DNA), forecast that someone would create such a product. Dewey-Hagborg’s Replace is one such, born at the intersection of art and politics. How soon will some genetic entrepreneur come up with a commercial replacement for Replace? Only this time not as art for art’s sake, but as a serious product, available not at a museum shop but much more cheaply on drugstore shelves?

Tabitha M. Powledge is a long-time science journalist and a contributing columnist for the Genetic Literacy Project. She also writes On Science Blogs for the PLOS Blogs Network. Follow her @tamfecit. 

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