Advocates of Genetic Engineering claim that they are merely accelerating evolutionary processes and that this necessarily means that the resulting ‘franken-foods’ are in fact ‘substantial equivalents’ of natural products and that a degree of safety can therefore be assumed.
Of course none of this is actually true.
It was once thought that genes were the ‘blueprint for life’ and that subtle manipulation of the DNA could produce pretty much any desired feature in an organism. Scientists fantasised that their alterations to the genetic code would remain stable throughout the lifetime of an individual and that the resulting phenotypic traits would be transferred to the next generation to maintain the advantageous modifications. Under this scheme, the genetic modifications could be applied independently of each other and would remain confined to a single hereditable line and certainly not spread to other species.
It seems though that amongst the scientific community it has been known for the last 40 years or so that there is no simple mapping between DNA base pairs and the physical characteristics of an organism. So there is no gene for height, nor for ‘musical ability’, ‘herbicide resistance’ or ‘drought tolerance’. (Ho, Noble, Levin, Lanka, Wikipedia..) In other words, the whole premise upon which the GMO industry was founded has turned out to be false and it is unlikely therefore that any good can come out of it.
“GMO free – Exposing the hazards of biotechnology to ensure the integrity of our food supply” Mae-Wan Ho, Lim Li Ching.
In this book, Ho and Ching show that the practices of the GMO industry are self-serving and dangerous, with the scientific theory proving to be a resounding failure even according to their own narrative.
- GM crops have failed to deliver the promised benefits
- GM crops are posing escalating problems on the farms
- Extensive cross-species contamination is inevitable
- GM crops are not safe and the regulatory framework is inadequate
- GM foods also raise serious safety concerns
- Dangerous gene products are incorporated into crops
- ‘Terminator’ crops spread male sterility to other species
- Broad spectrum herbicides are highly toxic to humans and other non-target species
- Transgenic DNA in food is taken up by bacteria in the gut
- Transgenic DNA survives digestion and is found in the genome of mammalian cells
- Transgenic DNA contaminates the bacteria in the soil
- The GMO industry has demonstrated a history of misrepresentation and suppression of scientific evidence
Safety standards are, by the industry’s own admission deliberately vague and ambiguous in order to accommodate a continuously developing technology. They are theoretical and ‘relative’, with no absolute reference.
Studies unsympathetic to commercial concerns are stopped prematurely and the results never published.
The principle of Substantial Equivalence enables a product to be declared ‘safe’ if it can be argued that it is somehow similar to a naturally occurring organism in some way that may or may not be related to safety concerns.
This principle is ill defined and permits the following scientific abominations:
- Application of the least discriminating tests
- Avoidance of detailed molecular characterisation of the transgenic insert
- Comparison of irrelevancies to establish ‘equivalence’
- Comparison of the transgenic product to favourable non-transgenic organism
- Comparison of transgenic product to fictitious ‘composites’ by cherry-picking individual characteristics from different varieties of the same species!
Transgenic contamination is unavoidable. With safety zones of 100m around crops, trans-gene transmission by insect pollination and wind-blown particles is measurable, widespread and inevitable.
“There can be no co-existence of transgenic and non-transgenic crops” – Ho, Ching.
Broad spectrum herbicides are used which are poisonous to neighbouring crops, wild animals and the human population. The toxins find their way into the soil and soil bacteria.
Modifications of the genetically engineered crops somehow find their way into the local weed population which in turn becomes more resistant to the herbicides, necessitating increasing doses of these chemicals.
The GMO industry is driving glyphosate sales.
“The consistent finding from independent research since 1999 is that GM crops have failed to deliver the promised benefits of increasing yields or reduction of herbicide or pesticide use”
“GM crops have cost the US $12 billion in farm subsidies – “Ho, Ching.
In some cases, pests have developed resistance to multiple toxins and have even adapted to use some toxins as nutrition, thereby becoming an even greater nuisance than before the adoption of the new technology.
Gene ‘editing’ is performed by the introduction of new genetic material into the organism with the assistance of a ‘vector’ which could be a cellular toxin or even an electric current but never tweezers.
Another way is by micro-projectile bombardment of the DNA to force mutation.
These methods are crude and brutal in the extreme compared to what happens natural evolution, where the cellular cytoplasm and DNA are kept in tune with each other and develop together, often towards specific ‘goals’ – see The fluid genome for two examples.
The instability of transgenic lines has plagued the industry from the beginning and this may be responsible for a string of major crop failures.
“Genetic Engineering can in no way be equated with conventional breeding or mutagenesis.” – Ho, Ching.
Related pages:
References:
“GMO free – Exposing the hazards of biotechnology to ensure the integrity of our food supply” Mae-Wan Ho, Lim Li Ching.
“Meaning of Life & the Universe: Transforming” – Mae-Wan Ho
Chapter 4: Epigenetics and generative dynamics
ISBN-10. 981310886X ; ISBN-13. 978-9813108868
Ten Years of the Human Genome – Reams of data and no progress in sight Mae-Wan Ho
https://www.i-sis.org.uk/tenYearsOfTheHumanGenome.php
Beyond neo-Darwinism – an epigenetic approach to evolution
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/22628078_Beyond_neo-Darwinism-an_epigenetic_approach_to_evolution
Central Dogma or Central Debate? Denis Noble
https://journals.physiology.org/doi/full/10.1152/physiol.00017.2018
A theory of biological relativity: no privileged level of causation – Denis Noble
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3262309/