Jennifer Marohasy

My 16 year old daughter told me some weeks ago that she had just heard on local FM radio that “the government” was going to fund an independent assessment into the safety of GM food.

What she didn’t know was that the WA government is going to funding a known anti-GM activist with no laboratories or expertise to undertake studies that require both expert knowledge and facilities.

Dr Rick Roush an Australian based at the University of California was one of several signatories to the following letter of protest sent to the Premier of Western Australia on 5th December:

The Hon Dr Geoff Gallop, BEc MA MPhil DPhil MLA

Dear Premier Gallop,

We were shocked and disappointed to see media reports that Agriculture Minister Kim Chance will fund a long-term animal feeding trial with the Institute for Health and Environmental Research in Adelaide. We note that Mr. Chance’s website confirms your government will fund an “independent’ study to gain data on the safety or otherwise of GM food crops.

There is universal support among all major scientific societies around the world for the safety of the regulatory system and all currently registered GM foods. Contrary to the assertions in Mr. Chance’s media release, these current food assessments (including those by Food Standards Australia New Zealand) do actively and intensively review the possibility that “when a gene is taken out of one organism and put into another, the protein expressed by that gene may be different.”

There is substantial scientific evidence confirming the safety of currently approved biotech crops, and absent new questions, there is little or no basis for further animal studies. Nobody, of course, will object to properly conducted further studies if your government wishes to fund them. Our concern is that Mr. Chance has apparently decided to award funds for this research to a group with a well-known agenda against GM crops, and worse, apparently with no technical expertise, no reputable scientific track record and no facilities suitable for conducting the study!

In his media release, Mr. Chance expressed concern that adverse effects from a novel type of GM pea “had only come to light recently, despite 10 years of research and development.” In fact, the pea project has been underway for ten years precisely because GM research is undertaken in great detail and products are not rushed to market. Mr. Chance seems unaware that CSIRO has been conducting other safety tests on this crop for a number of years, including some in the 1990s in collaboration with anti-GM critic Arpad Pusztai; the detrimental effects found were minimal (citation below). The facts remain both that the current review process did find the problems in the GM peas and that no foods with this specific insecticide resistance gene are grown anywhere in the world other than in well-controlled, small-scale experiments.

Most of us became aware of the Institute for Health and Environmental Research (SA) in 2003, when their leading figure, Dr. Judy Carmen, toured around with UK activist Dr Mae-Wan Ho to speak against GM crops and food safety. Ho has a relentlessly anti-science agenda against GM crops (and modern Darwinian theory).

The Institute for Health and Environmental Research seems to consist of two other people in addition to Carmen, and a website. None of them have scientific records in conducting or analyzing long term feeding studies, certainly no refereed papers in this area (or many in any other area of science), which is the usual measure of scientific quality.
Moreoever, the bios on the IHER website reveal the clear anti-biotech bias of all three.

We are sure that there are far better qualified and unprejudiced scientists in Australia, including in Western Australia, who could carry out this research. We are therefore alarmed at an apparent lack of adherence to scientific norms in awarding this project to the Institute for Health and Environmental Research. Following reports that Mr. Chance has previously declared that he would not eat GM food, we are deeply disturbed about the objectivity of the agenda being pursued by Mr.
Chance.

In sum, Mr. Chance’s decision gives us great concern for the respect your government shows for scientific enquiry, peer review, international standards, and the processes of competitively awarding research funds.
We look forward to hearing from you that proper, internationally upheld standards will be observed in awarding this research competitively to qualified researchers, if the research is to be undertaken at all.

Sincerely,

Prof. Dr. Klaus Ammann, Honorary Professor University of Bern, Director of the Bern Botanic Garden

Professor Bruce M. Chassy, Campus Biotechnology Center, University of Illinois, Urbana

Professor Bruce D. Hammock, Distinguished Professor of Entomology & Cancer Research Center, University of California, Davis

Dr. Martina Newell-McGloughlin, Director University of California Systemwide Biotechnology Research and Education Program, and Co-Director NIH Training Program in Biomolecular Technology

Professor Vivian Moses, CropGen, London

Dr. Alan McHughen, Biotechnology Specialist University of California, Riverside

Dr. Drew L. Kershen, Earl Sneed Centennial Professor of Law, University of Oklahoma

Dr. Tom DeGregori , Professor of Economics, University of Houston

Dr. Alex Avery, Director of Research, Center for Global Food Issues, Hudson Institute

Dr. Rick Roush, Director of University of California Integrated Pest Management and Sustainable Agriculture Programs

Dr. Henry Miller, MD, Fellow, The Hoover Institution, Stanford University [Founding director of the U.S. FDA's Office of Biotechnology,1989-1993]

Dr. Piero Morandini, Department of Biology, University of Milan

Professor C. S. Prakash, Director, Center for Plant Biotechnology Research, Tuskegee University

Reference Cited

Pusztai A, Grant G, Bardocz S, Alonso R, Chrispeels MJ, Schroeder HE, Tabe LM, Higgins TJV. Expression of the insecticidal bean alpha-amylase inhibitor transgene has minimal detrimental effect on the nutritional value of peas fed to rats at 30% of the diet. J Nutr 1999; 129: 1597-603. end of letter

I worry, given the extent to which government and the media are so quick to embrace pseudo-environmental causes in the name of ‘independent’ science.