GM food sources. Safety data

GMOs - have you studied? Does this look like an experiment on humanity? Why replace natural with artificial?

These questions may even be annoying, but we must admit that they are legitimate. Let's try to give answers.
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The problem of GMOs is usually understood as a problem of their food safety: the possible harm of GM foods to the body when consumed by humans. When I meet statements about insufficient knowledge of the influence of GMOs, about too few studies, I feel an ardent desire to clarify, but how many studies did it have and how many are not enough? Let's see what we have data on technologies of genetic engineering and the safety of the use of GMOs in food.

Please note that I am not something that is not a biologist, but I could not even graduate from the Faculty of Economics. Therefore, not trusting myself, I seek information from those who have dedicated their lives and careers to biology. I ignore extravagant statements and refer to those that are common to most professionals in the world. If for some reason this analysis does not suit you, then the subsequent text will probably not be of value to you.

I would like to tell the background of the question so that you can better present the scale of the approach to assessing the safety of the results of microbiological experiments, but if anything, dry numbers and facts begin with the third part of the narration.

Part one. Introduction

The biggest victory of people upholding the ban on GMOs is that they managed to convince the general public of the existence of serious disputes among scientists about the safety of GM food sources, that the scientific community is split into two roughly equal parts, that the issue has not been studied enough.

Do media reports or even statements from scientists always indicate a threat? It should be understood that with such an increased interest in the topic, inevitably, even without malicious intent, there will be studies that have been conducted poorly. This is a normal learning process, and the scientific community has long had mechanisms for filtering such work: research methodology, peer review, repeatability of results, etc. Unfortunately, sometimes the media can neglect the search for reliable information, many are ready to present the statement of an amateur equivalent to the opinion of a specialist. This vicious circle is affirmed by the accession of politicians, as it were, in response to concerns in society.



In modern world biosafety policy, the precautionary principle applies - the product is considered harmful until proven otherwise. The precautionary principle formed the basis for the determination of the objectives of the Cartagena Protocol is an international agreement on the measures and procedures necessary for the application of modern biotechnology products. According to this principle, GMOs and their products are considered potentially dangerous, as long as their safety is not confirmed by all the methods specified in the relevant regulatory documents. With a lack of reliable GMO information and products derived from or with their participation, it is necessary to observe all precautions, as if they really represented a threat of serious or irreparable damage to human health and biodiversity [1, 2].

In the mouths of GMO opponents, the precautionary principle can be exaggerated until it is impossible to apply. It is necessary to understand that there is no fundamental possibility to prove the absolute safety of something: the definition of safety comes down to attempts to identify risks under different conditions, but we can never say that we have checked all possible factors. From the text of the Technical Regulations of the Customs Union " On food safety ": "food safety - the state of food products, indicating the absence of unacceptable risk associated with harmful effects on humans and future generations." An important word here is “unacceptable”: we eat salt not because it is absolutely safe, but because, as far as we know, the half-lethal dose is 3 g / kg , and in order for a critical health hazard to occur, a person needs to eat salt in 50 times more than the daily norm.

Not least this reasoning also applies to food sources derived from plants and animals, which modern technology has never dealt with. Appeals to millions of evolution are irrelevant - unpredictable changes in the genome occur constantly in the course of normal life and the change of generations of any organisms.

Along with the precautionary principle in world practice, the principle of substantial equivalence (“substantial equivalence”) is used in determining the safety of GM food sources, according to which “GM foods can be considered as safe as ordinary foods, if The main toxicological and nutritional components are comparable to those of traditional foods (within the natural level of variability), and also provided that the genetic modification itself is recognized as safe oh "[3].

Indeed, it seems reasonable to evaluate the risks of a new technology compared to existing ones.

What is the way genetically modified organisms have traveled so that to date, the crops of transgenic plants cover more than 180 million hectares?

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¹ The Cartagena Protocol has been ratified by many, but not all countries producing GMOs. The list of those who signed and ratified the document is publicly available . In the United States and Canada, where the protocol has not been ratified, however, “the responsibility of the seed companies is to monitor the unintended and unforeseen environmental effects of new GM crops and to provide the relevant regulatory authorities with all new information regarding the risk to the environment.” And, of course, there is a safety assessment system. For example, in the United States, GMO production is controlled by at least three federal agencies: the environmental protection agency, the Department of Agriculture, and the Food and Drug Administration [4]. In Russia, the protocol is also not ratified, however, the security assessment system is considered one of the most stringent in the world.

² From the annual report of the international service on the use of agro-biotechnological technologies. In 2014, biotech crops were planted by 18 million farmers from 28 countries of the world, with 94.1% of them being small farms from developing countries. The blog Ruslana Radchuk posted an image , which shows the distribution of countries in terms of land use for GM crops.

Part two. Story

By 1972, Paul Berg and his colleagues developed a technique and created the first recombinant DNA . Scientists and the public were then worried that the rDNA used in the composition of the viruses would “leak” into nature and people would lose control of potentially dangerous viruses and microorganisms. This caused an extremely cautious approach to experiments. In 1974, a group of leading researchers turned to the scientific community and to the regulatory authorities [5].

“Eleven well-known molecular biologists published an open letter in the prestigious journals Nature and Science, calling on their colleagues to impose a moratorium on certain types of experiments and to be more cautious about other experiments. In particular, they proposed a ban on experiments with antibiotic resistance genes, toxin genes and genes for carcinogenic viruses; encouraged to organize a discussion on this topic; asked the US National Institute of Health (NIH) to develop rules and principles for conducting such experiments. ”

In the same year, the National Institute of Health assembled the “Committee on the recombinant DNA molecule,” which decided to convene an international conference and urged scientists to stop the experiments with rDNA.

They saw the threat that “if any carriers of infection are in the environment, the problems that have arisen will be much more serious than the consequences of unintended recombinations, which are spontaneous in nature”. It was feared that “microorganisms with transplanted genes could be harmful to humans and other forms of life. A likely source of danger may be that altered host cells have great competitive advantages and can occupy a certain niche in an existing ecosystem ”(NIH 1976) [6].

In 1975, the widely publicized media of the " recombinant DNA conference in Asilomar " was convened. 140 participants, mostly biologists, but also lawyers and doctors, for a few days agreed on the first norms for this area.

Paul Berg says that these were very difficult negotiations.

“There was a lot of speculation that harmless microbes could turn into dangerous pathogens for humans, resistant to any known antibiotics or capable of releasing carcinogenic toxins. No one could guarantee that this would not happen, and this stimulated heated debate. The “Andromeda strain” popular at that time (Michael Crichton’s 1969 novel about a cosmic virus accidentally hit Earth, threatening to destroy all living things. - Esquire) added fuel to the fire. Conference participants — both serious scientists and simply demagogues — were thrown in a “what-if” series of myriads. As a result, biologists were still able to agree: the potential of recombinant DNA is too great for science and medicine, and research should be continued. ”

At the end of the conference, a document was adopted “ Summary Statement of the Asilomar Conference on Recombinant DNA Molecules ”. The assembled experts recognized that the possibility of combining genetic information of the most diverse species confronts researchers with many unknowns. "It is this ignorance - written in the document - that led us to conclude that it would be reasonable to be very careful in conducting such experiments." Nevertheless, the conference participants agreed that future research may show that many of the potential threats are less serious and / or less likely than it seems now, and the importance of technology for society and science is so great that the study of rDNA should continue, but compliance with strict security measures. In addition, it was decided that there are certain experiments in which the potential risks are so serious that they should not be carried out using existing methods of containment of objects. The following works were prohibited:

- with DNA of pathogenic organisms and with oncogenes;
- by recombination with the formation of toxic genes;
- able to increase the number of plant pathogens;
- on transfer of drugs-resistant genes into organisms that are not found in these organisms in natural conditions or, if the treatment is dangerous;
- deliberate release of organisms into the environment (Freifelder, 1978) [6].

For the first time, the standards of the conference in Asilomar were replaced by guidelines in 1976 by the US National Institutes of Health. Everyone who receives grants from this institution should have followed a number of rules. They identified four levels of physical safety of conducting research according to their risk assessment. “The first is harmless research using standard biological technologies. With each successive level, the number of restrictions and cautions increased so much that for experiments of the fourth level — such as those shown in the “Strain of Andromeda” film — suitable laboratories did not exist until 1978 ”[5].

The first commercial GM crop in 1994 was the tomato Flavr Savr , and the first transgenic varieties appeared in 1996.

Under the spoiler, there is an unusual story about the interaction of scientists and ordinary members of society who came together in discussions to make a decision on the development of biotechnology. Well, we will go further.

Part Three Safety data

Thus, research and discussions on the effects of GMOs on human health and the environment have been going on for over 40 years. During this time, no authority officially authorized for this type of activity in any country in the world has recorded negative effects that would serve as a basis for prohibiting or restricting the use of GMOs in the diet of adults or children [7, 8]. Research on the influence of GMOs relies on a huge base: in just 14 years from 1981 to 1995, more than 500,000 scientific papers were published in the leading countries of research in the field of applied biotechnology, which to this day remain the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, France on biotechnology [7].

The World Health Organization (WHO) in its report “Modern biotechnology for food production, human health and development: a fact-based study” concluded that “GM foods currently on the international market have undergone the procedure risk assessments and the likelihood that they are associated with a greater risk to human health than traditional counterparts, is negligible ”[8].

At the same time, the report noted that crops developed using traditional breeding methods have their own risks to human health and are not subject to such rigorous testing procedures.

“At the same time, varieties obtained using traditional breeding methods are never subjected to a pre-marketing safety analysis procedure, whereas the safety assessment of GM food products was carried out even before the first GM crop was commercialized.

Organisms, including cell cultures created using traditional breeding methods, are sometimes characterized by an increased likelihood of genetic (or epigenetic - environmental factors induced changes affecting gene expression without changing the DNA sequence) disorders, such as increased activity of mobile elements of the genome and suppression of the activity of important genes (FAO / WHO 2003a). These effects can increase the likelihood of unintended pleiotropic effects (affecting more than one phenotypic parameter), for example, increasing or decreasing the expression of components or possible changes in protein expression, as well as epistasis (the interaction of the inserted gene with other body genes). "

Often, as an argument about the dangers of GMOs, they give an example of the experience of Europe, where they are supposedly banned. Of course, it is not. In the EU, 3 times more transgenic lines are registered than in Russia and two varieties are allowed to grow: corn and potatoes [10]. But the most widely used GM technologies in Europe are pharmaceuticals: insulin, erythropoietin (renal hormone), interferon, growth hormone, and other drugs [11]. At the same time, there are indeed significant restrictions on transgenic plants in Europe, many territories have declared themselves free from GMOs, and only in Spain their more or less intensive cultivation occurs ( more than 100 thousand hectares are occupied by GM-corn ). But how much politics is there in this, and how much evidence is there in the evidence? From the report of the Directorate General of the European Commission on Science and Information:

“The main conclusion drawn from the efforts of more than 130 research projects covering 25 years of research and involving more than 500 independent research groups is that biotechnology and, in particular, GMOs as such are no more dangerous than for example, traditional plant breeding technologies ”[12].

In 2013, a review of 1783 scientific publications made only in the last 10 years was published, 770 of which are devoted to the safety of GMOs in feeding animals, 847 - interaction with the environment [13, 14]. The conclusion about the approved GMOs for sale is that none of the analyzed scientific studies have not reliably recorded cases of significant danger directly related to the use of GM crops. No scientific evidence of toxic or allergic reactions has been identified. Only in one case was the potential allergenicity of the Brazil nut protein added to soybeans. This variety did not enter the market.

Please note that in many countries animals have for decades received GM soy in their food. During this time, tens of generations of hens have changed in some farms. At the same time, there were no negative effects associated with the use of biotechnological varieties.

The position of the Russian state institutions is consistent with the global one.

In 2003, the Bureau of the Department of Biological Sciences of the Russian Academy of Sciences (Decree No. 137 of November 25, 2003), the Presidium of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences (Resolution No. 162 of September 17, 2003) and the Presidium of the Russian Academy of Agricultural Sciences (Minutes No. 12 of 20.11 .2003) decided [7]:

“The development of fundamental and applied problems of genetically modified food sources should be included in the list of priority and strategically important scientific directions. It is necessary to support the work on the creation of transgenic plants resistant to pathogens, harmful insects, stressful abiotic factors; New plant forms for the production of high quality food, feed and biomaterials. Of paramount importance are the work on the creation of genetically modified organisms that produce drugs, enzymes, vaccines and other biologically active compounds. "

For 10 years, this position has not changed. From a letter from the Vice-President of the Russian Academy of Agricultural Sciences, A. B. Lisitsyna, V. Chernyshev, Chairman of the Committee on Science and High Technology Technologies from 04/27/2012 [15]:

"Food products obtained from GMOs that have undergone a medical and biological assessment and do not differ in their studied properties from their traditional counterparts are safe for human health, are allowed to be sold to the public and used in the food industry without restrictions (Letter of the Federal Service for Supervision of the Russian Federation of August 20, 2008 N 01 / 9044-8-32).

The Russian system for assessing the safety of GMOs is one of the most stringent in the world and includes a wide range of studies, including an assessment of the compositional equivalence of GMOs to its traditional counterpart, genotoxicological and allergological studies and, as a mandatory step, long-term toxicological studies on laboratory animals. For all the years of using GMO products and feed obtained from plants registered in our country, not a single documented case of a negative impact on humans or animals ”.

Rospotrebnadzor in its letter "On the improvement of the supervision of food products containing GMOs and GMM" dated 08/20/2008, states the safety of GM products admitted for sale [8]:

“Food products from GMOs entering the market of the Russian Federation, for the first time, are registered in the prescribed manner. Food products derived from GMOs that have undergone a medical and biological assessment and do not differ in their studied properties from their traditional counterparts are safe for human health, are allowed to be sold to the public and used in the food industry without restrictions.

There are different approaches to the labeling of food products derived from GMOs in the world, however, the labeling of these products is not related to their safety, but aims to inform the public about the use of a specific technology for obtaining these products. ”

Rospotrebnadzor believes that "in order to ensure the protection of public health, food and environmental safety, it is necessary ... Russian scientists create GMO lines adapted for cultivation in Russia, as well as the introduction of GMOs into the agro-industrial sector of Russia" [16].

Thus, GMOs have not just been studied and are still being studied, but each new variety is tested by the manufacturer before being put on the market, as well as complex biosafety studies in government.

“If it used to take decades to create genetically modified plants, now, using modern technology, universities or companies create a similar plant in 2-3 years, but biosafety tests can take 4, 5, 6 or even 10 years! This is a rather long process, because we try to minimize the potential risks associated with the release of these plants into the environment, ”says Dmitry Dorokhov, Ph.D., a leading researcher at the Bioengineering Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences.



What then is behind the decisions of State Duma deputies and the government, who recently approved the ban on the cultivation of GMOs? For me, the only obvious thing is that this is not based on the position of the region’s professionals.

Many experts note that Russia has created one of the most demanding systems for testing the safety of GMOs.This is noted in the letter of the Russian Academy of Agricultural Sciences, which I cited above, and Viktor Tutelyan, director of the Research Institute of Nutrition at the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences, who was involved in the development of a safety assessment methodology, describes this in more detail.

“The first who said“ no GMO ”was me. In 1995, on the table in the expert council brought several conclusions for the registration of soy protein isolates and concentrates obtained from GMOs. After listening to all the arguments, I said: “No, let's first develop a safety assessment system.” And by 1999, we already had our own system, in which both our domestic and all international experience was used. The first registration of GMOs as a food product in Russia took place only in December 1999 ”[17].

“- What does this verification system look like?
- Security assessment occurs at several levels. We are talking only about import, because in Russia GM crops are not grown at all. First, the safety of the original organisms is checked, that is, the organism prior to gene transplantation. Then - safety, proven by the manufacturer. The manufacturing company conducts a huge amount of research and tests proving the safety of the product. Further, in the country where the product is manufactured, a special consumer supervision authority, together with other institutions, makes an examination that proves the safety of the product and issues a registration. In addition, the experience of using this product in the country of origin is being studied. The registration of this product in other countries of the world, which were the first to import a new GM variety and experience of its use in these countries, is taken into account. Finally,security is assessed and registration is issued in Russia.

A new variety that they want to bring to our market is undergoing a multi-level control system. They study reproductive toxicity, that is, whether the next generation of plants will be harmful, allergenic and immunological properties, and much more. All these studies take about a year ”[18].

V.A. Chereshnev, Chairman of the State Duma Committee on Science and High Technologies, and S.V. Kalashnikov, Chairman of the State Duma Committee on Health Protection, in a statement on the parliamentary hearings on the topic “Legislative regulation of the circulation of genetically modified products in the Russian Federation” [19]:

"The current GMO safety assessment system in Russia covers a wider range of studies than in other countries (USA, European Union) and includes long-term toxicological studies on animals - 180 days (EU - 90 days), as well as the use of modern methods of analysis, such like, the determination of genotoxicity, genomic and proteomic analyzes, the assessment of allergenicity on model systems and much more, which is an additional factor guaranteeing the safety of recorded foods obtained from GMOs. ”

You can learn more about the GMO verification procedure in the book Genetically Modified Food Sources: Safety Assessment and Control:

“In accordance with the established procedure, each GMO of plant origin entering the Russian market for the first time is subject to sanitary and epidemiological expertise, which is carried out in three areas: medical genetic assessment (Bioengineering Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences), medical biological evaluation (RAMS Nutrition Research Institute), evaluation of the technological parameters of the product (Moscow State University of Applied Biotechnology of the Ministry of Education and Science of Russia). Examination of food products from GMOs is carried out on the basis of documents and materials provided by the applicant, and the results of research conducted in the Russian Federation.

The market of the Russian Federation receives products that have passed the entire cycle of research, have been allowed and have been used for several years without any restrictions in the nutrition of the population of several countries (USA, European Union, Canada, China, etc.) ”[5].

Nadezhda Tyshko, Leading Researcher, Laboratory for Safety Assessment of Biotechnologies and New Food Sources, Research Institute of Nutrition, Russian Academy of Medical Sciences [20]:

“The Russian system for assessing the safety of GMOs, which has been developed since 1995, is one of the most stringent in the world. It not only combines all domestic and foreign experience, but also includes the latest scientific approaches: genomic and proteomic analysis, detection of damaged DNA and other sensitive biomarkers.

The 20 GMO lines that are currently registered in the Russian Federation and are allowed in the diet have passed several levels of testing and are absolutely safe for the health of consumers. ”

From the fact that food can be modified purposefully, including with imparting harmful properties, it is feared that GMOs can be used as a biological weapon. In the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation they considered this possibility and gave their assessment in a published article “Genetically Modified Organisms: Pros and Cons. Is there a threat to the security of Russia? ”(2004) [21]:

“Speaking about the danger of genetic terrorism against the Russian Federation, it is advisable to consider the main goals that the perpetrators of such terrorist acts can set themselves. As a rule, they boil down to drawing attention to the demands put forward, as well as to the massive defeat of the ordinary civilian population and representatives of the authorities. Achieving these goals with the help of genetically modified food is hardly possible: the pathological consequences of the use of such products are likely to be delayed and their prediction is currently not possible.

Regarding the use of genetically modified microorganisms, it seems that it is much easier for terrorists to gain access to cultures of ordinary, unmodified infectious disease pathogens. If the purpose of the attack is to attract public attention and publicize the fact, the attackers will achieve it with much greater efficiency by using conventional means (explosives, chemical or biological agents). Thus, the use of GMOs for terrorist purposes will be unlikely precisely because of the incompatibility of the means of the terrorist act with its goals. ”

Part Four What do media reports on GMO threats mean?

There is no special body in the scientific community that would establish the ultimate truth, this contradicts the very principles of scientific knowledge. Therefore, low-quality studies with flashy conclusions can and will appear. For example, you might have heard about the published work of a group of French scientists under the leadership of Gilles-Eric Séralini, who among other things allegedly recorded the effect of carcinogenicity on eating GM maize for food. In the media, this study was replicated under the heading "French scientists have proved: GMOs are a terrible poison." In the first two days after publication of the work, this news was posted on more than 20 different news sites on the Russian Internet.

Did you know that this work was filmedfrom the publication? All this time in the scientific community there were discussions about this research, as a result - a complete rout. This could be the end of a scientific career for Séralini, but it was a media success. Earlier on Giktaymes I talked in more detail about the problems of this study.

In Russia, the fight against GMOs is represented by the odious personality of Irina Yermakova , as well as the organization of the OAGS and some other “scientists” and politicians alternative to science.

Irina Ermakova deserves no less attention than Gilles-Eric Séralini, but not within the framework of this post. Nevertheless, it is enough to confine a few remarks about her views so that you can make an exhaustive impression. Irina is a supportertheories about the origin of men from female hermaphrodites, whatever that means; with a serious air talks about the non-existent disease of the morgellons; posts on his site articles on aliens; participated in the press conference of Nikolai Levashov, famous for his claims about the control of stars and radiation by the power of thought; finally, in 2010, it stated that due to the use of GMOs, before the destruction of the Earth’s biosphere, “no more than 2 years” remained.

Nevertheless, Irina Ermakova is invited to TV shows as a scientist and an expert on GMOs. Therefore, it is important to divert your attention from individual alternatives and turn it to the consensus of various international and domestic specialized agencies, the conclusions of which I presented above and which can be reduced to a restrained but meaningful phrase from the WHO report [9]:

“Possible direct influence of GM food products on human health in general is comparable to known hazards associated with traditional foods, and includes, for example, possible allergenicity or toxicity of ingredients, as well as ologicheskuyu and microbiological safety of food products. "

We cannot talk about 100% safety of GM food sources, just as we cannot talk about 100% safety of anything. We can observe a huge number of scientific publications, where researchers report that they did not manage to find particular risks among GM crops, and an even greater number of publications that served as the basis for studying them. What after that are the words of people who represent themselves genuinely concerned with the health of people and claiming almost no research?

Bibliography

P.S

Personally, I became convinced that GM products are safer and more reliable than products created by traditional breeding methods: they can reduce the use of highly toxic herbicides that harm the soil, insects, farm workers; allow you to create plants and animals with desired modifications, rather than random ones; unlike normal products, transgenic products undergo rigorous testing procedures; there is evidence that the genome of GM crops is less susceptible to variability compared with their traditional counterparts.

Ruslan Radchuk , molecular biologist and genetic engineer, Alexander Panchin , Candidate of Biological Sciences, employee of the Institute for Information Transmission Problems of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Sergei Belkov , chemist, flavor worker, speak best of GMOs. Without their indifference to the popularization of science, I couldn’t prepare this post, but I’d hardly be interested in the problem.

In addition, to get acquainted with the topic, I would especially recommend a brochure published in 2006 by the Swiss Ministry of Agriculture. In her question the use of GMOs in food is considered from all possible sides. Some of the sections are:
3.3 Motivation for the transition to genetically modified cultures ;
5 Genetically modified crops, modern agricultural systems and the environment ;
11 Ecological benefits of growing genetically modified crops .

It may also be important for us that GMOs can become the basis for the successful development of domestic agriculture: we have a territory for cultivation, there are some technologies to develop GM lines ourselves, there is a huge foreign market. Edward Schafer, the former US Secretary of Agriculture, wrote more about this .

In addition, I do not support the mandatory labeling of products containing GMOs, as I believe that this is misleading customers: the label “Contains GMOs!” Does not provide any useful information, but it is senselessly scary.

With all my love for new technologies in general and for GMOs in particular, I do not call for the immediate sowing of GM fields with seeds - I am convinced that this is a question of specialists. Also, I do not call anyone to use products with GMOs, although I do not find anything dangerous in this and, if possible, would only eat them.

Bonus for those who read it. In the picture in the title of the post cow of the Belgian blue breed . It was bred in the XIX century by crossing the local population of dairy cows with short-legged bulls, imported from the UK. Muscle mass build-up seems to be related to the breakdown of the gene controlling the production of myostatin protein , which is responsible for limiting muscle growth. For GMO has nothing to do.

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