The GM phobia is toxic

During the late ’90s, a singular phenomenon appeared in countries around the world. One after another, food and beverage companies capitulated to activists opposed to a promising new technology: the genetic engineering of plants to produce ingredients. They are still capitulating to this day.

The Japanese brewer Kirin and the Danish brewer Carlsberg eliminated genetically engineered ingredients from their beers. In the United States, the fast-food giant McDonald’s banned them from its menu; and Frito-Lay demanded that its growers stop planting corn engineered to contain a bacterial protein that confers resistance to insect predation.

These measures were rationalised in various ways, but the reality is that by yielding to the demands of a minuscule number of disingenuous activists, the companies opted to offer less safe products to consumers, thereby exposing themselves to legal jeopardy.

Every year, innumerable packaged-food products worldwide are withheld or recalled from the market due to the presence of “all natural” contaminants like insect parts, toxic molds, bacteria, and viruses. Over the centuries, the main culprit in mass food poisoning often has been contamination of unprocessed crops by fungal toxins — a risk that is exacerbated when insects attack food crops, opening wounds that allow fungi (molds) to get a foothold.

For example, fumonisin and some other fungal toxins are highly toxic, causing esophageal cancer in humans and fatal diseases in livestock that eat infected corn. Fumonisin also interferes with the cellular uptake of folic acid, a vitamin that reduces the risk of neural tube defects in developing fetuses, and thus can cause folic acid deficiency even when one’s diet contains what otherwise would be sufficient amounts of the vitamin.

Many regulatory agencies have therefore established recommended maximum fumonisin levels permitted in food and feed products made from corn. The conventional way to meet those standards and prevent the consumption of fungal toxins is simply to test unprocessed and processed grains and discard those found to be contaminated — an approach that is both wasteful and failure-prone.

But modern technology — specifically, the genetic engineering of plants offers a way to prevent the problem. Contrary to the claims of food-biotech critics, who insist that genetically modified crops pose risks (none of which has actually occurred) of new allergens or toxins in the food supply, such products offer the food industry a proven and practical means of tackling the fungal contamination at its source.

An excellent example is corn that is crafted by splicing into commercial varieties a gene (or genes) from a harmless bacterium. The bacterial genes express proteins that are toxic to corn-boring insects, but that are harmless to birds, fish, and mammals, including humans. As the modified corn fends off insect pests, it also reduces the levels of the mold Fusarium, thereby reducing the levels of fumonisin.

Researchers at Iowa State University and the US Department of Agriculture have found that the level of fumonisin in the modified corn is reduced by as much as 80% compared to conventional corn.

Given the health benefits governments should introduce incentives to increase use of genetically engineered crops. Alas this has not come to pass. Activists continue to mount vocal and tenacious opposition to genetically engineered foods, despite almost 20 years of demonstrated benefits, including reduced use of chemical pesticides, greater use of farming practices that prevent soil erosion, higher profits for farmers, and less fungal contamination.

Responding to the bleating of activists, policymakers have subjected the testing and commercialisation of genetically engineered crops to unscientific and draconian regulations, with dire consequences. Public policy that discriminates against and discourages vital innovations in food production is not policy that has the public’s interest at heart.

Henry I Miller was the founding director of the Office of Biotechnology at the US Food and Drug Administration
Copyright: Project Syndicate