Skeptico

Seralini Study Withdrawn – Should Never Have Been Published

That abysmal Seralini study of rats fed on GMO grain is at last being withdrawn by its publisher. Junk science like this should never have been published in the first place, but better late than never (marginally). The reason given for the withdrawal is that the study does not show rats get cancer from being fed GMO food. Something most of us knew over a year ago.

The publishers have been careful to say that they found no evidence of deliberate fraud. I find that claim rather hard to believe though. What else do you call it when the study design was for 200 rats, but only 20 in the control group and no blinding? A study where 81% of the rats used get tumors anyway for this length of study. It’s hard to view this study as an honest attempt to see if GMO corn causes cancer.

How have anti-GMO groups responded? Guess. It’s not that hard. Yes, they think they have found a connection to Monsanto (scroll down in that link to “The Goodman Factor”). It is truly depressing to consider that there are large numbers of people in the anti-GMO world (all of them?) who genuinely think that once they have found a connection to Monsanto they have rebutted their opponents’ arguments. There is a new informal fallacy, Argumentum ad Monsantium, to describe this derangement. It’s really just a basic ad Hominem though – attacking your opponent rather than their arguments. One of the first things the critical thinker learns to avoid doing.

The most interesting comment on this withdrawal, in my opinion, was from Kevin Folta. A scientist himself, Folta asks what he would do if he’d received the the sort of criticisms of his work that Seralini had of his study. Folta replies that a real scientist would have the experiment performed again independently. A real scientist would also gear up to repeat the experiment himself without the flaws that drew the criticisms – perhaps a larger study, or one to test a putative mechanism. A real scientist would have started this work a year ago and so would be in a position now to update his critics on when the next sets of results would be available. It’s hardly necessity to mention that Seralini hasn’t done any of that.

The anti-GMO crowd are reacting in exactly the same way anti-vaccine crowd reacted to criticisms of Andrew Wakefield. Rather than reconsidering their previously held positions, they are supporting Seralini  even more strongly. As I wrote about Wakefield’s supporters four years ago, nothing would ever convince these people that their previously determined conclusion could ever be wrong. Nothing. As I keep saying, large numbers of GMO opponents are not interested in facts.

The Seralini Rule

I have a new rule for debating anti-GMO people:

If you favorably cite the 2012 Séralini rats fed on Roundup ready maize study, you just lost the argument.

If you cite this study as demonstrating any dangers in genetically modified food, you are either (a) so clueless as not to have spent 30 seconds checking to see if there are any reported problems in the study, or (b) so dishonest in citing a blatantly fraudulent study, that you are not worthy of any more serious consideration. You just lost the debate and you’re done. (Obviously you don’t lose the if you cite the study to demonstrate its flaws, only if you claim the study’s conclusions are valid.)

This is the study: Long term toxicity of a Roundup herbicide and a Roundup-tolerant genetically modified maize. Here is a summary of the main problems with the study:

• Unscientific study design. For example, only 20 control rats in a study with a total of 200 rats, and no blinding between control and experimental groups
• Large number of small sub-groups - 18 groups of 10 test subjects each making for a complicated experimental design virtually guaranteed to generate some positive results
• Cherry picking - ignoring negative results
• Poor choice of statistical analysis (a “fishing trip”)
• Poor choice in animal model - the rat type is prone to cancers with exactly the same incidence as that reported in the Séralini study whether fed GMO food or not
• No dose-response - a critical component of demonstrating a toxic effect (some rats fed higher doses did better than the others)
• Effects of feeding Roundup ready maize, and the effects of feeding Roundup (ie feeding rats the actual pesticide) were identical - a highly dubious result
• No idea of what the biological reason might be to give the claimed results
• Didn’t allow any outside comment on the paper before its publication and won’t release the data now and so the experiment can’t be replicated

Here are some links to independent scientists who explain the study’s flaws in much more detail:

1. Academics Review: Scientists Smell A Rat In Fraudulent Study
2. Declan Butler writing in Nature.com: Hyped GM maize study faces growing scrutiny
3. Respectful Insolence: Bad science about GMOs: It reminds me of the antivaccine movement
4. Steven Novella: The GM Corn Rat Study
5. The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA): Séralini et al. study conclusions not supported by data, says EU risk assessment community
6. Mark Hoofnagle of Denialism Blog: Anti-GMO study is appropriately dismissed as biased, poorly-performed
7. Emily Sohn, a freelance journalist working for Discovery.com: GM Corn-Tumor Link Based on Poor Science
8. Deborah Blum: A rancid, corrupt way to report about science
9. Carl Zimmer: Journalists should not let themselves be played
10. Debora MacKenzie writing in New Scientist: Study linking GM crops and cancer questioned
11. John Entine of the Genetic Literacy Project: Scientists savage study purportedly showing health dangers of Monsanto’s GM corn and Does the Seralini Corn Study Fiasco Mark a Turning Point in the Debate Over GM Food?
12. Dan Charles, NPR's food and agriculture correspondent: As Scientists Question New Rat Study, GMO Debate Rages On
13. Kevin M. Folta: Rats, Tumors and Critical Assessment of Science
14. Scicurious, a postdoc in biomedical research: Under Controlled: Why the New GMO Panic Is More Sensational Than Sense

Compare this fraudulent anti-GMO study with the 600 studies (and counting) in the GENERA database, that show the safety of GM foods. Or if you prefer, 126 with independent funding (although lack of independent funding doesn’t invalidate a study).

Ask yourself: if anti-GMO experimenters are so sure of their conclusion, why would they not design a study that was based on sound scientific practices? Why would they not, in a study with 200 rats, have 100 controls and 100 experiment rats: 100 just fed on GMO food and 100 fed on non-GMO? Why make it more complicated than it needs be and confuse the results? Why not use rats that were less prone to tumors to start with, rather than rats where 80% or so will always develop tumors no matter what? Why not just design a study that would clearly show if there was any difference when rats are fed with GMO maize? The obvious conclusion is that they knew there is really no difference between GMO and non-GMO feed and so they designed a study to obfuscate and confuse.

Why This Matters

Most of the people citing this study this would ridicule climate change deniers for citing a dubious climate study, but when any study suggests GMOs are doing some harm, no matter how dubious the study, they report it uncritically. For example, the “Yes on 37” campaign (to require labeling of genetically modified foods) immediately and un-skeptically cited this study on its website.  Although they played it down a bit after the criticisms appeared, they still left the main claims on their website (still there now) and right before the election, secretly included the bogus claims in their phone bank scripts. What this shows is that such people aren’t interested in facts, but are only interested in pushing their anti-GMO conclusion that must be true no matter what the data shows. The scientific way is to follow the evidence, and change your views if the evidence contradicts what you previously thought. The anti-science way is to form your conclusion, and then twist the evidence to support your conclusion (by for example, designing a study like this one), and to ignore everything else. People who do this are not interested in science and there is no point in trying to engage them in any more debate.

November 28, 2013 – Update

I just learned that Seralini’s paper is about to be retracted by the Food and Chemical Toxicology journal which published it. Their statement says in part:

A more in-depth look at the raw data revealed that no definitive conclusions can be reached with this small sample size regarding the role of either NK603 or glyphosate in regards to overall mortality or tumor incidence. Given the known high incidence of tumors in the Sprague-Dawley rat, normal variability cannot be excluded as the cause of the higher mortality and incidence observed in the treated groups.

Translation: the study does not show that rats get cancer from being fed GMO food.

Watch now how anti-GMO groups will still defend Seralini, regardless, proving (again) my point that they are not interested in facts.

Is “Right To Know” about GMOs the same as “Teach the Controversy”?

I was reading Keith Kloor’s article Teaching the Controversy. He likens the “right to know” campaign (the movement to label genetically modified foods) as a variation of the creationist “teach the controversy” strategy. There is no “controversy” over whether evolution is true or not (spoiler: it's true) and “teach the controversy” is just a bit of misleading framing to try to get their pseudoscience taught in schools. Kloor was saying this is the same as when anti-GMO activists frame the GMO labeling debate by saying that consumers should have the right to know what’s in their food. It’s an interesting point and there’s some truth to it, but I don’t think it’s quite the same. As much as I dislike conceding points to anti-GMO nuts, I have to agree that the right to know what’s in your food isn’t totally bogus. Many people are loath to eat GMO food, and they feel justified in asking for GMOs to be labeled.

My objection to Prop 37 and the labeling proponents is that food labeling should be based on the best available science, and not on a majority vote of a largely scientifically illiterate electorate. And that is especially true when that electorate has been influenced by the many misleading claims and fear mongering from anti-GMO groups. (Although they actually ended up voting against it in California.) There is no valid science that I have seen that provides any reason for blanket labeling of GMOs in food, and so in my view they shouldn’t be compulsorily labeled.

What if you still want to avoid GMOs? Well, there is nothing to stop producers of non-GMO food from labeling their products as such. That would seem to solve the problem without further regulation. There is a precedent for this - the organic industry regulates what can be labeled as “organic” food although there is no good science that shows organic food is any healthier than conventionally grown. (For example, see this systematic review of 240 studies comparing the health effects of organic and conventional foods. Steven Novella explained the review here: No Health Benefits from Organic Food.) In fact, the organic standard already excludes GMOs so if you are really concerned to avoid GMOs then just buy organic. In addition, many “no GMO” labels are already appearing on food. So in my view there is no need for an additional regulation to provide what is in reality useless information about GMO content.

While the anti-GMO movement is similar in may ways to intelligent design proponents and global warming deniers (bogus scientific studies, logical fallacies, changing goalposts, repeating claims long after they have been refuted), I don’t think the right to know is quite like teach the controversy. Similar in some ways, but not quite the same.

if you want to read about the latest examples of anti-GMO arguments that are based on complete misunderstandings of science, read Mark Hoofnagle’s article this week in Denialism Blog: Anti-GMO writers show profound ignorance of basic biology and now Jane Goodall has joined their ranks. Note the first two comments that are from the conspiracy nuts.

Must Pay for GM Seeds?

Here’s a question that has always puzzled me. It’s one of the arguments the anti genetic engineering people frequently put forward as a reason we should not plant GM crops. You can read a good example of this argument from Meredith Niles of the Cool Foods Campaign, writing about Prince Charles’ recent anti-GM rant, in the blog Grist. In response to a comment from me, Niles replied (in part):

Considering that GMO seeds are yet another agricultural input that farmers must pay for year after year, rather than saving their seeds, GMO crops may be contributing to [farmers’ financial problems] significantly.

Note the wording, farmers must pay for GM seeds year after year, rather than save seeds. Must. Apparently they have no choice. Which is funny, because I didn’t think that farmers were compelled to use GM seeds. I replied, surely they only "must" pay for them if they want them, and they must only want them if the return is worth the financial investment? Why would they buy GMO seeds unless they are better off doing so?

I haven’t yet received a reply from Niles, but as it’s such a common argument used by the anti-GM crowd I thought I’d throw it open to the masses. Please tell me, why would farmers continue to pay for GM seeds if they don’t get back that monetary investment either in reduced costs (labor, herbicides) or in increased yields? Because it seems to me, unless farmers are just hopeless at basic arithmetic, they would revert to non-GM seeds the moment they realize they are losing out. But I’m willing to accept I might be missing something here, so please tell me exactly what I am missing – why would farmers continue to pay for GM seeds if doing so reduced their overall profits and/or increases their debt?

Prince Charles Wrong Again

He's at it again.  More anti-science drivel.  The Telegraph just reported Prince Charles warns GM crops risk causing the biggest-ever environmental disaster.  This from a twit who thinks that crops should be planted according to astrological signs.  Someone who believes homeopathy works.   Sigh.  Here he goes:

[Prince Charles] accused firms of conducting a "gigantic experiment I think with nature and the whole of humanity which has gone seriously wrong".

"Why else are we facing all these challenges, climate change and everything?".

Well, it's certainly not because of GM crops that have only been planted for, oh, the last ten years or so.  So really no connection there.  It gets worse though:

"Look at India's Green Revolution. It worked for a short time but now the price is being paid.

"I have been to the Punjab where you have seen the disasters that have taken place as result of the over demand on irrigation because of the hybrid seeds and grains that have been produced which demand huge amounts of water.

Without the green revolution he would have been seeing instead, starvation on a massive scale.  Would he prefer that?  Only worked "for a short time"?  Like 40 years?  Easy to say when you've never faced starvation, or even moderate hunger.

What follows would be comical, if this nonsense wasn't getting so much publicity:

"Look at western Australia. Huge salinisation problems. I have been there. Seen it. Some of the excessive approaches to modern forms of agriculture."

But this is not a result of the dreaded GM.  As was reported by EMBO in PubMed, Salt of the Earth:

[Secondary salinisation] is particularly true for Western Australia, where the fundamental cause of salinity is the replacement of perennial, deep-rooted native vegetation with shallow-rooted annual crops such as wheat. The problem is further exacerbated by primary salinisation where salt in sea spray is carried inland by prevailing winds and deposited by rainfall at a level of up to 200 kg/ha/year in some coastal areas.  [My bold.]

So it's not GM that is causing the salinization, it's growing non-indigenous crops.  Admittedly that may be a product of over aggressive modern farming, but certainly not GM.  In fact, as suggested by the above report, GM may actually be able to help, by engineering crops that are not only resistant to high salt levels, but that may actually remove excessive salt from the ground:

‘this is potentially a very important discovery which suggests that under the high salt growth conditions used by Blumwald, over-expression of a single protein can produce salt tolerant plants which retain the ability to produce edible crops’. Not only do the tomatoes thrive in the saline conditions, they also actively take up excess salt into their leaves. The possibilities, therefore, for bioremediation are obvious and indeed, Blumwald revealed that results in press show that plants can accumulate up to 6–7% of their dry weight as sodium. ‘A farmer can clean the soil, grow a crop and make a profit all at the same time’  [My bold.]

So GM could be a solution to the salinization problem in Western Australia then?  Well, not exactly since in 2004, Western Australia banned all GM crops.  Hum.  So why does Charles think GM is responsible for the salinization?  Oh I forgot.  GM opponents don't need a rational reason to be against GM.  And for proof of that you have to look no further than the last three paragraphs of The Telegraph article:

Only two weeks ago British GM researchers lobbied ministers for their crops to be kept in high-security facilities or in fields at secret locations across the country to prevent them from being attacked and destroyed.

They spoke out after protesters ripped up crops in one of only two GM trials to be approved in Britain this year.

Scientists claim the repeated attacks on their trials are stifling vital research to evaluate whether GM crops can reduce the cost and environmental impact of farming and whether they will grow better in harsh environments where droughts have devastated harvests.

And there you have it.  GM opponents are not interested in any actual tests to see if GM is safe or not.  On the contrary, they want to sabotage the trials - any trials - that might just possibly contradict  their religious insistence that all GM farming must immediately stop.  Any person genuinely interested in the truth about GM would welcome more independent scientific trials that would let us learn more about GM technology - both the good and the bad.  Anyone genuinely interested in the truth about GM would not be frightened by what such trials might reveal.  GM opponents are just plain anti-science - they start with the conclusion they want and then go look for the evidence to fit.  Rarely a reliable method.  And Prince Charles, with this ignorant tirade, just fuels more nonsense.

Charles is quoted in the article saying, "if that is the future, count me out."  If only we could, Charlie, if only we could.

Update August 14

See today's rebuttal from the Financial Times.  Especially see the last three paragraphs where they skewer both his Indian and his Western Australian scare nonsense.

Anti-GM gloaters

It never fails to amaze me how much the anti-Genetic Modification (GM) crowd love to gloat at any problems (real or perceived) with GM crops. Reader Paul sent me a link to this Science Blogs Effect Measure article claiming GM cotton resistant to bollworm planted in China, is proving to be “a curse”, since other pests have grown stronger:

Genetically modified cotton resistant to bollworm is a reality and five million Chinese cotton farmers have embraced it. It works, too, killing bollworm larvae that used to kill their cotton. IN the late 1990s it looked like a miracle. Pesticide use was cut by 70%. After seven years, though, the miracle is looking more like a curse because new pests called mirids have rushed into the pest vacuum and taken up shop.

The writer quotes from this New Scientist article.

So, this must be a reason to ban all GM crops, right? That’s the obvious conclusion: any problem - ban it all. (It’s what Greenpeace wants.) Well, first perhaps we should look a little closer at what is actually happening. From China Economic Net (all quotes with my bold):

CCAP director Huang Jikun said the Cornell team's conclusions could be based on an incorrect reading of the data.

According to Huang, 2004 had particularly low summer temperatures and more precipitation, so the mirids affected not only cotton but also other conventional crops nearby.

CCAP interviews with the same farmers in 2005 and 2006 showed fewer mirids.

So perhaps things weren’t quite the “curse” they seemed? Still, I agree the growth of a different pest is a concern. So ban them then. End the experiment! Yes? Or perhaps a more scientific idea would be to manage them better. From CheckBiotech.org

Zhang Yongjun, a senior research fellow at the Institute of Plant Protection of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, said the rise of the secondary insect problem was mainly due to the poor management of GM cotton growth in China.

Before planting anti-insect cotton, Chinese farmers widely used broad-spectrum pesticides, which killed both bollworms and mirids. But using the pesticides increased costs, caused pollution and harmed farmers’ health.

After planting anti-insect cotton, however, farmers use pesticides only in the final stage of the crop’s growth, when the Bt cotton’s resistance against bollworms is relatively reduced. “But in terms of preventing mirids, it’s too late,” said Zhang.

That situation, coupled with weather factors, eventually led to the outbreak of mirids across cotton-growing provinces in 2004, Zhang explained.

If the proper pesticide had been used at the right time, the mirids could have been controlled in 2004, he said.

And from Cornell University

When U.S. farmers plant Bt crops, they, unlike farmers in China, are required by contracts with seed producers to plant a refuge, a field of non-Bt crops, to maintain a bollworm population nearby to help prevent the pest from developing resistance to the Bt cotton. The pesticides used in these refuge fields help control secondary pest populations on the nearby Bt cotton fields.

GM crops are not perfect, but then no solution is without costs. For example, before GM cotton was introduced, 400 to 500 Chinese cotton farmers used to die every year from pesticide poisoning. Ban GMOs and you have to consider these costs (and others) that would increase.  A better solution would seem to be learn from these developing problems and manage them better. As the Cornell article puts it:

"Research is urgently needed to develop and test solutions."

These include introducing natural predators to kill the secondary pests, developing Bt cotton that resists the secondary pests or enforcing the planting of refuge areas where broad-spectrum pesticides are used.

Of course science doesn’t always get it 100% right first time but that doesn’t mean you abandon a project at the first sign of a problem. And that’s especially true when there are potentially huge benefits to be gained. I realize Greenpeace and the like aren’t interested in scientific explanations and solutions, but I wouldn’t expect a real scientist to dismiss a whole field of science just because something didn’t work out perfectly first time. Which is why I am surprised and disappointed this supposed “Science Blogger” ends his article with the tart:

Maybe this is why the tag line of Pete Seeger's anti-war song, "Where have all the Flowers gone?" is "When will they ever learn?"

When will they ever learn? They? If he’s referring to the anti-GM gloaters, it seems only after “a long time passing”.  When will they ever learn indeed.

Genetically modified cassava

You know how anti-GM organizations like Greenpeace like to say that GM foods don’t help feed the hungry, don’t increase yields, aren’t necessary and so on? It gets a little tiresome. They remind me of how Laura Bush defended the decision to limit embryonic stem cell research because cures from such research were not just “around the corner”. As I think Jon Stewart said at the time – “so that means we shouldn’t start looking?”

Fortunately GM research is producing higher yields. As I learned from Hit & Run, the Ohio State University has modified cassava plants to produce roots over 2½ times the normal size:

The findings could help ease hunger in many countries where people rely heavily on the cassava plant (Manihot esculenta) as a primary food source, said Richard Sayre, the study's lead author and a professor of plant cellular and molecular biology at Ohio State University.

The researchers used a gene from the bacterium E. coli to genetically modify cassava plants. The plants, which were grown in a greenhouse, produced roots that were an average of 2.6 times larger than those produced by regular cassava plants.

“Not only did these plants produce larger roots, but the whole plant was bigger and had more leaves,” Sayre said. Both the roots and leaves of the cassava plant are edible.

Cassava is the primary food source for more than 250 million Africans – about 40 percent of the continent's population. And the plant's starchy tuberous root is a substantial portion of the diet of nearly 600 million people worldwide.

(My bold.)

And a separate study published in the July issue of Plant Biotechnology Journal as reported in SciDev.Net has produced a cassava immune to a devastating virus:

Researchers have used genes from a virus that periodically devastates cassava crops in Africa to create cassava plants that can resist the virus. The finding could save African farmers large economic losses.

African cassava mosaic virus is transmitted to cassava by whiteflies when they feed on the plant. In parts of East and Central Africa, epidemics of the disease can lead to total losses of harvests.

So far, the only way to fight the virus is by using massive doses of insecticide to kill whiteflies. But this can be prohibitively expensive for subsistence farmers and can threaten their health and that of surrounding plants and animals.

(My bold.)

Apparently the virus’ RNA can be inactivated (thus preventing replication of the cell) when an engineered matching RNA strand is made to bind to it.

In tests, when the plants were exposed to small amounts of the virus, the researchers could see no signs of disease, suggesting their theory was verified.

Of course, field experiments will be needed to confirm the effectiveness of this technique, but it seems like a good start.

So, let’s review. Using genetic engineering it appears we may be able to increase the yields of a staple food, in an area where people are hungry, by 2½ times, and we may be able to reduce the need for expensive and unhealthy insecticides. (Admittedly not both in the same actual plant, as yet.) Perhaps we will now stop hearing about how GM does not produce higher yields, and how GM means poor farmers suffer. No? I don’t think so either.

Bread for success

An article in The Economist describes the history of wheat. It’s a marvelously written piece worth reading in its entirety, but I have quoted below a just few paragraphs that I think make some good points about modern farming, genetic modification and the need for high yields. All bold is mine.

The article starts with a brief description of what “wheat” really is - an artificial mutant incapable of living uncultivated in the wild:

Strange is the word, for wheat is a genetic monster. A typical wheat variety is hexaploid—it has six copies of each gene, where most creatures have two. Its 21 chromosomes contain a massive 16 billion base pairs of DNA, 40 times as much as rice, six times as much as maize and five times as much as people. It is derived from three wild ancestral species in two separate mergers. The first took place in the Levant 10,000 years ago, the second near the Caspian Sea 2,000 years later. The result was a plant with extra-large seeds incapable of dispersal in the wild, dependent entirely on people to sow them.

Like many artificial crops, wheat would not survive in the wild, a point that should be remembered when calculating the risks of genetic engineering and “superweeds”.

The article describes the history of farming from its start roughly 9,000 years ago. First the ancient farmers used manure from their cattle to fertilize their fields, but when this became insufficient and nutrients were depleted, the voices of doom predicted mass starvation. Mechanization in the form of sowing and threshing machines were introduced. These were initially opposed but later accepted as being normal and necessary. Later on, tractors helped increase yields still further. But it was artificial fertilizer that replaced manure (and the animals needed to produce it), that eventually allowed enough crops to be grown. However, it was Norman Borlaug and his dwarf wheat that really made the difference:

India was on the brink of mass famine. Huge shipments of food aid from America were all that stood between its swelling population and a terrible fate.

...

Borlaug refused to be so pessimistic. He arrived in India in March 1963 and began testing three new varieties of Mexican wheat. The yields were four or five times better than Indian varieties. In 1965, after overcoming much bureaucratic opposition, Swaminathan persuaded his government to order 18,000 tonnes of Borlaug's seed.

…

Eager farmers took it up with astonishing results. By 1974, India wheat production had tripled and India was self-sufficient in food; it has never faced a famine since. In 1970 Norman Borlaug was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for firing the first shot in what came to be called the “green revolution”.

Other breeds followed. The interesting thing is how they were produced:

Today scientists use thermal neutrons, X-rays, or ethyl methane sulphonate, a harsh carcinogenic chemical—anything that will damage DNA—to generate mutant cereals. Virtually every variety of wheat and barley you see growing in the field was produced by this kind of “mutation breeding”. No safety tests are done; nobody protests. The irony is that genetic modification (GM) was invented in 1983 as a gentler, safer, more rational and more predictable alternative to mutation breeding—an organic technology, in fact. Instead of random mutations, scientists could now add the traits they wanted.

In 2004 200m acres of GM crops were grown worldwide with good effects on yield (up), pesticide use (down), biodiversity (up) and cost (down). There has not been a single human health problem. Yet, far from being welcomed as a greener green revolution, genetic modification soon ran into fierce opposition from the environmental movement.

Compare the earlier methods for producing hybrids with the more surgical genetic engineering methods that allow just specific genes to be altered. Also compare the current opposition to genetic modification, to the earlier opposition to the plough, the threshing machine and the tractor; also consider the opposition to Borlaug’s dwarf wheat.

The article goes on to describe how the world population appears to be about to plateau. The key difference is in developing countries where the number of children born per woman has fallen from six to three. 

Human beings may be the only creatures that have fewer babies when they are better fed. The fastest-growing populations in the world over the next 50 years will be those of Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, Somalia, Uganda and Yemen. All except in Yemen are in Africa. All are hungry. All remain untouched by Borlaug's green Revolution: all depend on primarily organic agriculture.

We can speculate on the reasons for this. Better education and equal rights for women (and birth control) are likely to be a part of it. But it seems likely that the reduction in subsistence farming, where families have to grow their own food to live, has reduced the need for couples to have large families to tend their land for them. Ironically, poverty seems to encourage large families; in rich countries, people want fewer children.

The article ends on the need to grow even more food for the estimated ten billion people still expected by 2050, and what this implies for farming:

That will mean either better yields or less rainforest—which is why fertilisers, pesticides and transgenes are the best possible protectors of the planet.

As I have said before, a challenge will be to feed those extra people, but a bigger challenge will be to feed them without chopping down more forest, and without losing more waste-land to cultivation.

GM in California

The San Francisco Chronicle reports on the November 8 vote on Measure M – a proposal to ban genetically modified (GM) crops in Sonoma County, Northern California.

Both sides are having their say on the issue. First the pro-GM side:

Doug Baretta, a third-generation rancher in Santa Rosa, grows bioengineered corn to feed his livestock. The result, he said, is increased yields because of less damage by pests, reduced herbicide and pesticide applications, less labor, lower fuel costs and less fuel emissions.

"This isn't a food safety issue," he said. "It's just putting us as farmers at a disadvantage to farmers in other counties. The way the measure is written, it's going to affect some of us with the amount of feed that we can grow. It will also affect the vaccines that we can use on our cattle."

Of course, one rancher’s claims of higher yields are anecdotal – GM frequently does increase yields, but whether it does in this case is unknown. Additionally, the pro-ban side disputes claims that the ban would restrict vaccines.

The pro-ban supporters also have their say:

Some family farmers, including certified organic farmers, say the use of bioengineered seeds will cause the genetic contamination of local agriculture and ecosystems and threaten the economic viability of small farms.

Still others say bioengineered foods may pose a health risk to consumers and allow the Monsanto Co. and other large firms to reap huge profits from having a patented monopoly on genetically modified seeds for basic staples such as rice, corn, cotton, canola and soy beans.

Of course, the degree to which GM cross-breeds with conventional crops, and the degree to which this is a problem, is also disputed, as are any alleged health risks.

I think the article covered both sides of the argument fairly. 

More anti-GM snorts

Last month I wrote an article on Monsanto and pig patents. In short, I claimed the anti-genetic modification (GM) crowd report dishonestly on genetic engineering issues. As expected, this article generated some strong opinions in the comments, and in this post I reply to some of those comments. You can read the original comments in full at the link, although I have quoted and summarized the main points below.

Before I start, I should emphasize that I’m sympathetic to many of the concerns about GM, and the commenters seemed genuine and thoughtful in their concerns. But many of the arguments presented by anti-GM groups are either bogus, or are smokescreens to hide their real intention, which is anti corporation / anti-capitalism. I don’t know if that was the intention of the commenters, but some of those ideas seemed to be reflected in their comments. For example:

You say anti-corporation / anti-capitalism like it is a bad thing.

I am unsure how ones positive stance on the concept of genetically manipulating foods indicates a pro corporation/capitalism stance. You are conflating two very different issues, as are the birkenstick wearing, granola crunching treehuggers.

No I don’t conflate the two issues, the anti-GM crowd do. There is nothing wrong with making an anti-corporation / anti-capitalism point if you justify that position on its merits. The anti-GM crowd creates a fear of GM to dishonestly push their anti-corporation / anti-capitalism agenda.

A related complaint is that a corporation’s purpose is to make a profit, not benefit humanity, as if this was a valid objection to GM.  So what? Just because a corporation develops GM crops to make profits doesn’t mean the GM crops will not benefit anyone else. This is just ad hominem – attacking the motives of the corporation rather than showing that any actual harm has been done, or no benefit provided.

Even where it is alleged Monsanto did something wrong, fallacious reasoning is still used:

I… would add that the even longer version of the Percy Schmeiser story includes Monsanto sending a private investigator onto Schmeiser's farm, without a search warrant, to gather samples of his crops for genetic testing.

This is the Tu Quoque (two wrongs make a right) fallacy. If Monsanto broke any laws investigating their claim they should be punished for it. But even if Monsanto did break any laws, this would not mean that Schmeiser somehow magically didn’t steal the seeds anymore.

…the ridiculous notion that because a seed was created with one technology, genetic engineering, it is fundamentally different from seed created by careful breeding.

This objection is pretty funny. The anti-GM crowd insist GM organisms are radically different from those created by selective breeding – they’re “Frankenfoods”, remember? So which is it – are they different or not?

Farmers should have the right to save and replant their seed from year to year, period. That's a political position, not an anti-science one.

They do have the right to save and replant seed – just not seed developed at substantial cost by someone else, and sold under a contract that forbids such saving of seeds. No one forces farmers to use Monsanto seed – they can still use the seed they used before Monsanto started selling Roundup-Ready. Farmers will only use Roundup-Ready if it is more profitable for them to do so. That should be obvious.

The most obvious alternative solution to patenting agricultural biotechnology, which has worked well for more than a century, is public research by public agricultural universities.

Who or what is preventing this from happening now? And, more importantly, would the anti-GM crowd support this altruistic version of GM? We know they wouldn’t – they still oppose Golden Rice (as you can also tell from the comments), although that technology is being given away.

And companies like Monsanto are attempting to disable traditional farming technologies such as saving seed; by gratuitously adding genes to make crops unable to produce fertile seed. Why? To further disempower farmers, and enable Monsanto to extract more wealth from them with monoplistic patents.

First, that’s bullshit. Terminator technology has never been used in any commercially available transgenic plant. This is just another example of the lies that continue to be spouted by the anti-GM crowd. (I accept the commenter may not have known this, but has been taken in by the lies that are put out by the anti-GM groups.)

Secondly, the terminator gene was developed to prevent the escape of genetically modified traits into wild species – a concern of the anti-GM crowd. The technology was developed as a solution to one of the anti-GM complaints, but now it is another reason against GM. Whatever Monsanto does must by definition be wrong.

I ended my piece with, “Of course, with the pig patent case, it will be a few years before it is determined if Monsanto have a legitimate claim to a patent or not.” As I also said in my original article, something qualifies for a patent if it is useful, novel and non-obvious. If Monsanto have developed something that fits those criteria, I believe it is not ridiculous that they should be allowed to protect their investment with a patent. And nothing is stopping those pig farmers from using the traditional methods they have always used, if they don’t want to pay Monsanto’s fees.

More anti-GM squeals

Monsanto wants to patent the farmyard pig, according to the anti-GM Organic Consumers Association:

Monsanto Company, already a world powerhouse in biotech crops, is shaking up the swine industry with plans to patent pig-breeding techniques and lay claim to the animals born as a result.

(Snip)

"We're afraid that Monsanto and other big companies are getting control of the world's genetic resources," said Christoph Then, a patent expert with Greenpeace in Germany.

Ooh, this sounds bad: Monsanto shouldn’t be allowed to patent life forms.  Wait a minute – they’re not. Something only qualifies for a patent if it is useful, novel and non-obvious. Now, I’m not an attorney but I think that means you can’t patent the pig’s genome but you could patent (say) a method you developed for determining if a pig had genes that would be advantageous for breeding purposes. Yes, the article goes on to say:

The practices Monsanto wants to patent basically involve identifying genes that result in desirable traits in swine, breeding animals to achieve those traits and using a specialized device to inseminate sows deeply in a way that uses less sperm than is typically required.

That’s what I thought. If they have developed a method for determining breeding stock to give desired traits, or if they had developed a new insemination procedure, they should be able to patent it. This wouldn’t stop farmers from continuing to use their traditional methods for the same thing if they want. They would presumably only use the patented Monsanto procedures if it is more profitable for them to do so.

So why the sensationalist article? Well, the truth never got in the way of organizations like Greenpeace and the Organic Consumers Association, who have launched a writing campaign to bombard Monsanto executives with dross like this proposed pro-forma complaint:

I am deeply concerned about the direction Monsanto Company has taken in the past decade with respect to sustainable agriculture and farmers' rights. Right now we are at a critical crossroads in history, and I fear that Monsanto Company is not contributing to the nation's welfare with a "profits over people" attitude.

Monsanto Company has embarked on a vicious campaign against family farmers in the North American heartland, as well as across the world. These hardworking farmers are the backbone of our nation's food supply and national security. The current climate of insecurity has been exacerbated by your company¹s policies of intimidation, lawsuits and defamation.

Monsanto's legal actions against Percy Schmeiser, the Rodney Nelson family, and the Oakhurst Dairy for example, are deplorable attacks, and do not reflect your "Stake in the Ground" pledge to honesty and decency.

(My bold.)

The “profits over people” comment reveals their true motive: anti-corporation / anti-capitalism. Not that that matters in and of itself, but it is dishonest to pretend this is about “sustainable agriculture”.

And there are the usual porkie pies: allegations of a “vicious campaign against family farmers”, and the obligatory reference to Percy Schmeiser. Heard of Schmeiser? The anti-GM groups claim he was sued by Monsanto because some Roundup-ready seed was spilled and accidentally grew on his land. Sounds unfair, right? Well, if that was what happened, it would be. The true (short) version is that Schmeiser stole the seeds. The true (longer) version is that:

• Some Roundup-Ready seeds were accidentally spilled on Schmeiser’s property
• Schmeiser sprayed “a good three acres” of his non-GM fields with Roundup, to kill any crops (ie those non-GM crops he planted himself) that were not the Roundup-Ready volunteers
• Having successfully isolated the Roundup-Ready crops, he collected the seeds and next year planted them on 1,030 acres of his land
• Schmeiser sprayed these fields with Roundup, thus gaining the advantage or the Roundup-Ready crops without having paid for them.
• In 2001 he was found guilty of the above, and in 2002 his appeal was rejected.

Anyone applying a little common sense here would realize that there must have been more to this case than a simple farmer being sued because some GM seed had accidentally blown onto his land. Obviously, a case like that wouldn’t fly. The fact that Greenpeace etc still refer to Schmeiser as the poor innocent farmer, victim of the big evil Monsanto, demonstrates that the facts count less than their agenda.

Of course, with the pig patent case, it will be a few years before it is determined if Monsanto have a legitimate claim to a patent or not. I don’t know what the result will be but I do predict that the anti-GM groups will not report the legal battles honestly. Mark my words! (Randi, watch out, that million is in danger.)

This is what you will see if the Anti-GM groups report this story honestly

Rice genome decoded

Scientists from 10 countries have decoded the rice genome following a seven year project, according to a new report in Nature. The project was a multi-national one led by Japan with teams from the US, the UK, China, India, Thailand, Brazil and France.

The rice genome can be used as a base for genomic studies of other crops: rice is genetically similar to maize, wheat, barley, rye, sorghum and sugarcane. The BBC reports this genetic similarity has already helped researchers identify genes responsible for resistance to powdery mildew and stem rust in barley.  And genes that confer certain traits – such as yield - have also been identified.

This is good news because:

The blueprint will speed up the hunt for genes that improve productivity and guard against disease and pests.

In order to avoid shortages, rice yields must increase by 30% over the next 20 years, researchers say.

…

"Rice is a critically important crop, and this finished sequence represents a major milestone," said Robin Buell of The Institute for Genomic Research (TIGR). "We know the scientific community can use these data to develop new varieties of rice that deliver increased yields and grow in harsher conditions."

Here’s the reason genetically modified foods should continue to be developed and cultivated. The world's population is forecast to rise to 8 billion by 2025. One challenge will be to feed these extra 2 billion people. But that's really only part of the story. The real challenge will be to feed these extra 2 billion people without destroying forests and wildlands to make way for additional farming land. That is the real environmental challenge.

Most usable land is already under cultivation and global urbanization is taking some back. We have to find ways to increase yields further and to use land currently not suitable for farming. The reason is simple: every acre that (say) doubles its yield is one acre of rainforest that does not have to be chopped down, or one acre of wild land that does not have to be cultivated to grow food. The same is true for an acre of unusable land that is recovered for farming. So how do we do that? We must increase global yields, and to do this we must use all available tools, including genetic modification.

The threat is not only to forests and wildlands. We are probably going to have to grow this additional food with less water:

In addition, global warming may mean that rice is required to be more robust in the face of droughts.

Of course, the anti-GM protesters in rich countries like the US won’t be the ones who will go to bed hungry if yields are not increased, so maybe they think they can afford to call for a global moratorium on genetically engineered foods and crops. Ironically they’re missing the real environmental challenge: to preserve the existing wildlands and forests for all of us. For this we need to employ all the tools available.

Super-Hyperbole

GM crops have incurred many criticisms, especially from groups who wish to see GM cultivation stopped completely. One of these criticisms is that the engineered traits might cross over to wild plants growing nearby. The worry is that plants engineered to be resistant to herbicides such as Roundup (glyphosate), might transfer their herbicide resistance causing a “superweed”, incapable of being controlled.

There has been some dispute as to whether this type of hybridization would actually occur in the wild or that if it did, whether the resultant strain would be able to survive. It always seemed to me that some hybridization was bound to occur; the only question was, “how much?” According to a Guardian article dramatically entitled GM crops created superweed, a recent cross fertilization with a GM crop has produced a herbicide resistant weed:

Modified genes from crops in a GM crop trial have transferred into local wild plants, creating a form of herbicide-resistant "superweed", the Guardian can reveal.

…

The new form of charlock was growing among many others in a field which had been used to grow GM rape. When scientists treated it with lethal herbicide it showed no ill-effects.

OK, let’s examine this. First, it is not totally clear even from the full study whether the herbicide resistance had transferred from the GM crop or if it had evolved independently due to selective pressure. They did perform a PCR to check if the resistance was due to the same gene as in the rapeseed, but it isn’t clear if the gene could be distinguished from a naturally evolved resistance gene. In any case, it is known that selective pressure can cause resistant plants to evolve naturally, so this is not necessarily a problem confined to GM crops. (For example, read how Roundup-Ready cocaine plants evolved naturally in Colombia.) As the head of the land management technologies group at English Nature said:

The glufosinate-ammonium herbicide used in this case put "huge selective pressure likely to cause rapid evolution of resistance".

(My bold.)

Still, it is possible that the GM crop could provide an additional route for the resistant weed to develop.

Let’s suppose the resistance did transfer from the GM crop. We know from the full study that out of over 95,000 seedlings of wild relatives collected and grown by the researchers, only two grew into plants with the herbicide resistance: that’s only 0.002%. From a less hyperbolic article on this study from the BBC entitled Scientists play down superweed:

DNA analysis on a leaf sample confirmed the gene trait from the engineered oilseed rape was present, but when the researchers returned the following year to the same field they could find no herbicide tolerance in seedlings of the charlocks growing there.

The herbicide tolerant charlock growing in the field did not reproduce and so was non-existent the following year. So even if a hybrid did once exist it has disappeared. This shouldn’t be too surprising since distant crosses usually result in sterile plants.

But supposing the herbicide resistant weeds were able to reproduce? The solution always seemed to be that you would just spray the field from time to time with another herbicide, and that would kill the so-called superweed. However, according to the Guardian article, even that option would be in doubt, since multiple resistances have been known to arise:

The new plants were dubbed superweeds because they proved resistant to three herbicides while the crops they were growing among had been genetically engineered to be resistant to only one.

…

Experiments in Germany have shown sugar beets genetically modified to resist one herbicide accidentally acquired the genes to resist another - so called "gene stacking", which has also been observed in oilseed rape grown in Canada.

(My bold.)

Gene stacking is where cross-pollination results in genes from different crops occurring together in one individual “volunteer” plant. From this, it is clear that this multiple resistance would only be passed from GM crops if multiple GM plants all with different resistances were all grown nearby. In fact, we know the Canadian example arose from cross pollination of two GM and one conventional crop, each resistant to a different herbicide. Although this is a concern, it should be possible to prevent this happening in future, and farmers still have other herbicides they can use. The problem would be worse if a farmer grew crops resistant to the same herbicide year after year, but this can be avoided if they follow the good practice of crop rotation: in other words, it too can be managed.

As for whether herbicide resistant crops could become weeds in the general environment: crop plants need careful nurturing – they don't survive well in the wild.  For example, a 10 year study published in the journal Nature in 2001 showed that nearly all the crops looked at (conventional and GM), died out after four years when not cultivated. And the herbicide tolerance gives no survival advantage unless the plants are regularly sprayed with the herbicide in question, so there is no reason why GM varieties should survive better as weeds in the wild, than conventional varieties.

To quote the reviewer’s comment at the beginning of the study:

Although this study identified hybridisation between oil seed rape and Sinapis arvensis, such a finding needs to be interpreted with caution. The frequency of such an event in the field is likely to be very low, as highlighted by the fact it has never been detected in numerous previous assessments. Furthermore, the conditions where the hybrid was found appear to be quite unusual, restricted as it was to a case where Sinapis was sufficiently abundant in a crop to act as a significant conspecific pollen donor. The consequences of the transfer of the herbicide tolerance trait on the fitness and persistence of Sinapis arvensis were not assessed in this study but are presumed to be negligible. Nevertheless, this unusual occurrence merits further study in order to adequately assess any potential risk of gene transfer.

Of course, this merits further study. But it is still not a reason to stop GM cultivation. The risk appears relatively small, and it can be managed with better separation of different GM crops, use of best practice such as crop rotation, and other herbicides. The risk is clearly not limited to GM crops anyway – resistant strains arise naturally due to competitive pressure. You wouldn’t know this though from articles such as the Guardian, copied verbatim and uncritically here, here, here, here and at numerous other anti-GM sites. Note that article’s provocative and barely true headline GM crops created superweed compared with the much less hysterical BBC’s Scientists play down superweed that has not been reproduced anywhere that I can find.

As usual with anything GM, the facts count less than the conclusion already reached by the anti-GM crowd.

GM rice benefits poor farmers

A recent study published in the journal Science, seems to show GM rice is a benefit to poor farmers, the BBC reports:

Chinese farmers using rice engineered to resist insect pests made huge savings on insecticides, compared with their neighbours who had planted ordinary hybrid strains.

This had nothing to do with any specialist guidance the farmers received, because they were left to manage their crops as they saw fit.

As well as cutting costs, the researchers say, the farmers benefited from better health.

Pesticides in China are cheap and widely used, but poison an estimated 50,000 farmers a year, up to 500 fatally.

The researchers looked at farms in eight villages in three categories: full adopters, partial adopters and non-adopters. Farmers carried out their normal practice of applying insecticide only when they thought it necessary. The researchers found that unmodified rice required eight to ten times as much insecticide as modified rice and cost farmers an extra 200 Yuan ($25) a hectare. Yields were 9% higher with the Bt-based strain. No full adopters were adversely affected by pesticide during the course of the trial; 11% of non-adopters were.

Seems like a win all round – less environmentally harmful pesticide run-off, higher yields so less land farmed for the same output, and safer for poor farmers. Who could object? Predictably, Greenpeace retains its religious objections:

the Science study provided further evidence of the failure to control GM rice trials in China.

(Snip)

We should not be risking long-term health and environmental impacts, as well as international consumer rejection of Chinese rice when we don't need [genetic engineering] in the first place.

The “international consumer rejection” of GM foods is fueled by disinformation from Greenpeace, rather than any actual problems with GM food, and only an organization like Greenpeace would describe this study a “failure”. Rich Greenpeace supporters in western counties may feel they don’t “need” GM foods, but clearly these GM strains have the potential to be an environmental good. Studies like this, if replicated, should be welcomed by true environmentalists. Greenpeace, as usual, seem more interested in posturing.

New Improved Golden Rice

The World Health Organization estimates that Vitamin A deficiency causes 500,000 cases of child blindness a year, and 6,000 deaths. Five years ago, it was claimed that genetic engineering could help solve this problem with “Golden Rice” – so called because of its color, produced by the beta carotene engineered into it. Beta carotene is a precursor to Vitamin A.

Critics claimed there was not enough beta carotene in Golden Rice to make it viable – some claimed you would have to eat several pounds of the stuff daily, for it to do any good. While they probably exaggerated the problems, it did look to me as though the benefits of Golden Rice were overstated. However, I could never quite figure why the anti-GM group got so angry about Golden Rice. OK, so perhaps it wasn’t the solution, but that’s hardly a reason to use Golden Rice as proof that GM foods were evil and would result in ruin for the world. (I exaggerate, but not by much.) I always said, Golden Rice was a new technology – future versions might have enough beta carotene in it.

Well, the future is here:

British scientists have developed a genetically modified strain of rice they believe could combat childhood blindness and prevent deaths due to vitamin A deficiency.

The plant is an improved version of "golden rice", a GM crop released five years ago that is enriched in beta-carotene, which the body converts into vitamin A.

The release of golden rice met with widespread criticism from anti-GM groups, which claimed it did not contain enough beta-carotene to have any beneficial effect.

The new strain, golden rice 2, contains more than 20 times the amount of beta-carotene in its predecessor, or enough to provide 100% of the recommended dietary allowance of vitamin A from just 70g of rice, according to its developers.

And they’re giving it away free.

I still don’t know if it’s the answer. Someone said that just eating a carrot a day would give as much beta carotene. Maybe it would. But would they all eat that carrot daily? Perhaps they’d be more likely to eat the rice? I say it’s worth a try.

I expect the anti-GM crowd will still use Golden Rice as part of the reasoning to ban all GM foods. I hope they prove me wrong.