First time in Rockhampton

I spent Friday the 17th of August in the company of a lovely group of people who are members of Healthy Soils Inc. in Rockhampton. The group had asked me to come and talk about risks associated with pesticides and residues in cotton feed as they were concerned. This is an area where I spent some time conducting research both here and in the UK on GM crops , but in reality the group were more concerned about the health risks from GM and had Jonathan Latham and Judy Carman, both known for their anti-GM stance, presenting on this topic.

The GMO safety forum

The day then pretty much played out as one might expect from the internet hype surrounding some of the presenters. Jonathan started the day with a very interesting talk on how GM plants are made. He focused on biolistic transformation, which is the process by which the foreign DNA is basically shot into plant material. Jonathan went on to talk about how this method of gene insertion can result in other gene fragments of plant DNA also being integrated into the new plant’s chromosome. There’s nothing technically wrong with a lot of what he said, but due to the sort of issue with biolistic transformation that Jonathan was describing, the majority of today’s GM crops are prepared with the more precise system that uses the bacteria Agrobacterium tumefaciens to facilitate the DNA insertion. Now sure in both systems we are still putting man made constructs into plants and the nature of these constructs could possibly be better, an area where Jonathan and I agree, but had I been asked to talk to a group about how GM plants were made I would have told about all the methods used and not just one that has been superseded.

I followed Jonathan’s first innings and, for those of you who know me, did my normal song and dance routine and approached my talk on pesticides and safety based on my 20 years of work with GMs. I pointed out the importance and significance of peoples beliefs, how public opinion can be easily altered, that we do actually consume cotton oil and then got into my own work on the assessment of GM on the environment. I closed with providing answers to the questions the group had said the day would address, well aware that I was unlikely to change opinions.

Beliefs come first, explanations come later

A farmer’s perspective

Renee Anderson, a cotton farmer from Emerald, talked after me about how GM cotton has allowed her to continue to grow cotton. Renee pointed out that GM traits have allowed a massive reduction in pesticide use both on her farm, region and across the Australian Cotton industry. This was especially important to her because it not only had allowed her to continue to grow cotton, but it had enabled strong IPM practices within her region, which was important due to it being part of a reef catchment. Additionally for Renee, GM cotton fitted within her cropping system, which is diverse and opportunistic when water is limiting, just as it is now.  Renee’s questions from the floor related largely to issues and concern over seed ownership, which whilst we may all have opinions about it’s worth remembering that plant breeders rights and seed ownership exists in many of our other crops and even in our pasture grasses, but this was not a forum to solve these concerns in.

Renee Anderson’s opening slide.

Renee was followed by Judy Carman. Judy is an excellent orator and much calmer than myself. Judy talked about where she believes the ‘gold standard’ should be for human health assessment of GM crops and highlighted that a lot of the reports given to regulators are from animal feeding studies. Judy went on to discuss her own work on pig and rats fed GM based diets. Having read her studies I find Judy’s findings worthy of note and there are other studies that support it  as well as others that contradict Judy’s work including reviews of many long term feeding studies. This does not mean Judy’s work is wrong, it just means that it came to a different conclusion and that’s no reason to discredit it. However, I guess I was left wondering why someone who claims to want more balanced interrogation of the research seems less prepared to do so herself, especially on a topic where change is occurring. To tell the truth, the only thing Judy said that got my back up was that she insisted cotton oil contained DNA and proteins, which it does not due to the refinement needed due to the presence of gossypol, a natural plant defense chemical found in the seed. Judy insisted that this was not so and highlighted a case of peanut oil and an anaphylactic reaction to allergens in the oil. As a father of a child with severe anaphylaxis to nuts I am aware of the risks with some nut oils, but peanuts aren’t GM, don’t contain gossypol and so peanut oil production is completely different to cotton oil production. Cotton oil does not contain functional DNA or proteins, but according to Judy I am wrong as are all the reports that cotton oil does not contain GM DNA and proteins. However, when you are challenging someone’s beliefs there is often little room for logical debate. Is there a lesson in this? Absolutely, but we should accept Judy’s research for what it demonstrates and consider it with what else is known and stop vilifying her. After all, should we not be allowed to have our opinions?

Jonathan closed off the presentations. He took to one of the areas that he has become well known for, Gene VI expression from the cauliflower mosaic S35 promoter that is used in many GM constructs. Now Jonathan is a virologist, I am merely a geneticist by the same measure, so why is his opinion more valid than mine? Sounds like bitter grapes doesn’t it, but I’ve read the paper to which Jonathan was referring and had it on hand. I’d even highlighted the conclusion that states, “contains all of the necessary elements for full promoter activity and does not appear to result in the presence of an ORF with functional domains, rendering it and its related variants the most appropriate promoter variants for avoiding unintended effects.” I offered it to an audience member who was interested in what Jonathan had to say, but he was not prepared to read four lines of text that contradicted what Jonathan had just said. Why is this, could it be too contradictory to his beliefs to warrant those few minutes to read? What ever the reason, Jonathan said to me later, he presented his “interpretation of the research”, so he does not think the research is wrong, but he also does not seem to want to present the original findings. This is not how I was taught to handle and present other peoples work and also why I insist my students only write about what they have read or done themselves, but perhaps I need to question my own training and ethics in this regard? Whatever you take from this a much bigger problem was emerging. People were saying they could not find information, there were then saying that when they found information there was too much to read and yet somewhere the message has to be delivered by someone who is believed.

From right to left: Renee Anderson, Judy Carman, Oliver Knox and Jonathan Latham

Lessons from the day

Members of this group uphold views and opinions that oppose the general consensus and I see nothing wrong with this and to some extent expected it. I had started my talk with a quick poll of the room and repeated it at the end of the day having proposed that beliefs may be challenged, but remain unchanged. This transpired to be correct, but what was apparent from the day was that that this group, and therefore others, felt that the risk assessment and government bodies that decide if our GM food is fit to consume are not doing enough. At this point we should remind ourselves that the ‘S’ in FSANZ stands for ‘Standards’ and not ‘Safety’ and their role in “GM labelling is not about safety. It is about helping consumers make an informed choice about the food they buy.” So whilst I have not been privy to the conversations that various regulators have reputedly had with this group, if people have questions then should somebody not have a responsibility to see that they are answered? Although, as I pointed out in my talk, if they don’t like what they hear and their beliefs don’t align with the answers then we might be wasting our breath, but at least we should be taking the time to talk to them.