ENVIRONMENTAL
NEWS
Growing evidence of widespread GMO contamination Now that millions of tests have been conducted in response to escalating worldwide concern over genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in food, it is increasingly clear that GMO contamination of conventionally grown food is a serious issue. Ultimately, it may trigger legal action. GMO testing has increased astronomically in recent months, and it now happens "quite often" that farmers are surprised to learn that crops they grew in the United States from non-GMO seeds test positive for GMOs when they reach Europe, said John Fagan, founder of Genetic ID of Fairfield, Iowa. Genetic ID became the world's first laboratory to offer GMO testing in 1996 and now licenses its nearly foolproof method for detecting GMOs, which is based on the "TaqMan" DNA testing technique, to laboratories around the world. Nine GMO food crops are currently grown in the United States, including soybeans, corn, canola, tomatoes, and potatoes. GMO versions of quite a few other crops, most notably wheat, are in the works. The GMOs in most of these crops can only be detected by DNA testing, which must be conducted in a laboratory and costs $200-$400. But Monsanto's Roundup Ready soybeans can also be identified by a $5.75 protein-based test being sold by Strategic Diagnostics Inc. (SDI), of Newark, Del, which produces results in 3-5 minutes. SDI began offering its tests this spring and has already sold millions of them, said Joe Dautlick, the company's marketing manager. By this month, SDI also expects to be offering tests capable of identifying GMO corn. Although there are 13 varieties of GMO corn and SDI is only plan-
Strategic Diagnostics' low-cost tests provide a fast way to detect GMOs in soybeans and corn.
ning to offer tests that will be able to detect four of the most popular Bt and Liberty Link varieties, Dautlick expects them to be very popular. The European Union, Japan, South Korea, Australia, and New Zealand have all passed or are considering laws requiring that food containing GMOs be labeled. But almost all GMO testing is conducted by and for businesses that demand proof the commodities they are buying contain no detectable GMOs. Even in the United States, where the official policy holds that GMO food is nutritionally identical to conventional food and therefore requires no label, some prominent U.S. food manufacturers have pledged not to include GMO ingredients in their lines. These include the leading manufacturers of baby food, Gerber and Heinz, as well as pet food maker lams and a wide variety of health food companies. U.S. Agricultural Secretary Dan Glickman has also encouraged the food industry to voluntarily label GMO food.
4 8 4 A • DECEMBER 1, 1999 / ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY / NEWS
One of the reasons that the pace of testing has skyrocketed in recent months is because businesses want to avoid embarrassment. Gerber made its no-GMO vow after Greenpeace used DNA testing to show that the company's dry cereal baby food contained GMOs, for example. Other companies who have promised GMO-free food have had their claims refuted by testing. Much of the GMO contamination that such tests reveal can be traced to practices that fail to preserve the identity of nonGMO crops, Dautlick said. Commodities like soybeans, corn, and canola travel along a complex and convoluted path from the farm field to their ultimate destination on a consumer's table, passing through a series of grain elevators, transport trucks, ocean barges, ports, and food companies. Because many businesses in Germany and Japan require that products be certified to contain less than 0.1% or even 0.01% of GMOs, careless practices like not properly cleaning out a weighing bin can lead to contamination. People involved in moving these products "don't want to get stung," so they have begun testing at many points along the way, Dautlick said. But even if standardized practices for handling non-GMO crops were instituted worldwide tomorrow, they would not solve all of the GMO food contamination problems, according to Fagan. Genetic ID's testing has documented that GMO contamination of conventionally grown crops occurs when wind-blown pollen from GMO corn and canola crops in nearby fields cross-pollinates with non-GMO corn or canola, he said. (This is not much of a threat for plants like soybeans that self-pollinate.) © 1999 American Chemical Society
Genetic ID has also amassed proof that seeds sold as nonGMO by seed companies are in fact contaminated with GMOs. Terra Prima, a company that sells organic corn chips, used DNA testing to prove that corn grown by a certified organic farmer in Texas was contaminated by cross-pollination from a nearby field where Bt corn was grown. The company was forced to destroy $87,000 worth of its chips because the contamination did not come to light until after the corn was made into chips; it is a plaintiff in a lawsuit filed against EPA this February alleging that the agency registered genetically engineered crops without adequately considering their health and environmental impacts. In addition to the cases he has documented, Fagan believes there are many other cases where non-GMO corn and canola crops became contaminated by crosspollination from GMO crops. Pollen can easily travel beyond the "refuges" of non-GMO crops that EPA suggests farmers plant to inhibit the development of insect resistance to the Bt toxin, according to research conducted by the British Broadcasting Company in conjunction with Friends of the Earth. They employed a German laboratory to conduct DNA testing that showed pollen from a GMO canola field ended up 2.8 miles away in a bee hive. Greenpeace also conducted a test in Germany last October that documented corn pollen's drift into a neighboring field, said Charles Margulis, a campaigner with Greenpeace. Genetic drift in which pollen from one kind of plant is taken up by another plant, creating a new kind of hybrid, is also a concern, Margulis said. The United Kingdom's National Institute of Agricultural Botany reported in April that a hybrid "super weed" may have been created after canola pollen was taken up by wild turnips growing nearby. Some of these hybrid plants have proven to be resistant to the herbicide for which the canola was engineered to be resistant. Genetic ID's scientists became convinced that GMO corn seeds
TABLE 1
Genetically engineered foods and crops approved for sale in the United States Number of GMO varieties Source of new genes
Food/Crop Canola
4
Corn (not blue corn) Cotton Dairy products f r o m cows injected with genetically altered rBGH Papaya Potatoes (Russett, Burbank) Radicchio (red-hearted chicory) Squash (yellow crook-neck) Soybeans Tomatoes
13 5 1
1 1 1 2 3 5
California bay, turnip rape, bacteria, virus bacteria, corn, virus bacteria, tobacco, virus cattle
bacteria, virus bacteria bacteria viruses petunia, soybean, bacteria, virus bacteria, tomato, virus
Source: Adapted from Campaign for Food Safety (www.purfood.org/ge/usc98gefood.cfm) and Mothers for Natural Law (www.safe-food •org).
were mixed in with conventional seeds after they tested products from four major seed companies. They obtained five large samples of each of five different conventional seed varieties from each company, Fagan said. What Genetic ID found after conducting its tests—which are considered the most accurate method for detecting GMOs because they involve triple-checking for the presence of GMO DNA—was that all of the varieties of allegedly nonGMO seeds from each company contained between 0.01% and 1% GMOs, Fagan said. Though Genetic ID refuses to divulge the identity of the companies whose seeds were tested, farmers are already concerned about the purity of the seed stock and many are sending their seeds to be tested before they plant, Fagan said. Genetic ID has contacted the offending seed manufacturers and is offering to conduct the testing necessary to certify that their seed lots are GMO-free, according to a company spokesperson. Last summer, a European affiliate of Pioneer Hi-Bred International acknowledged that it sold conventional corn seed that was contaminated with GMOs. Ultimately, this evidence of how conventionally grown crops are being contaminated by windborne pollen and how seeds are
falsely labeled as being non-GMO could give organic farmers grounds for a class-action lawsuit, said Michael Hansen, a research associate with the Consumer Policy Institute. The basis of such a suit could be the toxic trespass laws passed by many states to provide citizens with legal recourse against anyone who introduces toxins into the environment, Hansen said. —KELLYN S. BETTS
DID YOU KNOW? Fishing woes: The Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) estimates that 11 of the world's 15 major fishing grounds are seriously depleted. FAO also estimates that 10 million additional consumable tons offish could be caught sustainably if stocks were managed properly and bycatch reduced. Source: Tomorrow, March-April 1999.
DECEMBER 1, 1999 / ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY / NEWS • 4 8 5 A
