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Published June 5, 2008 09:30 AM
GMOs Will Only Make the Global Food Crisis Worse
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/agriculture/article/37317

Dr. Mae-Wan Ho warns that further indulgence in GMOs will severely damage our 
chances of surviving the food crisis and global warming; organic agriculture 
and localised food systems are the way forward
Invited lecture at conference on TRADITIONAL SEEDS OUR NATIONAL TREASURE AND 
HERITAGE -Traditional and Organic Agriculture instead of GMO, 17 May 2008, 
Bewelder, Warsaw, Poland

The Brave New World of GM Science

In 1994, I met some of the most remarkable leaders in the Third World: 
Tewolde Berhan Gebre Egziabher (Institute of Sustainable Development, Addis 
Ababa, Ethiopia), Martin Khor (Third World Network, Penang, Malaysia), and 
Vandana Shiva (Navdanya, New Delhi, India), who persuaded me to look into 
genetically modified organisms (GMOs), especially GM crops, which they 
rightly saw as a special threat to small family farmers. The biotech industry 
was promising miracle GM crops that would boost yield to feed the world, 
improve nutrition, and clean up and protect the environment. Monsanto’s Flavr 
Savr tomato, the first GM crop, had just been commercialised, though it 
turned out to be a complete flop, and was withdrawn several years later..

The biotech industry’s aggressive campaign of disinformation and manipulation 
of science did nothing to obscure the signs that the dream would soon turn 
into nightmare; and I said so in my book first published in 1997/1998 [1] 
Genetic Engineering Dream or Nightmare, the Brave New World of Bad Science 
and Big Business, which became an international bestseller, translated into 
many languages, and recently reprinted with an extended introduction to 
coincide with its translation into Indonesian. Everything predicted in that 
book has happened. It also explained why the science behind GM is obsolete; a 
story elaborated further in Living with the Fluid Genome [2] published in 
2003.

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Genetic modification based on an obsolete theory and hence ineffective and 
dangerous

Genetic engineering of plants and animals began in the mid 1970s in the 
belief that the genome (the totality of all the genetic material of a 
species) is constant and static, and that the characteristics of organism are 
simply hardwired in their genome. But geneticists soon discovered that the 
genome is remarkably dynamic and ”˜fluid’, and constantly in conversation 
with the environment. This determines which genes are turned on, when, where, 
by how much and for how long. Moreover, the genetic material itself could 
also be marked or changed according to experience, and the influence passed 
on to the next generation.

The best thing about the human genome project is to finally explode the myth 
of genetic determinism, revealing the layers of molecular complexity that 
transmit, interpret and rewrite the genetic texts [3] (Life Beyond the 
Central Dogma series, SiS 24). These processes are precisely orchestrated and 
finely tuned by the organism as a whole, in a highly coordinated molecular 
”˜dance of life’ that’s necessary for survival.

In contrast, genetic engineering in the laboratory is crude, imprecise and 
invasive. The rogue genes inserted into a genome to make a GMO could land 
anywhere; typically in a rearranged or defective form, scrambling and 
mutating the host genome, and have the tendency to move or rearrange further 
once inserted, basically because they do not know the dance of life. That’s 
ultimately why genetic modification doesn’t work and is also dangerous.

Independent science against GM

In 1999, I co-founded the Institute of Science in Society (ISIS) with my 
husband and long-time collaborator Peter Saunders, Professor of Mathematics 
at King’s College, London, to work for science, society and sustainability 
and to reclaim science for the public good. We are fortunate to have the 
support of wonderful fellow scientists, especially Prof. Joe Cummins, who 
joined ISIS from the start and continues to play the leading role in 
monitoring GM science. (Joe Cummins has been honoured with the ISIS 
Distinguished Fellow Award 2008.)

In 2003, dozens of scientists from around the world joined us in ISIS to form 
the Independent Science Panel, and produced a report, The Case for A GM-Free 
Sustainable World [4], documenting all the problems and hazards of GM crops 
as well as the successes and benefits of non-GM sustainable agriculture. The 
report was republished within a year, translated into many languages and 
widely circulated. We presented the report to the European Parliament in 2004 
[5] (Keep GM Out of Europe, SiS 24), with the help of Jill Evans MEP.

In 2007, we updated the ISP report with a dossier containing more than 160 
fully referenced articles from the archives of ISIS’ magazine Science in 
Society, spelling out the scandals of serious hazards ignored, scientific 
fraud, the regulatory sham and violation of farmers’ rights [6] (GM Science 
Exposed: Hazards Ignored, Fraud, Regulatory Sham, Violation of Farmers 
Rights). Duped farmers in India are driven to suicide in hundreds of 
thousands. GM science is a crime against humanity.

In a scientific review paper [7] (GM Food Nightmare Unfolding in the 
Regulatory Sham), we documented how national and international regulators and 
advisory bodies such as the European Food Safety Authority have been ignoring 
the precautionary principle (which is accepted by the European Commission), 
abusing science, sidestepping the law, and helping to promote GM technology 
in the face of evidence piling up against the safety of GM food and feed.

We presented our dossier and review paper to the European Parliament in June 
2007, once again to press for a GM-Free Europe and a GM-free world, thanks to 
the sponsorship of Polish MEP Mr. Janusz Wojciechowski and his office. Our 
panel consisted of key scientists from six countries including Poland, and 
friends of independent scientists, including MEPs Dr. Caroline Lucas and Jill 
Evans.

The case for a GM-free world has grown much stronger since 2004, not only 
because so much more evidence has stacked up against GM crops; but especially 
because accelerating global warming, the depletion of water and fossil fuels, 
and the current food crisis make it that much more urgent to shift 
comprehensively to sustainable food and energy systems as proposed in 
ISIS/TWN’s energy report Which Energy? [8]. There is neither the time nor 
resources to waste on GM.

We’d had 30 years of GMOs and more than enough damage done, as detailed in 
the ISP Report [4], in our GM Science dossier [6], and more recent evidence 
has been piling up.

Thirty years of GMOs are more than enough

· No increase in yields; on the contrary GM soya decreased yields by up to 
20 percent compared with non-GM soya [4], and up to 100 percent failures of 
Bt cotton have been recorded in India [6]. New studies confirmed these 
findings. Research from the University of Kansas found a 10 percent yield 
drag for Roundup Ready soya [9] that required extra manganese applied to the 
soil to make up the yield deficit. A team of scientists from the USDA and the 
University of Georgia found growing GM cotton in the US could result in a 
drop in income by up to 40 percent [10, 11] (Transgenic Cotton Offers No 
Advantage, SiS 38)

· No reduction in pesticides use; on the contrary, USDA data showed that GM 
crops increase pesticide use by 50 million pounds from 1996 to 2003 in the 
United States [4]. New data paint an even grimmer picture: the use of 
glyphosate on major crops went up more than 15-fold between 1994 and 2005, 
along with increases in other herbicides [12] in order to cope with rising 
glyphosate resistant superweeds [6]. Roundup tolerant canola volunteers are 
top among the worries of Canadian farmers [13, 14] (Study Based on Farmers’ 
Experience Exposes Risks of GM Crops, SiS 38)

· Roundup herbicide is lethal to frogs and toxic to human placental and 
embryonic cells [6]. Roundup is used in more than 80 percent of all GM crops 
planted in the world

· GM crops harm wildlife, as revealed by UK’s farm scale evaluations [6], 
and more recently in a study led by Loyola University, Chicago, Illinois in 
the United Stated, which found that wastes from Bt corn impaired the growth 
of a common aquatic insect [15, 16] (Bt Crops Threaten Aquatic Ecosystems, 
SiS 36)

· Bt resistance pests and Roundup tolerant superweeds render the two major 
GM crop traits practically useless [6]. A recent review concluded that [17] 
“evolved glyphosate-resistant weeds are a major risk for the continued 
success of glyphosate and transgenic glyphosate-resistant crops.” And the 
evolution of Bt resistant bollworms worldwide have now been confirmed and 
documented in more than a dozen fields in Mississippi and Arkansas between 
2003 and 2006 [18]

· Vast areas of forests, pampas and cerrados lost to GM soya in Latin 
America, 15 m hectares in Argentina alone [6]; and this has worsened 
considerably with the demand for biofuels (see later)

· Epidemic of suicides in the cotton belt of India involving 100 000 farmers 
between 1993-2003, and a further 16 000 farmers a year have died since Bt 
cotton was introduced [6]

· Transgene contamination unavoidable, scientists find GM pollination of 
non-GM crops and wild relatives 21 kilometres away [19]

· GM food and feed linked to deaths and sicknesses both in the fields in 
India and in lab tests around the world (more below)

GM food and feed inherently hazardous to health [7]

Here are some highlights from our GM Science dossier [6] on the hazards of GM 
food and feed. Dr. Irina Ermakova of the Russian Academy of Sciences showed 
how GM soya made female rats give birth to severely stunted and abnormal 
litters, with more than half dying in three weeks, and those remaining are 
sterile. Hundreds of villagers and cotton handlers in India suffer 
allergy-like symptoms, thousands of sheep died after grazing on the Bt cotton 
residues, goat and cows as well were reported in 2007 and 2008 [20] (Mass 
Protests against GM Crops in India , SiS 38). A harmless bean protein 
transferred to pea when tested on mice cause severe inflammation in the lungs 
and provoked generalised food sensitivities. Dozens of villagers in the south 
of the Philippines fell ill when neighbouring GM maize fields came into 
flower in 2003, five have died and some remain ill to this day. A dozen cows 
died having eaten GM maize in Hesse Germany and more in the herd had to be 
slaughtered from mysterious illnesses. Arpad Pusztai and his colleagues in 
the UK found GM potatoes with snowdrop lectin damaged every organ system of 
young rats; the stomach lining grew twice as thick as controls. Chickens fed 
GM maize Chardon LL were twice as likely to die as controls. And finally, GM 
maize Mon 863 was claimed to be as safe as non-GM maize by the company, and 
accepted as such by European Food Safety Authority. But independent 
scientists of CriiGen in France re-analysed the data and found signs of liver 
and kidney toxicity.

Charts, more at: http://www.i-sis.org.uk/banGMOsNow.php