UPI: China rejects 60,000 tons of GM corn from the US.

[proverbialwisdom]

11. More.

http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php/news/archive/2012/14430-do-as-i-say-not-as-i-do

Do as I say, not as I do
Natural Products, 8 November 2012

...In China – the Special Food Supply Center supplies China’s political elite with organic, strictly non-GM food including hormone- and antibiotic-free meat. However, recent government incentives have led to 40% annual organic market growth in the past 5 years, so there is a trickle down effect

http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php/news/archive/2013/15096-interview-with-dr-thierry-vrain-gmo-whistleblower

Interview with Dr Thierry Vrain, GMO whistleblower
on 03 October 2013.

Interesting interview with a man who changed his mind on GMO but who, unlike Mark Lynas, a GMO convert who went the other way, understands the science.

http://commonground.ca/2013/10/dr-thierry-vrain-gmo-whistleblower/

GMO spokesman turned GMO whistleblower followed the science
Interview by Tsiporah Grignon
Common Ground, October 2013

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Q: Have you read Prof. Huber’s research on glyphosate, a main active ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide?

A: Don Huber studied the effect of Roundup on the decrease of nutrients in the plant. I spent time with him two years ago so I am reasonably familiar with what he has written. There is something interesting about your question about the GMO plant’s effect on the soil. The GMO plant is a plant with a new gene that has been inserted somewhere and usually with a gene that makes for the trait, e.g. a bacterial gene that would make a protein that could kill caterpillars. But when you engineer a plant, it is a random process. You need a way to select for the cells to be engineered because not every cell is engineered. And until very recently, the way to do that was to insert another gene (at least the gene you want), an antibiotic resistant gene, usually bacterial genes. And that antibiotic resistance gene is in the genome; it’s in the roots, it can go into the soil, so that can be picked up by the bacteria in the soil. There is a publication out of China, from the University of Szechuan, where researchers have shown that every river in the sample contained antibiotic resistance gene that, in all probability, came from the local transgenic plants.

Q: What did The Human Genome Project discover?

A: In the cells of every living organism are three major kinds of molecules: carbohydrates made by plant photosynthesis from sunlight and lipids and proteins. The carbs and lipids don’t move; they just sit there. The proteins do the work because they move. Every molecule of protein can twitch, make a movement, and that twitch can do something. That molecule can twitch another molecule and affect something in the cell and that’s what proteins do. Proteins are what make life because life is movement. So when you want to engineer a plant what you are actually doing is engineering a protein in the plant so that the protein will do something new in the plant, such as herbicide or insect resistance.

The Human Genome Project was finished in 2002. It took 10 years to sequence the whole genome of a person. The whole genome was deciphered. That was a very important point because the human body functions with about 100,000 proteins. It’s been well known since the late 1940s that DNA calls for proteins and the hypothesis of the 1940s was the “one gene, one protein hypothesis.” The dogma of molecular biology for the last 70 years was that each gene calls for a protein. So they believed if you have 100,000 proteins in your body, you will have 100,000 genes or more. Except when the Human Genome Project was completed we realized we only have 20,000 genes in our body. So 20,000 genes can make (causes the creation of) 100,000 proteins? The math does not add up and that’s what I am referring to. In fact, in 2002, the dogma of the one gene one protein hypothesis became null and void; it just doesn’t work that way.

What we discovered was that the genome of any living organism is a much more complex eco-system where 95% of the DNA is actually regulating the other 5% of that code for proteins. OK, you have a new DNA, about 5% of the DNA that is actually coding for protein in the genes. The rest is all kinds of DNA we have no idea how it works. When I was in graduate school, and later as a genetic engineer, it was called Junk DNA [laughter]. When you engineer a plant, you put a gene in the plant. That gene is going to make a protein. And that gene can go anywhere in the plant because you have no control. It goes anywhere in the genome, anywhere in the chromosome. And that gene is now under a regulatory sequence that it was not naturally regulated by before.

There are a good number of studies now showing that engineered plants have proteins that are quite different than the proteins that are expected, so-called rogue proteins. These proteins are truncated; they are different. They might function as a protein to kill caterpillars, for example. Or they might not. But they are different and that difference has not been investigated. Basically, the dogma is you put in a gene and you get the protein you want. So much so that the regulatory agencies, when they want to test for the safety of genetically engineered crops, all they need to show is that the protein that was inserted into the plant is safe, but they don’t go and test the new protein actually created in the plant.

Q: So unintended consequences are not even looked at, never mind ignored.

A: Completely.

Q: So how can they get away with calling GMOs safe?

A: Before the Human Genome Project, there was the one gene, one protein theory. Scientists simply thought you take a gene from a bacteria and put it in another bacteria, that you will get the protein you want and the effect you want. So it’s considered substantially equivalent.

Q: Have they ignored the results of the Human Genome Project?

A: I think that the consequences of the Human Genome Project are conveniently ignored. As soon as you start questioning that, and you say, OK, there may be more than one protein in the plant other than the protein intended, you bring in the regulations from the FDA and they are very clear: that if you are putting something on the market that is not substantially equivalent, something that is a little bit different, something that has a new protein or proteins are a little bit different, or the nutrients are a little bit different, then automatically they must do testing. Since 1996, they have completely waived responsibility, saying it’s completely substantially equivalent, claiming there are no differences, therefore companies don’t even need to look at them or do any substantial testing for safety!

Q: The 2008 film "The World According to Monsanto" exposed the revolving door between the bio-tech industry and government.

A: I read that Dr. Shiv Chopra was offered a million dollars to close his eyes and sign off on the RBGH incident but he refused and was fired because he just wouldn’t shut up. [Editor’s Note: Drs. Shiv Chopra, Margaret Haydon, and Gérard Lambert are former Health Canada scientists who were dismissed for “insubordination” in 2004 after publicly expressing serious reservations about the approval of products they believed would harm the food chain and ultimately threaten the well-being of Canadians. A cross Canada public speaking tour, starting in BC, with Dr. Chopra and Dr. Vrain, is in the planning stage for the second half of November.]

Q: Are you still in touch with some of your GE colleagues and are they aware of your turnabout?

A: No. You can now see how it is possible for scientists to ignore major sources of information.

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For additional related articles, see GMWATCH (news aggregator) site search for CHINA: http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php/search?searchword=china&searchphrase=all

http://www.nature.com/news/china-sacks-officials-over-golden-rice-controversy-1.11998
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2013/09/17/223382375/golden-rice-study-violated-ethical-rules-tufts-says
http://news.sciencemag.org/people-events/2012/12/chinese-researchers-punished-role-gm-rice-study
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php/news/archive/2013/14855-china-conference-warns-against-gm-foods