CBS News: GM grass linked to Texas cattle deaths

[GliderGuider]

17. People are really freaked over the potential for unintended consequences from GMO

When your cattle turn out to be grazing on a cyanide "grass chamber", the concern with being punctilious about fact-checking takes back seat to the fear. IMO the fear is justified, though - too little is known about the long term effects of GMO on human and environmental health, and corporations (and their regulatory catamites) appear to let profit motives override safety concerns. For example, an engineered version of klebsiella planticola could have been released for use in 1992, with potentially catastrophic results:

http://www.thismagazine.ca/issues/2008/03/outbreak2.php

Ingham, a soil microbiologist, had gotten an Environmental Protection Agency grant to test a genetically engineered strain of Klebsiella planticola, a common soil bacterium. A European company was planning to commercially market the modified K. planticola as a miracle product for farmers. It had been engineered to decompose plant stubble and debris left over on fields after harvest time. The process would also create valuable by-products: fertilizer sludge and alcohol. It was another of those wondrous applications of biotechnology you hear about all the time in the news.

Only, when Ingham saw her jars, the flaw in the heroic plan became clear. All 14 wheat plants growing in soil with the engineered K. planticola were dead, while the plants growing with natural K. planticola were doing just fine. Ingham repeated the experiment with the same results: the GM Klebsiella killed plants.

Freaked out, she contacted the EPA. The agency had already determined the product was safe and was close to approving it for experimental field trials in the open air. “You’ve got to stop that,” she insisted.

The EPA finally agreed to shelve the monster germ. If the episode wasn’t odd enough on its own, its aftermath was especially bizarre. Did it heighten awareness of the risks of biotechnology? Did it change practices at the EPA? Uh, no. In fact, the episode was promptly forgotten. Scientific journals refused to publish the results; it took five years to find one that would. In the meantime, Ingham and her grad student came under attack from biotech supporters, and both ended up quitting the university. Today, you’d be hardpressed to find anyone in the scientific community who’s even heard of the nearmiss, much less taken it to heart.

We don't trust corporations to have the best interests of humanity at heart. If that makes us a little twitchy and inclined to believe the worst about unexpected occurrences, I'd say we have ample reason.