GMO Pundit a.k.a. David Tribe: GMO: a debate hijacked by rumours. Deja vu all over again

GMO: a debate hijacked by rumours.

The case of MON863 corn

How a cell of French anti-GMO activists, financially supported by a transnational retailer chain and backed by influential media, impose their views and undermine science-based GMO risk assessment

- Marcel Kuntz*, Translated ( at Agbioview newsletter) from an article originally published by the Association Francaise pour l'Information Scientifique

http://pseudo-sciences.org/spip.php?article734 via Agbioview

Was a corn destructive insect intentionally introduced into Europe to help sell GMOs?

Diabrotica virgifera virgifera, better known as western corn rootworm, is a small Coleopteran [Beetle] originating from Central America, which in the Sixties became the major corn pest in North America. It first appeared in Europe in 1992 (in Serbia), then spread to other European countries, arriving in France in 2002. In France, the Service for the Protection of Plants attempted to eradicate the infections by compulsory insecticidal treatment of corn fields covering a radius of 10 km around the points of capture of the rootworm and by 1- or 2-year crop rotation in order to break the insect's life cycle [1]. In the United States, monoculture and the appearance of mutants able to circumvent the obstacle of rotation largely limited the effectiveness of these measures. Will the development of Bt-type corn MON863 containing the insecticide protein cry3Bb1 [2] allow effective and durable protection? Is it a useful element in the combat against this threat?

For the French newspaper Le Monde, this is missing the point. Let's examine what was stated in an article entitled 'An American insect seriously threatens European corn'(26th September 2002) - "For Criigen, an association opposing GMOs chaired by Corinne Lepage (a lawyer and former French Environment Minister, [author's note]), the speed of reaction of the large international firms is considered to be suspicious. The president of Criigen's scientific committee, Dr. Gilles-Eric Séralini, had already questioned in his book 'GMO, the real debate' (Flammarion, 2000) the coincidence of the arrival of diabrotica in the kit of an army on campaign (the American army [author's note]) with the proposal of GMO solutions to counteract the pest... He evokes, but without proof, those elements likely to support his accusations". It should be pointed out that the aforementioned elements have not been produced to date. In addition, it should be noted that the actual date of arrival in Europe (probably before 1992) is long before the development of corn MON863. This did not prevent the French TV channel Canal+ from broadcasting, on Monday 7th April 2003, a report entitled 'A devastating insect debarks in France' where the charge is repeated. The advertisement for the programme (Canal+, the subscribers' magazine, April 2003) reads: "according to specialists, it [diabrotica] should have never have appeared so quickly", "who benefits? ", "many professionals think...". The viewer discovers that the list of "specialists" are limited to anti-GMO militants quoted above. As for " professionals": questioned by a field, one farmer admits... having heard somebody say, at a meeting that...

The charges of deliberate introduction are repeated in 2005

The case continues. Citing lengthily an article by Miller et al.[3], Sebastien Genest, President of an environmentalist organisation, France Nature et Environnement, revives the charge in an open letter addressed to the Prime Minister dated 1st December 2005. He "asks for the opening of an investigation..." and, in case the Prime Minister does not understand clearly, he drives the point home: "... without dismissing the assumption of a deliberate introduction in the home territory".

What did Miller et al. demonstrate? That there were at least three independent arrivals of the rootworm, probably by air cargo (the insect was always found located initially in the vicinity of airports). Here is the article's conclusion: "our finding... suggest incursions from North America are chronic. Prevention of future invasion will require action against multiple invasion route... Our study also raises questions concerning the changing circumstances (such as adaptation by the insect or exchanges in control measures or transportation practices) that have permitted a sudden and recent burst of transatlantic introductions".

In other words, there is no trace in this article [Miller et al. cited by the environmentalist organisation] of any information supporting premeditated introduction. It should be pointed out that destructive insects do not require deliberate assistance to travel from one continent to another: vine Phylloxera arrived in Europe from America, the European corn borer travelled in the opposite direction and the New World screw-worm fly travelled from America to North Africa. As for the horse chestnut leaf miner, it has spread all over Europe, sometimes with the help of contaminated wood cargoes.

Expertises hiding the truth?

The MON863 corn saga does not stop there. During examination of the medical risks evaluation dossier, one of the French commissions, the Commisssion du Génie Biomoléculaire (CGB) requested a complementary expertise [4]. The dossier's reporter, Dr. Gerard Pascal (INRA) stated: "my analysis report... reveals a certain number of significant differences between the rat group fed with the non-transgenic parental corn line and the group fed with MON863 corn, in particular regarding renal hypotrophy and a greater number of histological anomalies at the level of the kidney in the MON863 fed group. Without concluding the slightest risk, the CGB requested some explanation". It is at this time that Corinne Lepage seizes the Commission d'Accès aux Documents Administratifs (CADA). Le Monde reiterated the claims in a series of articles [5] stating: "For the first time, one discovers that experts admit that the ingestion of GMOs has significant effects on animals". "No one would have heard anything about it... if the lawyer, Corinne Lepage,... hadn't forced the CGB's door". The minutes of the CGB's meetings... could be made public for the first time". However, the CBG's perfectly clear opinion was already on a website! Yes, but the trick was to request the meeting's minutes. Henceforth, the CGB also publishes the meetings' minutes...

What has become of those famous kidney "anomalies"? Quoting G. Pascal's, regarding the conclusions of the more advanced expertise "carried out by reputed anatomo-pathologists, one of whom is the world specialist in laboratory rat kidney pathology. This expertise emphasised that the anomalies observed in the kidneys of the MON863 corn fed rats were the same as those observed in the control group of rats, even if they were slightly more numerous, but not statistically significant, and that they were identical to those observed normally in laboratory rats. This expertise was re-appraised by a French expert: same conclusions. " In the CGB's opinion of 16th September 2004 [6], one learns that this is a progressive chronic nephropathy which develops spontaneously in the rat... As for the "renal hypotrophy", a new study did not reveal any significant difference in the kidney weight of control rats and those rats fed with various transgenic MON863 corn lines. On 23rd November 2004 [7], the CGB thus finally concluded, like all the other agencies [8], the lack of biological and toxicological significance of the variations which had previously held its attention.

"Secret" or "prohibited" documents?

On 22nd May 22 2005, a British newspaper, The Independent, echoed the existence of a "secret report", held by Monsanto, which shows the harmfulness of corn MON863 [9]. Details even include the length of the document: 1139 pages! The news propagated on the anti-GMO websites. The European Food and Safety Authority (EFSA) intervened [10] to specify that these 1139 pages are, in fact, those of the medical safety evaluation dossier for this corn (that studied by the CGB and other agencies). The trick was, here again, to play on words: the dossier is actually confidential (but was communicated in its entirety to the official agencies involved in the evaluation, who accepted to respect the confidentiality of the industrial formulas contained within) but not secret (all the agencies published their argued conclusions).

Despite all this Canal+ broadcast its report 'The accusing study' and repeat all the already contradicted elements. The socialist Member of Parliament Jean-Yves Déaut, Vice-president of the Office Parlementaire d'Evaluation des Choix Scientifiques et Technologiques (OPECST), wrote a strong letter of protest to Canal+ in which he stated that he is "staggered by the total lack of critical assessment and objectivity... by the journalist who made the film". He recalls that the subject "had been widely tackled during the contradictory round table" of a parliamentary information commission on 2nd February 2005 [11].

The next anti-MON863 campaign, from November 2006, led hundreds of thousands of web-surfers to watch a video "banned from broadcast" by Canal+, and which, moreover, will be soon withdrawn from the web! The truth finally got out: this is about the report 'The accusing study', mentioned above and broascast by the station on 15th November 2005 [12]...

Let's focus one moment on another aspect of report, the interview with Dr. Marc Fellous (Institute Cochin and President of the CGB). Dr. Fellous circulated the following detail: "This document lacks objectivity, and accumulates errors and inaccuracies; with carefully chosen cuts, I am said to hold opinions which, taken out of their context, give rise to erroneous interpretations... It is surprising that Dr. Gerard Pascal, member of the CGB, toxicologist, the dossier's reporter and who was at the origin of the questions raised by the CGB regarding the dossier, was not questioned by Canal+".

"Independent" studies calling into question risk assessment?

The following campaign was launched on 13th March 2007. However, already in 2005 a Le Monde article (dated 20th October 2005) entitled 'Greenpeace wants to re-examine a GMO corn', gives word (exclusively) to the same anti-GMO militants along with a newcomer, a lecturer in mathematics and also a Criigen member. Why a mathematician? To develop a new argumentation: 'The either dishonest or deficient choice of statistical tools' of the studies on rats fed on MON863 corn. The article also mentions that Greenpeace obtained the communication of the study on the rats from the German judiciary. This too had been the object of a publication by three Monsanto researchers in February 2006 [13]. On 13th March 2007, Corinne Lepage announced "new revelations" thanks to an analysis [14], using other statistical methods, of the toxicological data from the same source (the famous 1139 pages). These "appropriate" statistical methods describe the "renal hypotrophy" but neglect to give the values for all the rat groups, which allows to conclude opportunely "a statistically significant difference", where the CGB concluded that this "fell within the range of natural variation". Other just as "significant" differences were found for other parameters. Revelations? The French food safety agency AFSSA report dated of 2nd December 2003 [8] states: "some statistically significant variations were observed. However, under the study's experimental conditions, the variations regarding haematology, biochemical and tissue parameters, limited to one or the other sex and independent of the duration of the treatment, are without biological significance, especially if one takes into account the historical data concerning these parameters for the rat model used". In other words, whereas the rat represents a useful model in toxicology, it is not perfect. Then why not associate another model? The AFSSA report reveals that this was done! On growing chickens. The report concludes "the absence of significant differences between treated chickens and control chickens".

On 14th March 2007, Le Monde published an article entitled: 'Strong suspicions of toxicity of a GMO corn'. Regarding the funding of the Criigen study by Greenpeace and the retailer chain Carrefour, the newspaper justifies it because "there is, unfortunately, no public funding for this kind of work". Which is inaccurate since European and French projects on risk assessment were and are currently funded. On 29th March 2007 the German agency BfR, on 26th April 2007 AFSSA and on 15th June 2007 the CGB all rejected the conclusions of the Criigen publication [15]. At the request of the European Commission, the EFSA set up a "task force" which auditioned the publication's authors and examined closely the statistical aspects. The conclusion returned on 28th June 2007 is irrevocable [16] [EFSA Press release en Anglais]: the paper does not raise new issues with respect to the safety of MON863, the results are considered not to be biologically relevant and are even misleading. Le Monde did not even bother to mention this...

References

-1) http://www.inra.fr/la_science_et_vous/dossiers_scientifiques/maladies_emergentes/la_chrysomele_des_racines_du_mais

-2) http://www.agbios.com/dbase.php. MON863 is authorized since 2001 in the United States for human food and animal fedd (marketed since 2003).

-3) Miller et coll., Science, vol. 310, 11 nov. 05, p. 992.

[Multiple Transatlantic Introductions of the Western Corn Rootworm.
Authors: Miller, Nicholas Estoup, Arnaud Toepfer, Stefan Bourguet, Denis Lapchin, Laurent Derridj, Sylvie Kim, Kyung Seok Reynaud, Philippe Furlan, Lorenzo Guillemaud, Thomas guillem--AT--antibes.inra.fr
Source: Science; 11/11/2005, Vol. 310 Issue 5750, p992-992, 1p

Abstract: This article describes the introduction routes of the western corn rootworm called Diabrotica virgifera virgifera or WCR, the most destructive pest of corn in the United States. Armed with this knowledge, it will be possible to better gauge the prevention strategies that might be adopted. WCR was first detected in Europe in the former Yugoslavia in 1992 and has since spread throughout much of central and southeastern Europe. Although the invasion history of WCR is well documented, the source populations of the Western European outbreaks remain unknown. Because of the sequence of outbreaks, CSE Europe was generally assumed to be the source of most, if not all, the Western European populations. The presence of unsampled European populations acting as alternative introduction sources for the three primary outbreaks could be ruled out. It has been widely assumed that the European WCR invasion was the result of a single unpredictable introduction. Prevention of future WCR invasions will require action against multiple invasion routes, which have apparently been used repeatedly and are potentially predictable.

...WCR was first detected in Europe in the former Yugoslavia in 1992 and has since spread throughout much of central and southeastern (CSE) Europe (2). Outbreaks of WCR were subsequently detected in northeast Italy in 1998 (in Veneto), 2002 (in Pordenone), and 2003 (in Udine); in northwest Italy and Switzerland in 2000; near Paris, France, in 2002 and 2004; and in eastern France, Switzerland, Belgium, the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands in 2003 (2). Although the invasion history of WCR is well documented, the source populations of the Western European outbreaks remain unknown. Because of the sequence of outbreaks, CSE Europe was generally assumed to be the source of most, if not all, the Western European populations (3). However, in principle, each outbreak could have originated from North America, CSE Europe, or one of the other Western European foci.

To discriminate between these introduction scenarios, we analyzed the genetic variation of European and American WCR populations at eight microsatellite loci (4, 5). Simple genetic statistics gave useful but qualitative insights into the origin of most European outbreaks (5) (table S1). We then used a model-based approximate Bayesian computation (ABC) method relying on computer simulations (5, 6) to quantitatively compare the different introduction scenarios for the Western European WCR populations (Fig. 1).

Our results are clear-cut and unexpected. Two of the Western European populations analyzed did not originate from CSE Europe but directly from North America.... Moreover, these introductions were independent from each other (BF ≥ 159 and PW ≥ 0.94). According to our analysis, the northeastern Italy 2003 outbreak was the only one to originate from CSE Europe (BF = 183 and PW = 0.94), and the eastern France population was derived from the Paris 2002 population (BF = 3.9 and PW = 0.45). The only population with ambiguous origins was Paris 2004, which could have been derived either from North America (BF = 2.05 and PW = 0.70) or from Paris 2002 (PW = 0.22). The presence of unsampled European populations acting as alternative introduction sources for the three primary outbreaks (CSE Europe, northwestern Italy, and Paris 2002) could be ruled out. This was true whether the unsampled population was one of those detected in 2003 (BF > 104 and PW ~1) or a hypothetical population founded in the 1980s (BF > 3.6 and PW > 0.68)....

It has been widely assumed that the European WCR invasion was the result of a single unpredictable introduction. Our finding that there have been at least three independent transatlantic introductions of WCR suggests that incursions from North America are chronic. Prevention of future WCR invasions will require action against multiple invasion routes, which have apparently been used repeatedly and are potentially predictable.]

-4) Oct 31, 03, the Commission du Génie Biomoléculaire (CGB) requests 'thorough interpretations' in particular 'of anomalies of the kidneys' in MON863 fed rats.

-5) April 23, 04, Le Monde publishes 4 articles of which: The confidential expertise on a worrying transgenic corn

http://www.fairelejour.org/article.php3?id_article=566

and

Three questions to ... Corinne Lepage

http://www.lemonde.fr/cgi-bin/ACHATS/acheter.cgi?offre=ARCHIVES&type_item=ART_ARCH_30J&objet_id=850870

-6) Sept. 16 04, the CGB, after consultation of external experts, concludes that the 'anomalies' are due to 'progressive chronic nephropathy' and 'nephrocalcinosis', common affections of laboratory rats, without link to corn

http://www.ogm.gouv.fr/mise_marche/avis_scientifiques/pdf/AVDE029compl2FINAL.pdf

-7) Nov. 23 04, favourable opinion of the CGB after complementary study and expertise on the other variations: http://www.ogm.gouv.fr/mise_marche/avis_scientifiques/pdf/AVDE029compl3_231104.pdf

-8) April 8, 03, favourable German scientific opinion http://gmoinfo.jrc.it/csnifs/C-DE-02-09_RiskAssessment.pdf ;

Dec 2 .03, favourable opinion of the French Agence française de sécurité sanitaire des aliments (AFSSA) : http://www.afssa.fr/Ftp/Afssa/22026-22027.pdf ;

April 2, 04: favourable opinion of the European Food Safety Authority(EFSA): www.efsa.eu.int/science/gmo/gmo_opinions/381_en.html

-9) May 22, 05, The Independent U.K. publishes 2 articles on Monsanto's Secret Study: Health Fears Over Secret Study into GM Food & When Fed to Rats it Affected their Kidneys and Blood Counts. So What? Might it do to Humans ? We Think You Should be Told

http://www.organicconsumers.org/monsanto/secret062305.cfm

-10) May 24, 04, the EFSA dismisses the rumour about Monsanto's Secret Study

http://www.efsa.eu.int/press_room/press_statements/929_en.html

-11) Contradictory round table on GMO safety issues. ? Les enjeux sanitaires des OGM :

http://www.assemblee-nationale.fr/12/rap-info/i2254-t2-05.asp#P8053_1517739 ;

Testimony of Dr. Gerard PASCAL

http://www.assemblee-nationale.fr/12/rap-info/i2254-t2-03.asp#P5775_1087455

-12) Nov 15, 05, broadcasting on TV channel Canal+ of the documentary 'the accusing study'.

http://www.lemonde.fr/cgi-bin/ACHATS/acheter.cgi?offre=ARCHIVES&type_item=ART_ARCH_30J&objet_id=924158

-13) Hammond et coll., Food and Chemical Toxicology, Feb. 2006, vol. 44 (2), p. 147-160.

-14) Seralini et coll., Archives of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology, May 07, vol. 52(4), pp 596-602 (Press statement: March 13, 07).

-15) Opinion of the German Bundesinstitut für Risikobewertung (BfR) dated March 29, 07: 90-Tage-studie an Ratten mit MON863-mais: Keine Gesundheitliches Risiko.

http://www.bfr.bund.de/cm/208/90_tage_studie_an_ratten_mit_mon863_mais.pdf ;

Opinion of AFSSA relating to the recent study published on modified genetically corn MON863 (April 26, 07):

http://www.afssa.fr/Object.asp?IdObj=40727&Pge=0&CCH=070623:26:4&cwSID=5F58F578470146749B7BAB56BCB6F4BA&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;AID=0 ;

Opinion of CBG dated June 15, 07 :

http://www.ogm.gouv.fr/experimentations/evaluation_scientifique/cgb/autres_avis/Avis_CGB_MON863_15juin2007.pdf

-16) http://www.efsa.europa.eu/fr/press_room/press_release/pr_efsa_maize_Mon863.html

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* Marcel Kuntz is Director of Research at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (France) and author of the book 'OGM, l'environnement et la santé' (Publisher: Ellipses).

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