Interview with a Food Safety Professor at WSU

Another Side of the GM Story.

Today I spoke with Professor Alan McCurdy at Washington State University, a scientist with a PhD in Food safety. He told me he is a professor who mainly teaches  food safety, how food consumption affects or does not affect humans. He also teaches a class that has a GM component. He understands that GM brings up other a whole range of issues. There are general issues, economic, political, sociological, social justice and environmental issues.  One of the main problems with GM are that people don’t know what it will do to them, and then they are easily able to access information on the internet that according to Dr. McCurdy is mostly misinformation, or information that is out of date. It is harder to find a peer reviewed journal or up to date scientific study. I went to him, because I don’t always believe what I hear or read and I wanted a real live scientist to give me his take on GM.  Here is some of what he said.

 

1.        He said that farmers have been genetically modifying crops and seeds for as long as they have been selectively choosing plants for a desired characteristic. That genetic modification is a much faster way that speeds up the process.

2.       Genetically modified food is the same as any other food. Biologically, scientists can tell no difference in  Vitamin content, carcinogens, or any other way. This is why the FDA has called GM substantially the same as non GM. Bt corn and soy he said does not affect humans consuming the product. The gene affecting the Roundup Readiness of plants is found in the roots and shoots.

3.        The Crigen report done by Arnaud Pusztai was found to be a bad scientific study. Take no stock in that study he said. (maybe there is another reason Pusztai was fired, other than he found evidence that GM proponents didn’t like)

4.      Golden rice is a good product. There is enough vitamin A in the rice to help prevent blindness.  McCurdy said,  the folks(poor people) who need it can’t afford to buy it so the GM seed companies are giving it to them.

5.      Scientist are no longer using antibiotic marker genes in GM crops.

6.      Terminator technology is not being used( I knew that but I told him that I had heard that the seed companies were still doing research on it, and he didn’t disagree).

7.      Cows and animals are no longer fed antibiotics all the time only when they are actually sick and then their milk or meat can’t be used for a certain amount of time. Scientists realized that this was causing antibiotic resistance in bacteria and problems for humans.

8.      Dairy cattle produce their own “BST” (Bovine somatatropin).  rBST is recombinant BST, while BST is made by the cow. However, scientists can’t tell the difference between the 2 and therefore can’t tell them apart analytically.  We call it BST instead of BGH, but that depends on what your readers are used to.  The FDA has said there is no difference between the two milks.  He said this is why milk suppliers who mark their non-rBST milk as such have to put a little diclaimer stating that there is “NO substantial difference between rBST and non-rBST milk.  Some animal rights organizations feel that the extra milk produced from cows injected with rBST stresses the cattle too much as they produce the extra milk.

9.      Nearly all cheese today is made using GM rennet. GM rennet is made from bacteria that are like factories used to produce the rennet. It used to be made with rennet from calf’s stomachs, but there isn’t enough calf’s stomach to make enough rennet to make the amount of cheese consumed.  

10.   Aspartame is made by combining two amino acids, one of which is produced using GM bacteria to produce the amino acid Phenylalanine. (Dr. McCurdy was drinking a diet soda with aspartame in it.)

11.     There is concern about bugs becoming resistant to Bt. And the creation of “Superweeds”, weeds that cross pollinate with Roundup Ready plants and whose subsequent offspring can’t be easily killed by Roundup.

12.    A website to look at is International Food Information Council. They give the other side of the story, the benefits of GM crops. Here is a quote from that site about the reduction in pesticide use.

 

“ The National Center for Food and Agricultural Policy (NCFAP) found that in 2004, compared to 2003, the combined impact of the 11 biotech crops used in the U.S. resulted in 62 million fewer pounds of pesticides used. According to a recent, peer-reviewed study by PG Economics, biotech crops have created significant economic and environmental benefits since they were introduced in 1996. Moreover, biotech crops have reduced pesticide applications by 379 million pounds – an amount that could fill a 15-mile train of railcars. NCFAP also found that planting herbicide-tolerant crops allowed farmers to conserve soil by avoiding tilling (plowing) the soil frequently. The study by PG Economics also found that biotech crops allowed farmers to reduce tractor usage for tilling the soil, due to more effective weed control. This change in procedure saved 464 million gallons of diesel fuel and decreased greenhouse gas emissions (carbon dioxide) by 22 billion pounds. The reduction of greenhouse gas emissions is equivalent to taking five million cars off the road for a full year.”

There are many links on this site and I have not had a chance to thoroughly go through the site to look at everything. 

            Does this change my mind about GM food or crops? That is a good question. I believe I will rest a little easier about GM foods affects on the human body.  If there is no difference in the proteins or the vitamin content then I won’t worry so much about my kids and grandkids eating GM food. I am still going to be looking for evidence either way, a peer reviewed actual scientific study. I think I/we need to be careful in our assumptions either way, and most of all an open mind. This is why I spoke to Dr. Alan McCurdy. He is a scientist whose main concern is food safety. I wanted another view of the food safety picture. 

 

            There are still my  other concerns about the environment and the social justice issues that arise from GM food and crops.  There is still the question of large corporations owning the right to seeds that I don’t agree with. Other people may not agree with the cloning of animals for human consumption that has just been approved in the US. There is still the issue of loss of diversity necessary for survival of all species.  That has been happening anyway, but owning intellectual property rights to genetics of any kind whether animal or plant will make it worse.

 

My social justice class is over. I am happy to say I got an A. I wish I had been able to interview Dr. McCurdy about this so the other students could have had this other side of the picture. That there may be some benefit. Maybe it’s not all bad news.

 

 

~ by Lorina Coble on May 10, 2008.