GM crops, DDT and Frankenstein foods: Exaggerating the risks

Alfred Smith - Tue 24 Oct, 2006

...Campaigners against GM crops and foods appear to be making the same mistake exaggerating the risks and ignoring the considerable advantages. Opponents of GM crops and foods are almost completely silent on their advantages and the food industry has been remarkably unsuccessful in explaining that GM crops will lead to many advantages...

 
 
Rachel Carson’s book Silent Spring, published in 1962, led to the banning of DDT. She claimed that the potent insecticide was killing birds and animals and was dangerous to human health. But the author Michael Crichton has argued that the banning of DDT has led to two million needless deaths a year and that banning DDT has caused more unnecessary deaths than Hitler.

DDT is a long-lasting and highly effective agent against malarial bearing mosquitoes. It is claimed that the alternatives to DDT are more expensive, more damaging to humans and less effective. DDT is banned in most developed countries but is still used in a limited way to prevent malaria in some developing countries. While undoubtedly the excessive use of DDT in agriculture can be harmful, and Michael Crichton’s assertion may be overstated, the proponents of a complete ban on the use of DDT worldwide appear to grossly exaggerate the hazards to people in rich countries and underestimate the benefits to people in poor countries.

There is no certain evidence that it has any significant harmful effects on human beings at all. And an article in highly respected scientific journal Nature Medicine commented: “Environmentalists in rich, developed countries gain nothing from DDT, and thus small risks felt at home loom larger than health benefits for the poor tropics.”

GM crops, DDT and Frankenstein foods: “Frankenstein foods” baloney

Campaigners against GM crops and foods appear to be making the same mistake – exaggerating the risks and ignoring the considerable advantages. Opponents of GM crops and foods are almost completely silent on their advantages and the food industry has been remarkably unsuccessful in explaining that GM crops will lead to the decreased use of pesticides, more nutritious food and higher crop yields in poor countries amongst other advantages. Advantages that have already been recognised and taken up in the US, Canada and China amongst others.

The genetic modification of plants by selective breeding has been continuous since agriculture began about 10,000 years ago by the process of selective breeding. But genetic modification is a somewhat different process. It involves the insertion of new genes into the plant or animal in question to produce improved varieties. It is, in short, a method of short-circuiting the selective breeding process.
Plant varieties can be genetically modified to make them resistant to certain herbicides which can then be used freely to protect the crop from weeds. Plants can also be modified to make them impervious to damaging insects. Selective breeding might not be able to achieve the same result. It follows that genetic modification has the potentiality to increase yields and to reduce the use of fertilisers and insecticides. An interesting example is genetically modified maize which is resistant to the corn borer insect which can account for a 20% reduction in crop.

GM crops, DDT and Frankenstein foods: Little publicised advantages of GM crops

In fact, one of the great advantages of GM crops is that they can reduce the huge volume of pesticides used which are an established threat to the environment. Opponents of GM crops are curiously silent on the very long-run effects of pesticides. They are usually strong supporters of organic farming which eschews the use of man-made chemical pesticides but has no problem, for example, with the use of Copper Sulphate on apples. A practice of concern to the EU which may seek to ban it. Of course, some opponents would argue for the abandonment of both GM crops and pesticides, but this would take farms back to the productivity of the 19th century.

Another advantage of GM crops is that they can improve the nutritional value of foods. Thus it is possible to create crops with far higher protein content than ordinary varieties. For example, Indian scientists have genetically modified the potato to increase its protein content by adding genes from the amaranth plant. Soya and maize have also been modified to increase their protein content. Similarly, Swiss scientists have developed a “Golden Rice” which has Vitamin A which ordinary rice does not contain. This is important as people in poor countries with predominantly rice diets can suffer Vitamin A deficiency. In children this can lead to blindness and early death.

Another advantage that genetic modification can bring is the removal of harmful toxins. Plants can be so modified that they are resistant to certain fungal moulds that can be damaging to human health. Bananas and other fruits have been modified to contain vaccines that give protection against cholera and hepatitis. Wheat has been modified to make it gluten-free which benefits people with celiac disease. Tomatoes have been modified to include beneficial antioxidants.

Genetic modification has also lead to more direct commercial advantages. In the United States, a genetically modified tomato, “Flavr Savr®”, has been introduced which has a longer shelf life than standard varieties. Slow softening apples and raspberries have also been developed which last longer before decaying than unmodified crops. Another potentially positive development, at a time of high oil prices, is work to adapt plants to make them more amenable to the production of biofuels and to produce biodegradable plastics.

GM crops, DDT and Frankenstein foods: Exaggerating the risks

Of course there are risks and concrete disadvantages in the development of genetically modified crops. But these can be easily exaggerated. Perhaps the most convincing is that genetically modified crops have been grown in the United States for 10 years with none of the dire consequences predicted by the opponents of “Frankenstein foods”.
 
Many objections to GM foods appear almost completely misplaced. Thus the threat from eating food made from GM food and animals is minimal because genetic material is broken down in food preparation and digestion. On the other hand, there is the risk that herbicide resistant GM crops could interbreed with related weed varieties and create a “superweed”, that was also resistant to the herbicide in question. But still the risk is small compared to the advantages, and in the future the technology may develop to reduce or eliminate this potential damage. Opponents forget that any advance involves risk. There have even been suggestions that GM crops could be the “new thalidomide”. But even that tragedy did not lead to complete banning of medical research, but it did result rightly in much stricter regulation.

Many opponents of GM crops base their arguments on a generalised rejection of modern business methods, science and technology. Theirs is often a sense of unease with the scientific manipulation of nature and the motives of its commercial promoters. For example, Friends of the Earth objects that GM soya seed is too expensive for poor small scale farmers in Brazil and only large agri-businesses can afford them. But this is a bad argument against highly productive large scale agriculture and no argument against GM crops. Friends of the Earth’s objection to GM food and crops is part of a wider campaign against supermarkets which it regularly accuses of trying to inveigle GM foods onto their shelves. Again, this is part of an unconvincing campaign against supermarkets which for all their faults have greatly improved the choice, cheapness and availability of food in Britain in recent decades, and no argument against GM foods and crops as such.

GM crops, DDT and Frankenstein foods: Why it’s a worry for The Government

The press, including The Independent, the Daily Mail and The Daily Telegraph, are eager to elaborate the risks without describing the potential advantages of .the new technology. Following the publication of the DEFRA white paper in July which set out the Government’s plans to permit certain GM crops by 2009, the Daily Telegraph seriously reported on the threat of GM crops to property prices.

Given New Labour’s understandable anxiety about the result of the next general election, there must be the danger that it retreats from its policy, based on scientific advice, of permitting the development of GM crops under controlled conditions. Pandering to Luddite special interest groups with extreme anti-capitalist views for reasons of electoral support could make the development of GM crops in the UK even more difficult. It would be in danger of repeating the error made in banning DDT. Again many people in poor countries could needlessly lose their lives.


Regards,

Alfred Smith
for The Daily Reckoning
   

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