Terminator Technology and Genetic Contamination

the Supply Chain working group
<http://www.banterminator.org>

Terminator Technology and Genetic Contamination

October 2005

The biotechnology industry is vigorously asserting that Terminator
technology ­ genetic seed sterilization technology - offers a means of
preventing the unwanted flow of genes from genetically modified (GM) crops.
The industry argues that Terminator offers "biosafety" benefits. However,
the truth is that Terminator would not stop GM contamination, but would
itself pose a serious biosafety risk. Industry¹s goal is to win acceptance
for a technology that is designed to protect corporate patents and maximize
profits by stopping farmers from saving harvested seed and forcing them to
buy new seed every season.

What is Terminator? Terminator technology refers to plants that have been
genetically modified to render sterile seeds at harvest (through an
inducible molecular mechanism, which means that the gene for seed sterility
or germination can be turned on or off from the outside ­ by treating the
plants with a chemical or other factor). It is technically known as a
Genetic Use Restriction Technology or GURTs. Terminator technology was
developed by the multinational seed/agrochemical industry and the United
States government to prevent farmers from saving and re-planting harvested
seed developed by biotechnology and seed corporations. Terminator has not
yet been commercialized or field-tested but tests are currently being
conducted in greenhouses in the United States.

The biotechnology and seed industry is promoting Terminator as a "biosafety"
solution to disguise its true role as a biological means of preventing
farmers from saving and re-using proprietary seed. Terminator has been
widely condemned as a threat to food security for the 1.4 billion people who
depend on farm-saved seed.[i] <#_edn1>

Genetic Contamination

In many areas of the world, gene flow (including through cross-pollination
and seed dispersal) from genetically modified plants is causing unwanted
genetic contamination ­ even in the South¹s centers of genetic diversity
(the areas where our major food crops originate or where genetic diversity
is greatest). In essence, GM contamination is a new type of industrial
pollution that involves living, replicating organisms. This genetic
pollution cannot be controlled or recalled, and contamination can increase
over time.

Corporations are increasingly worried about legal liability and bad public
relations resulting from the unwanted spread of genetic material from GM
crops and the contamination of conventional and traditional seed stocks with
GM seeds. The realities of contamination threaten to stop the approval of
new GM crops that are potentially lucrative for corporations, including
³pharma² crops (plants modified to produce pharmaceutical compounds) and
genetically modified trees. The biotechnology industry is eager to persuade
the public that biotechnology can fix the GM contamination problem it has
caused.

It is ironic that, in response to heightened concerns about genetic
pollution, the industry is promoting Terminator technology as a "biosafety"
tool, which requires even further genetic modification and the introduction
of additional modified genes. The argument put forward is that engineered
sterility offers a built-in safety feature: if modified genes (whether
pharma genes, herbicide resistance genes or Terminator genes) from a GM
Terminator crop get transferred to related plants via cross-pollination, the
seed produced from such pollination would be sterile ­ it would not
germinate, thus contamination would not spread. However, this scenario fails
even in its design to offer any protection against transgene contamination
of harvested seed used as food or feed, since the genetic sequences, and
possibly proteins, from engineered genes (both trait genes and Terminator
genes) would be present after cross pollination, irrespective of intended
seed sterility.

Terminator Failure: Terminator will not stop GM contamination.

Delta & Pine Land, the US seed company that is conducting greenhouse trials
of Terminator plants and lobbies for its commercialisation claims in its
promotion materials that Terminator "provides the biosafety advantage of
preventing even the remote possibility of transgene movement."[ii] <#_edn2>
There is no scientific data made available to support this sweeping claim.
There is not even any data from the greenhouse trials. In order for
Terminator to be contemplated as a "biosafety" tool - that is "to prevent
even the remote possibility of transgene movement" - it must offer 100%
sterility. Every single Terminator seed would need to be completely sterile
in the second generation. This implies zero tolerance for even the slightest
failure. In other words, Terminator technology would need to be 100%
effective in order to be considered as a potential option to stop
contamination via gene flow.

Scientists who have studied genetic seed sterilization models believe that
Terminator will never be 100% effective or reliable as a gene containment
mechanism because it will not achieve 100% seed sterility.[iii] <#_edn3>
Terminator is a system that is made up of many constructs or pieces of
genetic material that are genetically engineered into plants. In order to
create sterile seeds, the technology relies on all of these constructs to
work perfectly, over generations of seed breeding. Terminator depends on a
number of steps and mechanisms to function and interact in succession, one
after the other. The chances of failure are high and will increase with each
component included in the system. Like any technology, Terminator will only
be as good as its weakest link.

Given that, at this stage, the individual components of V-GURTs [Terminator]
offer less than 100% efficiency or reliability, the combination of these
components in one organism will amount to still less. For example, if each
of the 4 components performs to 95%, in combination their performance could
reduce efficiency or reliability to as little as 81%.[iv] <#_edn4>

There are a number of known biological events that can interfere with the
reliable performance of any one of Terminator¹s many components, thus
rendering this complex technology incapable of fulfilling its claimed
"biosafety" role. For example, events such as gene silencing and epigenetic
changes to transgenes (alterations to the molecular appearance of the DNA
that block the cell¹s own reading mechanism from accessing the genetic
information of the affected genes), mutations and loss or reduction of
transgene activity, are problems that have been observed with GM
technologies. Additionally, segregation of the genetic components that make
up the Terminator mechanism from each other or from the GM trait that is to
be Ocontained¹ can occur during reproduction and could disable the
Terminator mechanism. Importantly, the main aim of all living organisms is
successful reproduction and this strong evolutionary pressure means that
everything in the plant itself will be working to counteract and overcome
Terminator genes and remain fertile.

The industry¹s promotion of Terminator as a technology to prevent gene flow
is an admission that contamination is a problem. Ironically, the very
companies that are responsible for GM contamination are now insisting that
society accept a new, unreliable technology to try to fix this pollution
problem.

In fact, Terminator could actually increase the level and seriousness of GM
contamination. If governments allow corporations to use Terminator
technology in an attempt to stop contamination, it could accelerate the
development and field-testing of controversial new GM plants that pose
additional risks to human health and the environment. For example:
· Plants are being modified to produce plastics and other industrial
chemicals as well as pharmaceuticals and vaccines (pharma crops). The field
testing of these crops is controversial because it is impossible to control
or contain genetically modified organisms in open-air experiments.
Scientists have warned that plants that constitute food and feed crops
should not be genetically modified to develop pharma crops because
unintentional contamination of the food supply is virtually inevitable.[v]
<#_edn5>

· Experiments with genetically modified trees have enormous potential
for gene flow as trees are large organisms with a long life span, and trees
produce abundant pollen and seed that is designed to travel long
distances.[vi] <#_edn6>

Terminator could be a biosafety hazard with serious consequences for
Indigenous peoples, local communities, peasants and small-scale farmers

If Terminator were to be accepted under the guise of biosafety, it would
have devastating consequences for farmers, food security and food safety.
Irrespective of any capacity to produce sterile seeds, pollen movement from
Terminator crops would take place and lead to contamination of other (open
pollinated) plants nearby, at least in the first generation. Seeds (e.g.
grain for food) from those plants would contain the initial trait gene (e.g.
pharma gene, herbicide resistance gene or Bt-endotoxin gene) plus the
Terminator genes intended to make them sterile. This contamination would
affect related crops as well as wild relatives.

Terminator would have serious impacts on food security and food sovereignty
for farmers and communities. Farmers who saved their seeds for replanting
and whose crops had been cross-pollinated by Terminator plants grown in the
area, could find that a percentage of their seeds did not germinate. This
percentage could translate into significant yield loses. Farmers would not
be able to identify the Terminator seeds until they replanted seed from the
first harvest, and found that the seed does not germinate. People who depend
on humanitarian food aid would risk particularly devastating crop losses if
they kept food aid seed that contained Terminator genes for re-planting.

Farmers who found their seed contaminated with Terminator from nearby fields
could lose trust in their own seed stock. If contamination is persistent,
farmers could lose their traditional and local varieties and be forced to
abandon their own seed that is adapted to local conditions and community
needs. Loss of traditional varieties and decline in seed breeding would also
threaten the practice and retention of traditional and local knowledge.

If corporations use Terminator as an experimental "biosafety" tool to try
and stop the spread of genes from high risk GM crops, like pharma plants,
and it failed, farmers in the region who save seeds could unknowingly
produce food contaminated with genes from pharmaceutical-producing plants,
which are not intended for human consumption and pose health and safety
risks.

Terminator genes could also spread unnoticed without initially causing
sterile seeds in the second or third generation. During the phase of seed
production by the seed company, the GM plant itself could potentially render
Terminator genes inactive through a process called gene silencing. Under the
gene silencing scenario, seeds contaminated with Terminator genes could be
fertile. As gene silencing is reversible over generations, "silent"
individual Terminator plants might at a later stage produce pollen with
active Terminator genes thus resulting in sterile seeds at an unpredictable
point in the future.

Additionally, Terminator itself gives rise to safety concerns and potential
risks for food, feed and biodiversity, born out of the fact that it is a
highly complex system of genetic engineering. For example, it is known that
modification processes (transformation and tissue culture) result in genome
scrambling at the integration site of transgenes and introduction of
hundreds or thousands of genome wide mutations.[vii] <#_edn7> The
application of Terminator would thus be more likely to enhance risks than
minimize them.

Terminator is designed to maximize industry profits, not stop contamination

Corporations have always been clear that Terminator was developed to be a
patent protection tool. ³The new technique is to protect U.S. technology and
seed patents,² stated Terminator inventor Melvin Oliver from the United
States Department of Agriculture.[viii] <#_edn8> Delta & Pine Land, a
US-based company that is developing Terminator seeds, refers to its method
of genetic seed sterilization as their ³Technology Protection System²
because it is designed to prevent farmers from re-planting the company¹s
genetically modified seed. The corporate seed industry began stressing the
Oenvironmental¹ arguments for Terminator after global protest threatened to
shut down development and commercialization of the technology.

Monsanto's activities show what biotechnology corporations really want with
Terminator. The company is vigorously suing farmers in the United States and
Canada for allegedly infringing patents by saving seeds that contain
Monsanto¹s proprietary genes.[ix] <#_edn9> As a means of preventing farmers
from re-using patented seed without paying, Terminator would be the perfect
solution for Monsanto and other biotechnology corporations. If
commercialized, Terminator technology would allow Monsanto to enforce
protection over its patents while avoiding costly lawsuits, high-priced
lawyers and the bad publicity generated by taking farmers to court.

Although Terminator needs to be 100% effective in order to prevent
contamination via gene flow, a lower effectiveness of only 80% sterility of
harvested seed would be sufficient to deter farmers from saving and
replanting seeds and force them to buy seed on the commercial market. Yet
80% efficiency would open the doors wide for uncontrollable escape of
transgenes (both GM trait genes and Terminator genes).

Summary

It is paramount to reject the dangerous argument that Terminator can be used
as a "biosafety" tool. Terminator would not stop contamination, and instead,
the technology would itself pose an additional biosafety hazard. The
potential consequences of Terminator for peasant farmers and Indigenous
peoples around the world are serious and warrant a ban on the development,
field-testing and commercialization of Terminator technology.

* Note: This briefing draws on the in-depth analysis of Terminator models
presented by EcoNexus. For more information: www.econexus.info
<http://www.econexus.info>

More Resources:
Ban Terminator Campaign www.banterminator.org
<http://www.banterminator.org>
Biosafety Information Centre www.biosafety-info.net
ETC Group www.etcgroup.org
EcoNexus www.econexus.info - This website
will soon offer detailed scientific analysis of Terminator

[i] <#_ednref1> See ETC group, "Statements Against Terminator,"
www.banterminator.org

[ii] <#_ednref2> Delta & Pine Land, ³Technology Protection System:
Providing the Potential to Enhance Biosafety & Biodiversity in Production
Agriculture², 2005.

[iii] <#_ednref3> Dr. Ricarda Steinbrecher, "Why V-GURTs (Terminator) fails
the requirements as a biological containment tool for biosafety", submission
to SBSTTA10, EcoNexus, February 2005.

[iv] <#_ednref4> Dr. Ricarda Steinbrecher, ³Is V-GURTs (Terminator) the
answer to transgene contamination?², EcoNexus. First prepared for the
EU­India Dialogue Study on Biotechnology, Biosafety and IPRs in the Context
of Globalisation, March 2005. This paper will be available on
www.econexus.info <http://www.econexus.info/> by November 2005.

[v] <#_ednref5> Union of Concerned Scientists, A Growing Concern:
Protecting the Food Supply in an Era of Pharmaceutical and Industrial Crops,
December 2004.

[vi] <#_ednref6> Claire G. Williams, "Framing the issues on transgenic
forests," correspondance, Nature Biotechnology 23 (530-532). June 2005.

[vii] <#_ednref7> Wilson A, Latham J and Steinbrecher R. ³Genome Scrambling
­ Myth or Reality? Transformation-Induced Mutations in Transgenic Crop
Plants.² EcoNexus Technical Report, EcoNexus, 2004. Available at
www.econexus.info <http://www.econexus.info/> . Hard copies are available by
contacting A.Wilson@econexus.info <mailto:A.Wilson@econexus.info> .

[viii] <#_ednref8> Ethirajan Anbarasan, ³Dead-end seeds yield a harvest of
revolt², UNESCO Courier, 1999.

[ix] <#_ednref9> Centre for Food Safety, Monsanto vs US Farmers, January
2005.www.centerforfoodsafety.org