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The Green Guide

GE Pharming Generating Controversy

The Atlanta Journal and Constitution
BY: MIKE TONER
May 19, 2002

WHAT'S COMING TO DINNER?: Future crops will come with some baggage

Vitamin-enriched rice to help prevent blindness. A hepatitis vaccine from
lettuce. Grass that needs mowing only a few times a year. Freeze-resistant
strawberries. Rabbit fur from a cotton plant. The resurrection of the
American chestnut in America's forests.

These are a few of genetic engineers' favorite dreams. Many are, or soon
will be, technical realities. Most come with extra baggage --- an endless
potential for regulatory, political, economic, ethical and social
controversy. Coming attractions include: "Golden rice," engineered with the
genes of a daffodil and a bacterium to be rich in Vitamin A. It's being
grown in test plots in Germany and the Philippines. Proponents say it will
save the eyesight of 500,000 children a year who suffer from Vitamin A
deficiency.

Critics say the claims are hype that threaten to divert world resources from
more effective cures for malnutrition. An iron-rich black rice is in the
works too. Nicotine-free cigarettes, made from genetically modified tobacco.
They're scheduled to be introduced this year by Durham, N.C.-based Vector
Tobacco.

The company is growing transgenic tobacco in Pennsylvania, Illinois,
Mississippi, Louisiana and Iowa. Farmers fear that modified tobacco will
hurt U.S. tobacco exports. Anti-smoking groups doubt that anyone craving
nicotine will buy it. Designer chemicals from corn. ProdiGene, a Texas
biotech company, this year plans to reap commercial quantities of "trypsin,"
an industrial enzyme normally produced in the pancreas of animals, from
hundreds of acres in Midwestern corn fields. Iowa is eager to build a $50
million plant to process trypsin and other corn chemicals.

The prospect of the field as a factory has farmers worried that errant
pollen will contaminate grain intended for human consumption. Spider silk
from cows. Working with the U.S. Army, a Canadian firm, Nexia
Biotechnologies, has spliced the silk-producing genes of a spider into the
milk-producing glands of a cow to produce a soupy fluid that can be spun
into silk fiber --- stuff the military covets for a new generation of
strong, stretchy body armor. Low-mow turf grass. The Scotts Co., is
experimenting with genetically modified grasses. The first, a
herbicide-resistant creeping bentgrass designed exclusively for golf
courses, is expected on the market within a few years.
Farmers in Oregon are worried that it might spur the evolution of
herbicide-resistant superweeds. Scotts officials say their ultimate goal is
lawn grass that's greener and needs less mowing and watering.

Limited revolution

The revolution in agricultural genetic engineering, begun in the laboratory
20 years ago, moved into mainstream farming in 1996. Until now it has
focused mostly on a few crops and two "improvements" --- the control of
insects and weeds.

But as the targets of genetic modification shift to fish, farm animals and
forests, and as experimental products move into commercial use, the tenor of
the revolution will change dramatically.

"Biotechnology is a powerful technology with the potential to create
remarkable new products," says Mike Rodemeyer, executive director of the Pew
Initiative on Food and Biotechnology. "Many of these products are likely to
generate significant debate over their risks and benefits."

A Massachusetts firm, for instance, has developed an Atlantic salmon that
grows to marketable size in half the time as other fish. The super salmon,
grown at a secure site on Prince Edward Island, Canada, is being reviewed by
the Food and Drug Administration for possible use by fish farmers in the
United States.

The FDA is not treating the transgenic salmon as a new food, which it has no
authority to regulate, but as a new veterinary drug, which it can. Sixty
environmental groups want the agency to reject the "frankenfish" --- and
just in case it doesn't, they're asking restaurants and grocery store chains
nationwide to boycott it.

If the fish, an Atlantic salmon with the genes of faster-growing Pacific
salmon, is approved, the National Marine Fisheries Administration has vowed
to block modified salmon farming in Maine out of concern that "Trojan genes"
from escaped fish could slip into wild populations --- and perhaps upset the
ocean ecosystem with fish that grow too fast and eat too much. To allay such
concerns, the developer, Aqua Bounty Farms, has promised that all of its
salmon will be sterile.

The decisions aren't going to get any easier. Dozens of other species of
transgenic fish --- including largemouth bass, rainbow trout, channel
catfish, goldfish --- are already being grown in experimental ponds. In
China and Cuba, genetically modified fish are already being sold for human
consumption.

Scope expanding

The notion of food itself is about to change, too. Scientists have already
engineered crops with mega-vitamin supplements. Genetic alterations make it
possible now to add vitamin E and other antioxidants to vegetable oils,
increase the protein content of vegetables, cut saturated fats in cooking
oils and reduce the allergenic properties of wheat and milk. Coffee
researchers have developed a bean that is naturally decaffeinated.
Molecular "pharming" --- the addition of genes to combat everything from
tooth decay to travelers diarrhea --- goes even further. On experimental
scales, researchers have produced edible vaccines in potatoes, bananas and
other crops. In a greenhouse, they even have engineered corn to produce a
human spermicide.

Some scientists believe genetic engineering could enable them to develop
chestnut trees resistant to the blight that has killed 3.5 billion trees in
Eastern forests in the first half of the last century.

Genetically engineered pigs could be developed as a source for human organ
transplants. Genetically modified bacteria could help clean up toxic spills.
Even pests like the mosquito might be modified to keep it from spreading
malaria and other diseases. The list is endless.

"Everyone is the industry is working on nifty things," says Charles
Muscoplat, dean of the University of Minnesota school of agriculture. "We
are at a very important stage in the development of this technology."
So far, he says, the regulation of transgenic organisms has relied heavily
on claims of "substantial equivalence," the notion that, say, a corn plant
is still a corn plant even if it is engineered to kill pests or resist
herbicides. The next generation of products will be more challenging.

"What will happen when products start arriving at the marketplace which are
truly different?" Muscoplat wonders. "It's difficult to imagine how we will
treat genetically modified organisms which can prevent cancer, heart
disease, and allergies, or produce healthier animals and ecosystems."

THE FARM OF THE FUTURE?

What genetic engineers have in the works
Rice: enriched with vitamin A for vitamin-deficient populations
Canola: enriched with vitamin E
Sweet potatoes: engineered to resist plant viruses
Tomatoes: designed to manufacture a vaccine for measles
Corn: genetically altered to produce cancer-fighting drugs
Bananas: with inactivated virus immunizing against TB, cholera, hepatitis B
Strawberries: engineered to ripen more slowly
Turf grass: herbicide resistant, drought tolerant, low mow maintenance
Grapes: resistance to vine-killing bacterial disease
Coffee: decaffeinated beans
Tobacco: nicotine-free leaves
Spruce trees: resistant to insects
Atlantic salmon: engineered to grow to maturity twice as fast as natural
salmon
Catfish: designed to resist diseases on fish farms
Chickens: that lay eggs rich in drugs for cystic fibrosis, diabetes
Mosquitoes: engineered to be free of malaria parasites