GM foods might be dangerous after all

By Rod Dreher • January 10, 2012, 11:28 AM

Chinese researchers have found small pieces of ribonucleic acid (RNA) in the blood and organs of humans who eat rice. The Nanjing University-based team showed that this genetic material will bind to proteins in human liver cells and influence the uptake of cholesterol from the blood.

The type of RNA in question is called microRNA, due to its small size. MicroRNAs have been studied extensively since their discovery ten years ago, and have been linked to human diseases including cancer, Alzheimer’s, and diabetes. The Chinese research provides the first example of ingested plant microRNA surviving digestion and influencing human cell function.

Should the research survive scientific scrutiny, it could prove a game changer in many fields. It would mean that we’re eating not just vitamins, protein, and fuel, but information as well.

What might this mean? Well:

[It] reveals a pathway by which genetically modified (GM) foods might influence human health.

Monsanto’s website states, “There is no need for, or value in testing the safety of GM foods in humans.” This viewpoint, while good for business, is built on an understanding of genetics circa 1950.

Read the whole thing. If the Chinese results are upheld, GM agriculture has a huge problem. Joel Salatin penned the December cover story for TAC on GM crops. I hope we can make it available for everybody — but why not subscribe and read it today? If you want a conservative magazine that takes issues like this seriously, and presents a dissenting point of view from the GOP mainstream, we need your support.

24 Responses to GM foods might be dangerous after all

Nickp says:

January 10, 2012 at 12:24 pm

It’s a potential problem if and only if the specific genetic modifications in GM crops alter the microRNAs synthesized by those plants. As the Nature article indicates, microRNAs are derived from expressed DNA sequences with a particular structure, and they’re generally not derived from protein-coding sequence. Since most genetic modifications in crops involve insertion of protein coding genes, they’re not likely to encode scary new microRNAs

If microRNA creates a problem with GM food, then it also creates a problem for any traditional selective breeding, hybridization, or change in cultural practices. Any of those activities could also alter the complement of endogenous microRNAs expressed by a plant.

It’s also a big question mark for existing, traditional crops. If plant microRNAs have a significant effect on humans (a big if), then just about any crop that you currently eat might be having unrecognized deleterious effects on your health. Panic Now.

The Nature article: interesting and worthy of further study. The Atlantic blog post: hysteria.
Nickp says:

January 10, 2012 at 12:25 pm

Sorry about the open italics tag in my previous comment.
Turmarion says:

January 10, 2012 at 1:09 pm

Flacks for big agra have been ridiculing opponents of GM food for years, painting them as crazed hippies, and making their concerns sound trivial by using the term “frankenfood”. Seems the crazed hippies were right–and how ironic is it that it took China to confirm this?
thomas tucker says:

January 10, 2012 at 2:04 pm

Just-re-subscribed and glad I did!
Roger C. says:

January 10, 2012 at 2:13 pm

My first question is, “Is this unique to GM foods?” Other questions follow:

2. Are these genes long enough to create proteins?

3. Are these genes in a location where they can be picked up by a ribosome and actually be translated into proteins?
Gus says:

January 10, 2012 at 2:14 pm

No one could have predicted…
Roger says:

January 10, 2012 at 2:23 pm

Amazing that what is self-evidently a feature – we can potentially make our big macs cholesterol-free! – gets automatically defined as a bug by the anti-progress tree-huggers of left and right.

Yes this explodes Monsanto’s lies – but it also presents us with a huge opportunity to banish not just hunger but many of the ills of affluence as well.
sd says:

January 10, 2012 at 2:38 pm

Well, I did “read the whole thing” and what I found was about as shoddy a piece of scare journalism I’ve seen in quite some time.

To be clear – the Chinese research was not performed with any focus on GM foods. The effect demonstrated was due to the ingestion of rice. Not GM rice. Not Monsanto rice. Just rice. And rice was used as the control basis for the research because it expresses high quantities of a particular micro RNA sequence. In other words – there is nothing – nothing whatsoever at all – in the research which indicates that ingesting GM plants is any different from ingesting “natural” plants.

The idea that that eating food X exposes the eater to “contamination” from “information” in food X is approximately 1000 miles away from any finding that GM foods are the least bit riskier than other foods (if indeed consumption of food in general leads to micro-RNA mediated diseases, which the research paper DOES NOT DEMONSTRATE).

But even if there was some tiny increase in disease risk associated with consumption of GM foods that still wouldn’t necessarily balance out the enormously positive impact that GM foods have had and will continue to have worldwide. At current rates of global population growth (9 Billion people – coming soon to a theater near you) it will be impossible to feed humanity without substantial increases in crop yields – increases that can only come from more and better GM food crops. There is almost no uncultivated arable land left in the world. There isn’t likely to be enough water for human and animal direct consumption in the near future – much less enough to irrigated substantial acreage of currently non-arable land. Increased N-P-K fertilizer usage can spike yields a bit in geographies that are under-fertilized today, but nowhere near enough to close the gap. Diversion of corn and sugar away from ethanol production would increase the food supply a bit, but not enough to close the gap. We will have widespread use of GM foods in 2050 or hundreds of millions of human beings will go hungry – and many millions will die.

Oh and by the way – the column wasn’t written by a scientist or even a science journalist. It was written by a food critic. I don’t necessarily look to Roger Ebert for an informed analysis of the relative safety risks of the chemicals in Kodak vs. Fuji motion picture film.
Connie says:

January 10, 2012 at 3:30 pm

If the food we’re eating makes us stupid, how will we ever figure it out?
Mont D. Law says:

January 10, 2012 at 3:40 pm

I’m with sd here. GM food could be providing great benefits for starving third world populations world, but because of hysteria in the west this technology can’t be used as widely or as effectively as it should be. So many people just die – but hey they are far away poor people so who cares.
Will says:

January 10, 2012 at 4:38 pm

> My first question is, “Is this unique to GM foods?”

No. All plant and animal cells (cells with nuclei) have microRNA.

2. Are these genes long enough to create proteins?
3. Are these genes in a location where they can be picked up by a ribosome and actually be translated into proteins?

They dont code proteins directly; instead they regulate the expression of the genes that do.

GM scientists point out that mankind has been crossbreeding foodstuffs for millenia; the difference is that in the past we could crossbreed long grain rice with short grain rice; now we can crossbreed long grain rice with tuna fish.

There certainly is potential for unintended consequences here, but note that humans have been eating microRNA forever.
JonF says:

January 10, 2012 at 5:30 pm

I also have to wonder how this is just about GM foods. If what we eat can introduce snipets of DNA into us, why isn’t that a problem with all foods? The most natural and organic stalk of broccoli could be coding us with its genes as part of some sinister vegetative conspiracy. Someday we will all turn into (pea)pod people!
Hector says:

January 10, 2012 at 5:50 pm

Re: The Nature article: interesting and worthy of further study. The Atlantic blog post: hysteria.

Precisely.

I was out visiting my friend’s apple farm last week, and we were talking about the kinds and intensity of pesticides that he has to spray. I asked him if any apple breeders were working on developing GM apples so that you wouldn’t have to apply pesticides. His answer was ‘probably not’, most because the hippies (especially in Europe) would raise hysteria about it. So instead he has to put lots of insecticides on his apple trees.

Irrational hippie hysteria about GM foods are something I have never and will never get. Horizontal transfer of genes happens in nature, after all, if rarely.
Hector says:

January 10, 2012 at 5:52 pm

Re: I’m with sd here. GM food could be providing great benefits for starving third world populations world, but because of hysteria in the west this technology can’t be used as widely or as effectively as it should be. So many people just die – but hey they are far away poor people so who cares.

yeah, exactly.

Genetically modified crops allow you to grow stuff with less tillage and with less insecticide use, and hopefully in the future with better disease resistance and drought tolerance…..how is this a bad thing again?
Siarlys Jenkins says:

January 10, 2012 at 6:54 pm

It’s worth looking into. There’s not much more to be said about it, except by people who are either in total denial or love an excuse to say “I told you so.”
Public Defender says:

January 10, 2012 at 7:35 pm

It sounds like the initial report was overblown. I hope so. There’s much about GM foods to criticize, especially the way mega agribusiness uses property law to make farmers dependent on buying their seeds every year. But GM foods also have great promise to reduce pesticide and fertilizer use while increasing the food supply.

One key question is whether GM food producers should have to prove the product safe before putting it to widespread use, or whether critics should prove the product unsafe before it can be taken off the marker. I see valid arguments each way. But I give the edge to the idea that the products should be presumed safe because I haven’t seen an argument from critics that shows a significant difference to GM food and the hybrid foods that have been used for decades (and probably centuries).
Shelley says:

January 10, 2012 at 10:05 pm

Public Defender:
One key question is whether GM food producers should have to prove the product safe before putting it to widespread use, or whether critics should prove the product unsafe before it can be taken off the marker. I see valid arguments each way. But I give the edge to the idea that the products should be presumed safe because I haven’t seen an argument from critics that shows a significant difference to GM food and the hybrid foods that have been used for decades (and probably centuries).

I think it should be proved safe first. Look at how quickly the saturated fat/cholesterol/heart disease research has begun to unraveled. We were all used a lab rats for that experiment which has had the unintended consequences of an escalation in type 2 diabetes. I personally don’t want to experience unintended consequences so that GM foods can make money now and apologize for it later.
Thomas O. Meehan says:

January 11, 2012 at 1:03 am

Those interested in the phenomenon of environmental hysteria should read the work of the late Aaron Wildovsky.
Public Defender says:

January 11, 2012 at 7:26 pm

Shelley,

You may not want to risk “unintended consequences,” but people who don’t have enough food might. There are a lot of places in the world where a type 2 diabetes problem would be a blessing.

Even here, GM foods could make affordable fruits and vegetables more available, decreasing type 2 diabetes.

There are downside risks on both sides. One weakness of the anti-GM foods side is that I rarely see that side even acknowledge the downside risks of their position.
Siarlys Jenkins says:

January 11, 2012 at 10:54 pm

The rest of us have more coherent books on our reading lists.
Thomas O. Meehan says:

January 12, 2012 at 1:55 pm

Those who study public perception of risk vs actual quantifiable risk take Wildovsky’s work seriously. Try reading and understanding before speaking for “the rest of us.”
Siarlys Jenkins says:

January 12, 2012 at 7:23 pm

“The rest of us” has an objective definition: all of us who are not putting a priority on reading Wildovsky. Those who are not “the rest of us” are, like you, reading the book you recommended.

But I admit your second presentation sounds far more rational, more objective, and displays almost no ideological ax to grind, compared with your first outburst. I’ve done you a favor Mr. Meehan. By challenging the weakness of your first statement, I have inspired you to say something much more coherent, and inspiring, which might actually motivate someone to accept your advice.
Thomas O. Meehan says:

January 13, 2012 at 5:59 pm

Thanks for interpreting my remarks for those unable to understand the meaning of “Those interested in the phenomenon of environmental hysteria should read the work of the late Aaron Wildovsky.” Doubtless many were waiting for your permission.
DragonTat2 says:

January 29, 2012 at 3:35 pm

Eat organic. No GMOs, no pesticide coated conventionally grown crops. Just organic. Nobody HAS to spray their apples with pesticides. That’s a lie.
The skyrocketing number of victims of diabetes might be telling us something, and I will no longer risk the unknown so I can eat a pickle that for some reason needed to be crossed with a goat. No artificial flavors, either. It’s like pesticides… unnecessary.

GMOs are not safe, they are not wholesome foods.