Publication: Washington Post
Date: Monday, December 08, 2003

In theory, the technology that scientists have used to create genetically engineered crops like corn, soybeans and cotton poses two kinds of risks: Are the crops safe for the environment, and are the ones grown for food safe to eat?

For all the controversy that has attended these questions, the technology is really just one small branch of the genetic revolution sweeping through world science. The peculiarities of living things are determined, to a large degree, by specific alterations in their genetic material, and with tools developed over the past three decades, scientists are decoding these variations at a rapid pace. They are gaining the ability to alter genes, to switch them on or off, or even to move them from one species to another to confer new traits.

In the 1980s, when scientists began manipulating plant genes, they assumed the resulting products would be just as welcome. And indeed they seemed to be in the mid-1990s, when Europe and the United States approved the first commercial crops. But then a powerful backlash began among ordinary citizens in Europe, and politicians there imposed a de facto moratorium on future crop approvals. European buyers have continued to accept some crops, notably American soybean meal to feed farm animals, but most human food containing gene-altered ingredients has been forced off the shelves. In the United States, a majority of food products on the market contain such ingredients.

Monsanto, of St. Louis, has led the development of the new crops, and most of them contain one or both of two genetic alterations.

One alteration involves inserting a gene from a bacterium into a plant to give it the ability to produce a toxic protein not previously found in food. The toxin kills worms, enabling plants to protect themselves from various kinds of insect larvae, including corn borers and cotton bollworms. A second alteration involves endowing plants with the ability to survive a Monsanto herbicide called glyphosate, or RoundUp. By using RoundUp heavily on such crops, farmers minimize weeding.

On food safety, most scientists say there isn't much ground for concern — unlike a worm's digestive system, the human gut rapidly breaks proteins down into their component parts, amino acids, that are identical to the ones already in the body. But at least in theory, the new proteins might cause allergies in some people, including potentially fatal reactions, before the stomach destroys them. And some genes inserted into plants might, conceivably, be transferred to bacteria in the human gut, accelerating the development of germs resistant to antibiotics.

These questions have been studied in relatively short-term animal trials sponsored by biotech companies, and the answers were reassuring to U.S. government agencies, though many of the studies have not been made public or subjected to rigorous scientific scrutiny. However, the products have been on the market for the better part of a decade with no evidence of harm.

The environmental questions are more esoteric, and unique to each region where a crop is to be grown. In a given area, for instance, will a crop kill off insects beneficial to the local ecology, such as types of worms on which birds depend? Various tests are under way to assess such risks, and initial results from Britain have been somewhat worrisome. But the biotech crops have to be judged against alternatives, such as heavy use of chemicals on the one hand and organic farming on the other.

A definitive accounting of the risks, costs and benefits of each method could take decades.