2. Genetic Pollution

Genes that have been engineered into plants and animals can be transferred to other species.

Food plants are being engineered to produce pharmaceuticals and industrial chemicals. These plants could cross-pollinate with related species and contaminate the food supply (3).

Many species of GE fish are being tested and kept on fish farms. A growth hormone gene was engineered into salmon and attached to promoter that forced the hormone to be expressed at very high levels. The salmon grew up to 50 times their normal length in a single year and on average were 5 times as big (4). In some parts of Norway escaped fish from fish farms outnumber native ones by 5 to 1 (5).

GE mites, mosquitoes and nematodes have been created in laboratories for a variety of purposes (6). Commercialisation of these organisms would lead to their widespread release into the environment. These creatures reproduce quickly and travel over considerable distances.

A company called Biotechnica International conducted field trials with soya beans in 1989 which included coating the beans with a GE micro-organism in an attempt to increase nitrogen fixation. At the end of the season the plants and seeds were incinerated, the fields were ploughed under and a new crop was planted. Subsequent monitoring showed that the GE micro-organisms had been spread over 4 acres by the ploughing and were out-competing micro-organisms that normally lived in the soil (7).

Laboratory experiments in 1998 demonstrated that gene transfer could occur from GE sugar beet to commonly occurring soil bacteria called Acenitobacter. In theory, any insects, birds or other animals could pick up this bacteria from the soil and transfer it wherever they go (8).

Once released, the new living organisms made by genetic engineering are able to interact with other forms of life, reproduce, transfer their characteristics and mutate in response to environmental influences. In most cases they can never be recalled or contained. Any mistakes or undesirable consequences could be passed on to all future generations of life.

References

1. Frello S., Hansen K.R., Jensen J., Joergensen R.B. (1995): Inheritance of Rapeseed (Brassica napus) Specific RAPD Markers and a Transgene in the Cross B. juncea x (B. juncea x B. napus). Theor.Appl.Genet. 91: 236-241.
Joergensen R.B., Andersen B. (1994): Spontaneous Hybridization Between Oilseed Rape (Brassica napus) and Weedy B. campestris (Brassicaceae): a Risk of Growing Genetically Modified Oilseed Rape. Am.J.Botany 81: 1620-1626.
Mikkelsen T.R., Andersen B., Joergensen R.B. (1996): The Risk of Crop Transgene Spread. Nature, 380: 31.
2. GeneWatch Report,"Genetically Engineered Oilseed Rape: Agricultural Saviour or New Form of Pollution?" GeneWatch Briefing Number 2, May 1998
Agrow 296 January 16th 1998 p.9
3. Steinbrecher R., Ho M. (1996), Fatal Flaws in Food Safety Assessment: Critique of the joint FAO/WHO Biotechnology and Food Safety Report, 3.2 .
4. MacKenzie D. (1996) Altered Salmon grow by leaps and bounds, New Scientist, 6 January 1996.
5. MacKenzie D. (1996) Can we make supersalmon safe? New Scientist, 27 January 1996, p 14-15.
6. APHIS (1996) Field trial of a transgenic arthropod, Metaseilulus occidentalis (Acari: Phytoseiidae). Field Trial Report.
Naik G. (1997) Turning mosquitoes into malaria fighters. Dow Jones News, 17 June 1997.
APHIS (1996) Field trial of a transgenic nematode, Heterorhabditis bacteriophora (Nematoda: Heterorhabditidae). Field trial report.
7. US National Biotechnology Impacts Assessment Programme Newsletter (1991) The Case of the Competitive Rhizobia, March 1991.
8. Gebhard F. and Smalla K. (1998) Transformation of Acinetobacter sp. strain BD413 by transgenic sugar beet DNA, Appl. Environ. Microbiol. 64, 1550-1559.

next