[R-G] [BillTottenWeblog] Monsanto Whistleblower Says

[Bill Totten]

Genetically Engineered Crops May Cause Disease

by Jeffrey M Smith

Global Research (November 19 2006)

The Institute for Responsible Technology (IRT)

Monsanto was quite happy to recruit young Kirk Azevedo to sell their
genetically engineered cotton. Kirk had grown up on a California farm
and had worked in several jobs monitoring and testing pesticides and
herbicides. Kirk was bright, ambitious, handsome and idealistic - the
perfect candidate to project the company's "Save the world through
genetic engineering" image.

It was that image, in fact, that convinced Kirk to take the job in 1996.
"When I was contacted by the headhunter from Monsanto, I began to study
the company, namely the work of their CEO, Robert Shapiro". Kirk was
thoroughly impressed with Shapiro's promise of a golden future through
genetically modified (GM) crops. "He described how we would reduce the
in-process waste from manufacturing, turn our fields into factories and
produce anything from lifesaving drugs to insect-resistant plants. It
was fascinating to me." Kirk thought, "Here we go. I can do something to
help the world and make it a better place."

He left his job and accepted a position at Monsanto, rising quickly to
become the facilitator for GM cotton sales in California and Arizona. He
would often repeat Shapiro's vision to customers, researchers, even
fellow employees. After about three months, he visited Monsanto's St
Louis headquarters for the first time for new employee training. There
too, he took the opportunity to let his colleagues know how enthusiastic
he was about Monsanto's technology that was going to reduce waste,
decrease poverty and help the world. Soon after the meeting, however,
his world was shaken.

"A vice president pulled me aside", recalled Kirk. "He told me something
like, 'Wait a second. What Robert Shapiro says is one thing. But what we
do is something else. We are here to make money. He is the front man who
tells a story. We don't even understand what he is saying.'"

Kirk felt let down. "I went in there with the idea of helping and
healing and came out with 'Oh, I guess it is just another
profit-oriented company'". He returned to California, still holding out
hopes that the new technology could make a difference.

Possible Toxins in GM Plants

Kirk was developing the market in the West for two types of GM cotton.
Bt cotton was engineered with a gene from a soil bacterium, Bacillus
thuringiensis. Organic farmers use the natural form of the bacterium as
an insecticide, spraying it occasionally during times of high pest
infestation. Monsanto engineers, however, isolated and then altered the
gene that produces the Bt-toxin, and inserted it into the DNA of the
cotton plant. Now every cell of their Bt cotton produces a toxic
protein. The other variety was Roundup ReadyR cotton. It contains
another bacterial gene that enables the plant to survive an otherwise
toxic dose of Monsanto's RoundupR herbicide. Since the patent on
Roundup's main active ingredient, glyphosate, was due to expire in 2000,
the company was planning to sell Roundup Ready seeds that were bundled
with their Roundup herbicide, effectively extending their brand's
dominance in the herbicide market.

In the summer of 1997, Kirk spoke with a Monsanto scientist who was
doing some tests on Roundup Ready cotton. Using a "Western blot"
analysis, the scientist was able to identify different proteins by their
molecular weight. He told Kirk that the GM cotton not only contained the
intended protein produced by the Roundup Ready gene, but also extra
proteins that were not normally produced in the plant. These unknown
proteins had been created during the gene insertion process.

Gene insertion was done using a gene gun (particle bombardment). Kirk,
who has an undergraduate degree in biochemistry, understood this to be
"a kind of barbaric and messy method of genetic engineering, where you
use a gun-like apparatus to bombard the plant tissue with genes that are
wrapped around tiny gold particles". He knew that particle bombardment
can cause unpredictable changes and mutations in the DNA, which might
result in new types of proteins.

The scientist dismissed these newly created proteins in the cotton plant
as unimportant background noise, but Kirk wasn't convinced. Proteins can
have allergenic or toxic properties, but no one at Monsanto had done a
safety assessment on them. "I was afraid at that time that some of these
proteins may be toxic". He was particularly concerned that the rogue
proteins "might possibly lead to mad cow or some other prion-type diseases".

Kirk had just been studying mad cow disease (bovine spongiform
encephalopathy) and its human counterpart, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease
(CJD). These fatal diseases had been tracked to a class of proteins
called prions. Short for "proteinaceous infectious particles", prions
are improperly folded proteins, which cause other healthy proteins to
also become misfolded. Over time, they cause holes in the brain, severe
dysfunction and death. Prions survive cooking and are believed to be
transmittable to humans who eat meat from infected "mad" cows. The
disease may incubate undetected for about two to eight years in cows and
up to thirty years in humans.

When Kirk tried to share his concerns with the scientist, he realized,
"He had no idea what I was talking about; he had not even heard of
prions. And this was at a time when Europe had a great concern about mad
cow disease and it was just before the Nobel prize was won by Stanley
Prusiner for his discovery of prion proteins". Kirk said "These Monsanto
scientists are very knowledge about traditional products, like
chemicals, herbicides and pesticides, but they don't understand the
possible harmful outcomes of genetic engineering, such as
pathophysiology or prion proteins. So I am explaining to him about the
potential untoward effects of these foreign proteins, but he just did
not understand."

Endangering the Food Supply

At this time, Roundup Ready cotton varieties were just being introduced
into other regions but were still being field-tested in California.
California varieties had not yet been commercialized. But Kirk came to
find out that Monsanto was feeding the cotton plants used in its test
plots to cattle.

"I had great issue with this", he said. "I had worked for Abbot
Laboratories doing research, doing test plots using Bt sprays from
bacteria. We would never take a test plot and put into the food supply,
even with somewhat benign chemistries. We would always destroy the test
plot material and not let anything into the food supply. Now we entered
into a new era of genetic engineering. The standard was not the same as
with pesticides. It was much lower, even though it probably should have
been much higher."

Kirk complained to the PhD in charge of the test plot about feeding the
experimental plants to cows. He explained that unknown proteins,
including prions, might even effect humans who consume the cow's milk
and meat. The scientist replied, "Well that's what we're doing
everywhere else and that's what we're doing here". He refused to destroy
the plants.

Kirk got a bit frantic. He started talking to others in the company. "I
approached pretty much everyone on my team in Monsanto". He was unable
to get anyone interested. In fact, he said, "Once they understood my
perspective, I was somewhat ostracized. It seemed as if once I started
questioning things, people wanted to keep their distance from me. I lost
the cooperation with other team members. Anything that interfered with
advancing the commercialization of this technology was going to be
pushed aside."

He then approached California Agriculture Commissioners. "These local
Agriculture commissioners are traditionally responsible for test plots
and to make sure test plot designs protect people and the environment".
But Kirk got nowhere. "Once again, even at the Agriculture commissioner
level, they were dealing with a new technology that was beyond their
comprehension. They did not really grasp what untoward effects might be
created by the genetic engineering process itself."

Kirk continued to try to blow the whistle on what he thought could be
devastating to the health of consumers. "I spoke to many Agriculture
commissioners. I spoke to people at the University of California. I
found no one who would even get it, or even get the connection that
proteins might be pathogenic, or that there might be untoward effects
associated with these foreign proteins that we knew we were producing.
They didn't even want to talk about it really. You'd kind of see a blank
stare when speaking to them on this level. That led me to say I am not
going to be part of this company anymore. I'm not going to be part of
this disaster, from a moral perspective."

Kirk gave his two-week notice. In early January 1998, he finished his
last day of work in the morning and in the afternoon started his first
day at chiropractic college. He was still determined to make a positive
difference for the world, but with a radically changed approach.

While in school, he continued to research prion disease and its possible
connection with GM crops. What he read then and what is known now about
prions has not alleviated his concerns. He says, "The protein that
manifests as mad cow disease takes about five years. With humans,
however, that time line is anywhere from ten to thirty years. We were
talking about 1997 and today is 2006. We still don't know if there is
anything going to happen to us from our being used as test subjects."

Update

It turns out that the damage done to DNA due to the process of creating
a genetically modified organism is far more extensive than previously
thought {1}. GM crops routinely create unintended proteins, alter
existing protein levels or even change the components and shape of the
protein that is created by the inserted gene. Kirk's concerns about a GM
crop producing a harmful misfolded protein remain well-founded, and have
been echoed by scientists as one of the many possible dangers that are
not being evaluated by the biotech industry's superficial safety
assessments.

GM cotton has provided ample reports of unpredicted side-effects. In
April 2006, more than seventy Indian shepherds reported that 25% of
their herds died within five to seven days of continuous grazing on Bt
cotton plants {2}. Hundreds of Indian agricultural laborers reported
allergic reactions from Bt cotton. Some cotton harvesters have been
hospitalized and many laborers in cotton gin factories take
antihistamines each day before work {3}.

The cotton's agronomic performance is also erratic. When Monsanto's GM
cotton varieties were first introduced in the US, tens of thousands of
acres suffered deformed roots and other unexpected problems. Monsanto
paid out millions in settlements {4}. When Bt cotton was tested in
Indonesia, widespread pest infestation and drought damage forced
withdrawal of the crop, despite the fact that Monsanto had been bribing
at least 140 individuals for years, trying to gain approval {5}. In
India, inconsistent performance has resulted in more than $80 million
dollars in losses in each of two states {6}. Thousands of indebted Bt
cotton farmers have committed suicide. In Vidarbha, in north east
Maharashtra, from June through August 2006, farmers committed suicide at
a rate of about one every eight hours {7}. (The list of adverse
reactions reported from other GM crops, in lab animals, livestock and
humans, is considerably longer.)

Kirk's concern about GM crop test plots also continues to remain valid.
The industry has been consistently inept at controlling the spread of
unapproved varieties. On August 18 2006, for example, the USDA announced
that unapproved GM long grain rice, which was last field tested by Bayer
CropScience in 2001, had contaminated the US rice crop {8} (probably for
the past five years). Japan responded by suspending long grain rice
imports and the EU will now only accept shipments that are tested and
certified GM-free. Similarly, in March 2005, the US government admitted
that an unapproved corn variety had escaped from Syngenta's field trials
four years earlier and had contaminated US corn {9}. By year's end,
Japan had rejected at least fourteen shipments containing the illegal
corn. Other field trialed crops have been mixed with commercial
varieties, consumed by farmers, stolen, even given away by government
agencies and universities who had accidentally mixed seed varieties.

Some contamination from field trials may last for centuries. That may be
the fate of a variety of unapproved Roundup Ready grass which, according
to reports made public in August 2006, had escaped into the wild from an
Oregon test plot years earlier. Pollen had crossed with other varieties
and wind had dispersed seeds. Scientists believe that the variety will
cross pollinate with other grass varieties and may contaminate the
commercial grass seed supply - seventy percent of which is grown in Oregon.

Even GM crops with known poisons are being grown outdoors without
adequate safeguards for health and the environment. A corn engineered to
produce pharmaceutical medicines, for example, contaminated corn and
soybean fields in Iowa and Nebraska in 2002 {10}. On August 10 2006, a
federal judge ruled that the drug-producing GM crops grown in Hawaii
violated both the Endangered Species Act and the National Environmental
Policy Act {11}.

A December 29 2005 report by the USDA office of Inspector General,
blasted the agriculture department for its abysmal oversight of GM field
trials, particularly for the high risk drug producing crops {12}. And a
January 2004 report by the National Research Council also called upon
the government to strengthen its oversight, but acknowledged that there
is no way to guarantee that field trialed crops will not pollute the
environment {13}.

With the US government failing to prevent GM contamination, and with
state governments and agriculture commissioners unwilling to challenge
the dictates of the biotech industry, some California counties decided
to enact regulations of their own. California's diverse agriculture is
particularly vulnerable and thousands of field trials on
not-yet-approved GM crops have already taken place there. If
contamination were discovered, it could easily devastate an industry.
Four counties have enacted moratoria or bans on the planting of GM
crops, including both approved and unapproved varieties. This follows
the actions of more than 4500 jurisdictions in Europe and dozens of
nations, states and regions on all continents, which have sought to
restrict planting of GM crops to protect their health, environment and
agriculture.

Ironically, California's assembly, which has done nothing to protect the
state from possible losses due to GM crop contamination, passed a bill
on August 24 2006 that prohibits other counties and cities from creating
GM free zones. The senate is expected to vote on the issue by the end of
their session on August 31st (see
http://www.calgefree.org/preemption.shtml). It is yet another example of
how the biotech industry has been able to push their agenda onto US
consumers, without regard to health and environmental safeguards. No
doubt that their lobbyists, anxious to have this bill pass, told
legislators that GM crops are needed to stop poverty and feed a hungry
world.


Update (September 01 2006)

The California Senate session ended without senators voting on the bill
to prevent local jurisdictions from creating GM-Free zones. For the time
being at least, California counties and cities may still enact GM-Free
zones. Click here  to read the full press release:
http://www.responsibletechnology.org/utility/showArticle?objectID=704
_____

Jeffrey Smith's forthcoming book, Genetic Roulette (2007), documents
more than sixty health risks of GM foods in easy-to-read two-page
spreads, and demonstrates how current safety assessments are not
competent to protect consumers from the dangers. His previous book,
Seeds of Deception (www.seedsofdeception.com), is the world's
best-selling book on the subject. He is available for media at
info at seedsofdeception.com. Dr Kirk Azevedo has a chiropractic office in
Cambria, California. Press may reach him at (805) 927-1055 or at
drkirk at charter.net.

Notes:

{1} JR Latham et al, "The Mutational Consequences of Plant
Transformation", The Journal of Biomedicine and Biotechnology, Vol 2006
Article ID 25376 Pages 1-7, DOI 10.1155/JBB/2006/25376; for a more
in-depth discussion, see also Allison Wilson et al, "Genome Scrambling -
Myth or Reality? Transformation-Induced Mutations in Transgenic Crop
Plants, Technical Report - October 2004, www.econexus.info.

{2} Mortality in Sheep Flocks after Grazing on Bt Cotton Fields -
Warangal District, Andhra Pradesh. Report of the Preliminary Assessment
April 2006, http://www.gmwatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6494

{3 }Ashish Gupta, et al, Impact of Bt Cotton on Farmers' Health (in
Barwani and Dhar District of Madhya Pradesh), Investigation Report,  Oct
- Dec 2005

{4} See for example, Monsanto Cited In Crop Losses New York Times (June
16 1998)
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9A04EED6153DF935A25755C0A96E958260;
and Greenpeace http://archive.greenpeace.org/geneng/reports/gmo/intrgmo5.htm

{5} Antje Lorch, Monsanto Bribes in Indonesia, Monsanto Fined For
Bribing Indonesian Officials to Avoid Environmental Studies for Bt
Cotton, ifrik 1sep2005,
http://www.mindfully.org/GE/2005/Monsanto-Bribes-Indonesia1sep05.htm

{6} Bt Cotton - No Respite for Andhra Pradesh Farmers More than 400
crores' worth losses for Bt Cotton farmers in Kharif 2005 Centre for
Sustainable Agriculture: Press Release, March 29 2006
http://www.gmwatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6393; see also November 14,
2005 article in www.NewKerala.com regarding Madhya Pradesh.

{7} Jaideep Hardikar, One suicide every eight hours, Daily News &
Analysis (India), August 26 2006
http://www.dnaindia.com/report.asp?NewsID=1049554

{8} Rick Weiss, US Rice Supply Contaminated, Genetically Altered Variety
Is Found in Long-Grain Rice, Washington Post, August 19 2006

{9} Jeffrey Smith, US Government and Biotech Firm Deceive Public on GM
Corn Mix-up, Spilling the Beans, April 2005

{10} See for example, Christopher Doering, ProdiGene to spend millions
on bio-corn tainting, Reuters News Service, USA: December 09 2002

{11} See www.centerforfoodsafety.org

{12} Office of Inspector General, USDA, Audit Report Animal and Plant
Health Inspection Service Controls Over Issuance of Genetically
Engineered Organism Release Permits, December 2005
http://www.thecampaign.org/USDA_IG_1205.pdf

{13} Justin Gillis, Genetically Modified Organisms Not Easily Contained;
National Research Council Panel Urges More Work to Protect Against
Contamination of Food Supply, Washington Post, January 21 2004

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=3912

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