As a PhD student in life sciences, I’m more than comfortable with language having a high concentration of technological jargon, acronym and newly constructed terms. I noticed Griffith University academic Richard Hindmarsh’s new book, Edging Towards BioUtopia, in the ‘recent arrivals’ section of the school library, and was interested by the grab line from the cover: “A New Politics of Reordering Life and the Democratic Challenge.”

(cover image removed on request of UWA Press)

Hey, I’m one of those people ‘reordering’ life, why don’t I have a read?

Within 23 pages of picking up the book, I’d had my first good belly laugh and yet another realisation of how important it is that academics dedicate their writing style and narrative skills to being easily interpretted by people outside their own microcosm.

To quote Richard Hindmarsh in my Worst Academic Technobabble of 2008 (thus far) award:

“In summary, uncertainties about the techno-nature proposed in the science, regulation and emergent or proposed outcomes of genetic engineering, in large part drives the questioning of genetic engineering, and the mobilisation of worldwide resistance to both the release of GMOs into the environment and to the notion of a biotechnolgogically recast futurenatural.”

I’m not going to begin pulling apart all the threads of academic babble that makes that such a horrible sentence (and admittedly, the book did start to flow at least a little better as Hindmarsh was able to bring his true skills to the table as a policy historian), so will rather concentrate on what I see as some of the flawed arguments in what Hindmarsh critiques as the pervading evil force that is the “BioElite”.

From what I can tell through the his coded language, one of Hindmarsh’s key complains about GMOs is the “BioElite’s” push for a lack of discovery-based regulatory oversight, and the obsfucation of scientific rigor in the name of agribusiness. I find it so highly ironic then that the tiny four paragraphs that he dedicates to the few published descriptions of differential cellular-morphology of animals fed GMOs are as one sided and grossly negligent of the growing body of knowledge of GMO safety, as anything that has ever been published pro GM. Instead, he just frames further minor evidence in pushing the science into supporting the negative aspects of what he refers to as the “BioUtopian Futurenatural” narrative.

Papers that Hindmarsh briefly mentions include some very detailed structural anatomical analysis of organs from mice fed on long term diets of GM-crops. Here I have summarised them to indicate the one-sided nature of their common anti-GM usage:

A long-term study on female mice fed on a genetically modified soybean: effects on liver ageing.
This recent paper investigates liver cells between 2-year old mice fed GM and non-GM diets. There is no variation in structure observed other than some very, very minor changes in organlle structure between the groups. There was differential expression of some stress marker proteins between the groups. The authors suggest that this could be due to an increased cellular metabolism of this subset of liver cells. Nothing is noted about disease potential or aging variation of the cells, other than marker expression.

Ultrastructural analysis of pancreatic acinar cells from mice fed on genetically modified soybean.
No noted variation of pancreatic cell structure between groups, but an increase in celular zymogens were noted in the GM-fed groups. Zymogens are inactivated enzymes, and the authors suggest that possible increase in the GM-soybean protein levels may account for this observation. Sample size was 24 mice.

Ultrastructural morphometrical and immunocytochemical analyses of hepatocyte nuclei from mice fed on genetically modified soybean.
Great paper that looks at the differences in liver cells between GM and non-GM fed mice. There was no difference to the liver cells size or functions that were tested for. The authors did notice a very small increase in nuclear membrane size between groups, and suggests that increased metabolic rate of these mice might account for this size variation. No link with disease mentioned. Sample size was 24 mice.

These papers are a good example of where research needs to start into specifics of what the proteins used in GM crops may be doing. Despite being jumped upon by the anti-GM brigade, these studies don’t in any way conclude that there are are valid increased risks in associated these cellular changes in the model animals, let alone humans that are exposed to a huge range of toxins in our environment. Generally, cells of the liver and pancreas are responsive to toxins in the diet, and are increased when toxins are ingested. The animals in these trials were fed high (14% of all foods were GM) levels of herbicide-resitant soybean, yet these was no link between the specific herbicide resistance gene and the mouse immune response. Many other factors may have upregulated the responses in the mice that were not identified in these papers.

There are some markers of liver aginging noticed in some of the papers, but these are not in any way linked to actual damage or disease of the rat livers. Additionally, the group that has has published these papers indicates that the morphological changes observed are rapidly reverted to normal once the transgenic diet is changed, hardly the cancer-creating instant-death scare campaigns promoted by anti-GM protagonists. What the research group involved has never done, is to alter the feeding trial in a third way to indicate whether there is a morphological variation in mice fed another diet that does not contain GM. Does feeding the mice a diet of fruit carrying multiple natural toxins like tomato alter these cells appearance as well? This would allow the elucidation of whether there is variation to morphology based on the GM components or just variation in diet.

Additional support for the notion of GM-super allergens mentioned in Hindmarsh’s book comes from the 2005 paper:

Transgenic Expression of Bean-Amylase Inhibitor in Peas Results in Altered Structure and Immunogenicity
Now this paper begins to ask some pretty interesting questions regarding what effect expression of novel plant-made proteins may play on the immune system. High levels of expression of the bean alpha-amylase inhibitor-1, a common protein expressed in many seed crops, is structurally different when expressed in peas rather than its native host. This is most likely due to modifications made to the protein after it is made, as many species have slightly different post-translation modifications. These changes are often species, environment and development stage-specific and are certainly nothing out of the ordinary. The pea expressed protein was fed to mice, and it was found that when tested for sensitivity to the native protein, mice raised an elevated inflammatory immune response to the native protein. Interestingly, it appears that feeding of the pea-produced protein also raised the general sensitivity of the mice to other food-specific proteins. This may be caused by the immune system seeing a new protein that it has never seen before, and setting the immune response mechanisms to a higher defense level than that when fed normal food. This is very interesting as far as basic immunology, particularly for people (like myself) working to get the immune system to respond in this way to pathogenic proteins. What complicates the basic immunology of this finding is that these mice used were breed and kept in sterile conditions from birth until trial, so their immune systems were not used to ‘tasting’ many novel proteins. Animals that normally have a large repertoire of protein ‘flavours’ in their memory like humans are unlikely to respond in a similar manner. What this paper certainly does is to open up many questions as to how these proteins sensitise the immune system, and whether this is in common with other proteins in foods, be they transgenic or not.

What I don’t see in of the analysis presented in Hindmarsh’s book is any more than the standard scare tactics employed by the usual anti-GM pundits. The common assumption that the few studies that note variation in animals that are fed GM feed stocks with the commonly-held idea that the insertion of forein genes into crops must be inherently dangerous for our health, is directly bolstered in this book.

Please don’t get me wrong. I believe that the precautionary principal must be upheld at all times, and that there are serious flaws with the notion of ‘equivalence’ between GM and wild crops as used in Food Standards Australia and New Zealand (FSANZ) policies. Where I see the fundamental flaw to Hindmarsh’s critique is the notion that there is a ‘BioElite’ boogey man that is out there waiting to slip poision into every ones meals to make a quick buck. The fall of the scientist from being revered to repellant in current society is again further fueled by the notion that there is no honesty or integrity in science unless that directly challenges industrial interests. Unfortunately when, as in the case of this book, you use science to back a point regarding safety you must both live and die by the data. As yet, there is scant evidence to indicate any human health concerns due to GM foods. Hindmarsh’s critique of industrial scientists as having ‘cherry picking’ their data appears to come from a rather hypocritical platform.

In the same vein that the strong prohibition of “just say no” anti-drug campaigns fail when people using drugs realise that their reality is not the dystopian picture painted by the anti-drug pundits, the anti-GM movement is at risk of loosing touch with the common concerns regarding GM that are actually valid. Product and policy specific debate does indeed need to take place, but in their attempt to throw as much dirt at the GM-movement, books like Hindmarsh’s drive a strictly polarised agenda that does as little to open up true understanding and discourse on the issues as the ‘BioElite’ ever could.

In response to a common goal to advance the agronomic interests of the world as a whole, there is no good or evil, no black or white. Opening up the middle ground to honest, rational and balanced discourse is the only way forward for the community when facing complex new innovations that carry both risk with their almost unlimitless potential for reward.