Move over frankenfish, frankensoy, frankencorn, frankentomatoes and frankencotton.
The Frankenapple – or Arctic Apple – is genetically modified to never brown, but the side effects are unknown.
I’m talking about a new genetically modified “food” manufacturers call the Arctic Apple.
This genetically modified apple contains a
synthetic gene that prevents it from browning or bruising. Even after
you bite it or slice it.
Thanks to the biotech industry’s
relentless quest to control our food, McDonald’s, Burger King and even
school cafeterias will soon be able to serve up apples that won’t turn
brown when they’re sliced or bitten into. A new, almost entirely
untested genetic modification technology, called RNA interference, or
double strand RNA (dsRNA), is responsible for this new food miracle.
Scientists warn that this genetic manipulation poses health risks, as
the manipulated RNA gets into our digestive systems and bloodstreams.
The biotech industry claims otherwise.
Of course, like any non-organic apple,
the new GMO Arctic® Apple will be drenched in toxic pesticide residues,
untested by the U.S. Food & Drug Association (FDA) and likely
unlabeled. And of course these shiny new high-tech apples will be cheap,
priced considerably lower than a pesticide-free, nutrient-dense,
old-fashioned organic apple that turns a little brown after you slice it
up.
When the Biotech Industry Organization gathers in Chicago for the 2013 BIO International Convention,
BIOTECanada
will present its “Gold Leaf Award for Early Stage Agriculture” to
Okanagan Specialty Fruits, Inc. (OSF), purveyor of the Arctic® Apple,
slated for approval in the U.S. this year. We hate to upset the biotech
apple cart, but a pesticide-intensive GMO apple, produced through a
risky manipulation of RNA, doesn’t deserve a place on our grocery
shelves, much less in the agriculture hall of fame.
That said, the Arctic “Frankenapple” is
expected to be approved this year by the U.S. Department of Agriculture
(USDA), responsible for protecting agriculture from pests and diseases.
It does not require approval by the FDA, which is responsible for human
food and animal feed.
Just one more bad apple
Apples, that is, apples that haven’t been certified organic, already are
on the list of Should-Be-Forbidden fruits. They reliably top the
Environmental Working Group’s Dirty Dozen list, for both the volume and
the stunning array of pesticides consistently found on them. According
to the Pesticide Action Network’s analysis of the most recent USDA data,
apples tested positive for 42 pesticides, including organophosphate and
pyrethroid pesticides. Both are endocrine disruptors, both have
suspected neurological effects, and both are considered especially toxic
for children. (Organophosphates are the basis for nerve gases used in
chemical warfare, and have been linked to the development of ADHD in
kids.)
Given the grim report card of non-organic
apples, some might say it really doesn’t make any difference if we
start tinkering with the apple’s genes and RNA. After all, unlike the
case with GMO corn or salmon, scientists aren’t injecting pesticides or
genes from foreign plants or animals into the genes of apples to create
the Frankenapple. While most existing genetically engineered plants are
designed to make new proteins, the Arctic Apple is engineered to produce
a form of genetic information called double-stranded RNA (dsRNA). The
new dsRNA alters the way genes are expressed. The result, in the Arctic
Apple’s case, is a new double strand of RNA that genetically “silences”
the apple’s ability to produce polyphenol oxidase, an enzyme that causes
the apple to turn brown when it’s exposed to oxygen.
Harmless? The biotech industry, OSF and
some scientists say yes. But others, including Professor Jack Heinemann
(University of Canterbury, New Zealand), Sarah Agapito-Tenfen (from
Santa Catarina University in Brazil) and Judy Carman (Flinders
University in South Australia), say that dsRNA manipulation is untested,
and therefore inherently risky. Given that the dsRNA from our food, and
presumably the Frankenapple, will enter the bloodstream and cells of
consumers, safety research should be done BEFORE this GMO apple is put
on the grocery shelf to prove that the dsRNA that enters consumers'
bodies will not harm them. To date, no such research has been reported,
so the Frankenapple is flying in the dark.
On the contrary, recent research has
shown that dsRNAs can transfer from plants to humans and other animals
through food. The biotech industry has always claimed that genetically
engineered DNA or RNA is destroyed by human digestion, eliminating the
danger of these mutant organisms damaging human genes or human health.
But many biotech scientists say otherwise. They point to evidence that
the dsRNA present in food survive digestion in the stomach and
intestines and actually enter the bloodstream and tissues of the body,
where it can influence the functioning of the eater's cells.
There are indirect health consequences,
too. Turns out the chemical compound that is shut off in the engineered
fruit through RNA manipulation, in order to make it not oxidize or
brown, is a chemical compound that also fights off plant pests. What
happens when the apple’s ability to fend off insects is compromised?
Growers will need to spray greater amounts, of possibly even more toxic
pesticides, on a crop already saturated with at least 42 types of
pesticides. Those pesticides will eventually find their way into our
bodies, either because we ingested the fruit, or breathed the air or
drank the water where the pesticides were sprayed.
Testing? What testing?
So what’s the trade-off? Non-organic apple growers will prosper as more
moms buy more apples for more kids who will, the industry alleges, be
healthier for it. It makes for a good public relations story, but no
matter how you wrap it up or slice it, taking apples that are already
saturated in pesticides, and genetically engineering them for purely
cosmetic purposes, does not a healthy snack make.
The pro- and anti-GMO movements will
debate whether or not the GMO apple is safe for human consumption. The
fact is, we’ll never know until they are properly labeled and
safety-tested. As with every other GMO food ingredient or product sold
in the U.S., the Arctic Apple will undergo no independent safety testing
by the FDA or the USDA. Instead, the USDA will rely on OSF’s word that
the apple is safe for human consumption. And without any state or
federal mandatory GMO labeling laws in place, OSF will not be required
to label its Frankenapple, meaning that consumers or children harmed by
the dsRNA modified apple will have great difficulty identifying the
mutant RNA that harmed them.
The controversy and debate surrounding
dsRNA and the Arctic Apple has just begun. But there is no longer any
debate about the dangers that pesticides and pesticide residues on
non-organic apples pose to humans, whether we directly ingest these
toxic residues by eating an apple, or whether we’re exposed to them
through contaminated air and groundwater as a result of acres of
orchards being sprayed to control increasingly resistant insects and
diseases.
What about the argument that a kid eating
a few slices of apples can’t consume enough of any one of these
pesticides to cause any real risk to their health? Debunked. Recent
studies reveal that during apple season, kids exhibit spikes in the
level of pesticides found in their urine, spikes that exceed the U.S.
government’s “safe levels.” Kids who live in apple-growing regions show
even higher spikes. And those 42 varieties of pesticides? The government
establishes “safe levels” for each one – but it doesn’t test for the
potential effect of ingesting 42 different pesticides, all chemically
interacting with each other, and ingested all at once. And there is good
evidence that these interactions often potentiate harmful effects.
From biodiversity to monoculture
How did we get to the point where it takes 42 pesticides to keep an
apple crop healthy? Michael Pollan best explains it in his book Botany
of Desire. Turns out that apples have an extreme tendency toward
something called heterozygosity, which means genetic variability. This
trait accounts for how, left to its own devices, the apple can “make
itself at home in places as different from one another as New England
and New Zealand, Kazakhstan and California.” Pollan writes: “Wherever
the apple tree goes, its offspring propose so many different variations
on what it means to be an apple – at least five per apple, several
thousand per tree – that a couple of these novelties are almost bound to
have whatever qualities it takes to prosper in the tree’s adopted
home.”
Today, you’d have to visit the apple
orchard museum in Geneva, New York, to find all the varieties of apples
that used to thrive in the wild. Over time, in our quest to control the
taste, texture and appearance of apples, we’ve eliminated all but a
relative few varieties. We’ve gone too far, says Pollan. By relying on
too few genes for too long, the apple has lost its ability to get along
on its own, outdoors.
Enter the agro-chemical companies.
According to the National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS)
Agricultural Chemical Use Program, apple growers in states surveyed in
2011 applied carbaryl to 46 percent of their acreage, at an average
rate of 1.566 pounds per acre for the crop year; chlorantraniliprole to
45 percent; and chlorpyrifos to 44 percent. Apple growers applied
glyphosate isopropylamine salt (trade name RoundUp, the same herbicide
used on 75% of all GMOs and shown to cause birth defects) to 25 percent
of acres at an average of 1.604 pounds per acre for the crop year. And
that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
The Arctic Apple has been in development
for over a decade, the company says. OSF submitted a petition for
deregulation to the USDA in May 2010. The USDA, which must hold two
public comment periods, concluded the first on Sept. 11, 2011. It’s
expected to open the second public comment period this spring or summer,
and OSF hopes the GMO apple will be approved for growing and selling in
the U.S. this year.
Source:
www.organicconsumers.org
http://worldtruth.tv
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