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NEWS & LETTERS, March 2003
Biopharming or bio-harming?Have you had your drugs on the cob today? Welcome to the world of "biopharming": engineering of crops to produce drugs or industrial chemicals. Last fall, a company called ProdiGene was linked to two incidents of contamination involving corn plants altered to produce a vaccine for pigs. The genetically modified (GM) corn cross-pollinated corn grown for food nearby. In a separate field, GM corn sprouted the year after it was supposedly removed, and was harvested together with soybeans intended for the food supply. In either case a drug whose effects on humans are unknown could have ended up in our stomachs. ProdiGene has been producing insecticides and industrial chemicals in GM corn since 1997. Biotechnology promoters project that 10% of U.S. corn production will be pharmaceutical crops by 2010, and hundreds of thousands of acres are already growing pharmaceutical corn and soybeans. Fields are being turned into industrial chemical and drug factories. Opposition to biopharming is mainly focused on the possible contamination of food with chemicals never meant to be eaten, which was declared a real possibility by a panel of the National Academy of Sciences--no radical group. Environmental and consumer groups have long been critical of agribusiness pressing ahead with GM crops without any real testing of the ecological and human health effects. In the wake of the ProdiGene incidents, farmers and food manufacturers have become alarmed about biopharming adulterating the food supply, which would hurt their business. Biotech companies rejected food manufacturers' pleas for drugs to be grown only in non-food crops, since they believe corn and soybeans provide the lowest cost of production. Cheapening production is the whole reason for biopharming--to produce drugs and chemicals more cheaply than could be done in factories. That's why biotech companies have been pushing recklessly ahead at breakneck speed without doing the research needed to identify threats to human and ecological health. That's why their experimental crops are grown in open fields, even though seeds and pollen can be carried substantial distances by wind, water, storms or animals. The only way to avoid this means of contamination of food crops is to use non-food crops grown in closed greenhouses--but that would cost more. To date, 315 tests have grown GM drug crops on thousands of acres, nearly all close to food crop fields. Agribusiness firms are allowed to keep secret what genes they are adding to crops, what experimental crops they are growing and where. Even neighboring farmers do not have a right to know. How many cases of contamination have gone undetected? Biotech companies assure us that they are taking the necessary precautions. As if these things can really be contained! Remember the StarLink fiasco? GM corn never approved for human consumption was found in about 300 food products, leading to a massive recall. An executive from the company that genetically engineered the corn later admitted that it will never be possible to eliminate StarLink from the food supply. It's no wonder biopharming companies are keeping a low profile. They're worried about the outrage when people find out how their food has been tampered with. Already genetic engineering has quietly crept up on us to the point where 70% of processed food in the U.S. contains GM ingredients. In capitalist society, unless massive social opposition makes itself felt, any technology that can cheapen capital's production costs will tend to be pushed to its most frightening consequences. --Franklin Dmitryev |
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