Ames, Iowa
April 28, 2004
By Tom Block
Iowa Farm Bureau via
Checkgiotech.org
Consumer confidence is just as important as regulatory approval
in determining the future direction of plant and animal
biotechnology, said Jim Bair, vice president of the North
American Millers Association.
Iowa State University officials hope a new project—the
Biosafety Institute for Genetically Modified Agricultural
Products, or BIGMAP—will give both regulators and consumers
the assurances they need. The institute is developing systems to
assess the risks of biotech-based crops from laboratory to
finished product.
BIGMAP Director Manjit Misra said the institute will provide
objective research not available from industry groups supporting
biotech crops or consumer groups opposing them.
A BIGMAP-sponsored symposium last week brought governmental
regulators, researchers and industry representatives together to
discuss issues facing the advancement of biotech products. While
the biotech industry is focused on scientific advances and
government approvals for new varieties that produce
pharmaceuticals and industrial compounds from plants and
animals, Bair said the technology will meet a dead end without
consumer support.
“I think the value of BIGMAP is that it will quantify what the
risks are and satisfy public fears,” Bair said. “A lot of
education is needed.”
As evidence, he pointed to the lasting repercussions from
StarLink, a corn hybrid containing a protein approved for use as
animal feed but not for human consumption. Widespread
controversy ensued after traces of the protein were found in
taco shells. U.S. farmers lost as many markets due to StarLink
as they did due to bovine spongiform encephalopathy, Bair
ventured.
“It is the precedent-setting event,” he said. “Four years later,
we’re testing for something with no known human health effects
at 1,000 times more than pesticides with very well known health
effects.”
While the protein hasn’t caused any proven health effects, its
presence in human foods remains illegal at any level because it
can’t be proven that it doesn’t have health effects, according
to a Food and Drug Administration (FDA) official.
The amount of the StarLink protein in the U.S. corn supply
amounts to about 84 parts per trillion, an amount equal to 1
second in 381 years, Bair noted.
Not in Iowa?
From both a regulatory and consumer standpoint, the likelihood
of growing plant-made pharmaceuticals in a food crop such corn
in Iowa is remote, symposium panelists said.
Pollen flow and accidental commingling remain major challenges
to segregating crops intended for food uses from those
designated for pharmaceutical or industrial use, said Neil
Hoffman, director of regulatory programs for the U.S. Department
of Agriculture’s Animal Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS).
Regulators are also concerned about the potential theft of
seeds, he said.
“We don’t want to see the product grown in the Heartland, where
most of the crops are grown,” said Hoffman. “Our policy is to
never say never, but there needs to be even more restrictions if
(plant-made pharmaceuticals) are grown in areas where there are
mass quantities of the crop.”
Bair said growing corn not approved for food uses in Iowa “fails
the laugh test in the layman’s eyes.”
Government regulators are continuing to study appropriate
tolerance levels for non-approved proteins in food crops,
Hoffman said.
“A big challenge is zero tolerance,” he admitted. “I think we
all know that’s not a credible goal.”
©2004 Iowa Farm Bureau
News release
from ISU
Biotech risks analyzed at Iowa State
symposium
By Susan Thompson
Someday, some of the corn Iowa farmers plant each spring may
be genetically modified to produce pharmaceuticals or
industrial products. But first, ways to isolate such crops
from corn being grown for feed or food purposes must be
developed.
That was the theme of a symposium held April 22 in Ames. It
was the inaugural public event of Iowa State University's
Biosafety Institute for Genetically Modified Agricultural
Products (BIGMAP). The Board of Regents, State of Iowa,
approved BIGMAP's creation last fall.
The new institute has been established to engage public sector
scientists in evaluating the safety of genetically modified
agricultural products, plus the social, economic and
environmental issues that surround such products.
One speaker was Dermot Hayes, the Pioneer Hi-Bred
International Chair in Agribusiness and economics professor.
Hayes led a BIGMAP-funded project that looked at the economic
costs of pollen from a transgenic crop reaching a neighboring
field. He combined a theoretical model with actual corn pollen
drift and weather data to determine the possibility of pollen
from a mythical one-acre field of pharmaceutical corn reaching
a conventional cornfield.
In research findings not yet published, Hayes and his
colleagues measured the probability that one kernel of corn
out of the 540 million kernels in an adjacent conventional
40-acre field might express the pharmaceutical gene. If an
insurance policy was developed to cover this 40-acre field in
the event of contamination, the cost would be $11.50. "Corn
Belt policymakers need to compare this $11.50 cost against the
economic benefits of that one acre of pharmaceutical corn," he
said.
Jeff Wolt joined the Iowa State faculty this spring as an
agronomy professor and risk analyst affiliated with BIGMAP. He
told the audience that risks associated with field production
of pharmaceutical corn are manageable. "But the risk
perception looms large and we're having trouble getting past
that perception," Wolt said.
Wolt said a BIGMAP "confinement team" has been formed. "This
team is made up of individuals both at Iowa State and
elsewhere who are helping determine the best management
practices to use when producing biopharma corn within a
confinement system," Wolt said. He described current practices
used for the production of seed corn, such as detasseling and
buffer zones, as a "good starting point. But we need to modify
those to meet higher expectations," he said.
So far, the team has outlined the process of producing corn
with pharmaceutical properties, and is identifying best
management practices for each critical step. "Then we'll look
at what concerns exist and what can be done to alleviate those
concerns in terms of more stringent management of the
production process," he said.
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