 |
| Camilina sativa. Picture from Creative Commons |
Since Environment Secretary, Owen Paterson,
will ultimately be responsible for approving the trial, permission is unlikely
to be denied [1].
Omega-3 long-chain fatty acids in the form
of 'EPA' and 'DHA' (eicosapentaenoic acid and docosahexanenoic acid), are only synthesized by primitive plants, such as algae,
and are a vital part of the diet of fish.
They are also credited with important health effects in the humans who
eat the fish, especially oily fish such as salmon, tuna, mackerel, and
sardines. In particular, the JIC cites
“strong evidence” that these fatty acids are linked to a lowered risk of death
from coronary heart disease. For this
reason, official health advice is to eat two portions of oily fish a week. All fish are, of course, a valuable source of
protein.
In the wild, EPA and DHA in algae are
passed up the food-chain from algae-feeders to the fish which eat them. Farmed fish are fed on fish oil and meal from
species of fish not suitable for food.
This production process is now reaching its limit and is unsustainable.
The GM answer is an oilseed crop which
generates 'fish oil' substitute to feed fish to feed us.
'False flax' was chosen to create this GM
crop because it already has the metabolic machinery which naturally produces
the precursors to the desired omega-3 fatty acids.
The genetic engineers had the task of
adjusting an entire metabolic web in the plant to accumulate the required
approximation of fish oil, that is 13 percent of the GM seed had to contain an
equal ratio of EPA to DHA. All this had
to be achieved without any build up of any other intermediate or derivative (and
possibly harmful) substance.
By inserting various combinations of genes
modelled on algae genes, plus all the extra DNA apparatus needed to control the
expression of each one appropriately, and to make sure it happened only in the
seed, candidate seed for eventual commercialisation containing 4, 5 or 7 novel
genes were created. This level of
complexity in an artificial DNA construct is cutting edge GM technology.
False flax is grown in parts of Europe and
North America. Wild relatives, with
which false flax can cross pollinate, grow in the UK, but the JIC is confident
there are none near their test site.
The trials, planned over 3 years in the
JIC's facilities, will be small-scale (up to 60 m2) and will be
secure behind a wire-fence (to keep wild animals and humans out) plus a fine
mesh net during flowering to exclude insect pollinators, and 24 hour CCTV.
OUR COMMENT
There seems little doubt that genetic
pollution of related plants and other false-flax crops will happen if GM false
flax is grown on a commercial scale, and will take any problems right along
with it.
Plant-based 'fish-oil' certainly isn't
going to appear in the food chain anytime soon, but at least one JIC scientist
is quite open about it being used as a Trojan horse for the acceptance of other
GM products. There's the added bonus
that fish fed GM 'fish-oil' won't have to be labelled.
Such metabolic engineering is many orders
of magnitude more complex than inserting a single bacterial gene for killing
insects or for tolerating a herbicide, and nothing like the stacked single
genes which are as far as commercial GM crops have come to date. The scope for harmful by-products or
unexpected reactions to environmental stresses, or re-arrangements of the
artificial construct over time is exponential.
The various DNA constructs about to be
field tested are the riskiest yet. All
forms of life they may touch will require extensive testing for long-term
adverse effects, including soil microbes, wild-life, related plants, the plant
itself, the seeds, the derivatives entering the food chain, the fish fed the
oil, other animals fed on false flax by-products, humans of all shapes and
sizes eating the fish, the offspring from the wombs of mothers eating the fish,
and humans eating any products made for direct humans consumption such as high
omega-3 fatty acid margarine as suggested by the JIC.
It's been pointed out that the natural
healthy diet of fish is fish.
That's because fish contain a lot of other things besides EPA and
DHA which are needed to create healthy fish.
Like the modern unhealthy fatty acid content of beef and dairy from
intensively-reared grain-fed cattle compared with grass-fed counterparts, how
will the nutritional quality of fillets from intensively reared fish fed
fish-oil from flax compare with their fish-fed counterparts?
Is GM fish-oil a boon to fish-farming, or
will it just make a bad problem worse?
Also, farmed fish are fed soya (GM) and
maize (GM), a diet which has been shown to cause stress [2].
Like the vast tracts of land used to grow
GM soya and GM maize to feed animals instead of humans, devoting yet more
precious agricultural land to feeding fish seems a poor route to
sustainability.
Taking a step back to examine the JIC's
“strong evidence” for the benefits of the novel fish-oil they're trying to
generate in a plant, the actual scientific support for such claims seems
mixed. For example, our NHS website
advises us that “Despite claims that fish oil supplements can help prevent
numerous conditions including cancer, dementia, arthritis and heart problems, there
is little hard evidence for them”. Are
fish-oil supplements processed through farmed fish in a highly unnatural diet
likely to be any better? [3]
GeneWatch UK has pointed out recent
evidence implicating omega-3 fish oils in prostate cancer.
You might think about focusing on a healthy
life-style with a fresh, varied, locally-produced diet (which in Scotland will
include plenty of oily fish) rather than fish fed fish-oil substitute from a
plant.
Background:
[1]
WESTMINSTER ROLLING OUT THE RED CARPET FOR GM - July 2013
[2]
FISH TOO - (ONLINE DOCUMENT) GMFS ARCHIVE, December 2008
[3]
FISH OIL WITHOUT THE FISH DOESN''T WORK - November 2012
SOURCES:
· Noemi Ruiz-Lopez, et al., 2014, Successful high-level
accumulation of fish oil omega-3 long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids in a
transgenic oilseed crop, The Plant Journal 77
· High omega-3 GMO not all it's cracked up to be, GM Watch 8.02.14
· John Innes Centre Q&A on the GM false flax to be trialled, www.rothamsted.ac.uk
accessed February 2014
· 'Fish oil' GM plant trial application submitted, BBC News 24.01.14
· Damian Carrington, Fish oil could soon come from GM crop,
Guardian 24.01.14
· Steve Connor, First nutrient-enriched GM crops could be grown in
the UK within months, Independent 24.01.14
· Fish oil extracted from plant seeds, BBC
News 9.01.14
No comments:
Post a Comment
Thanks for your comment. All comments are moderated before they are published.