Jeffrey M. Smith, Spilling the Beans, May 2006 - from GM Watch plus other GM news below - register at that site to get regular updates:

 
Pioneer Hi-Bred's website boasts that their GM Liberty Link corn survives doses of Liberty herbicide, which would normally kill corn. The reason, they say, is that the herbicide becomes "inactive in the corn plant." They fail to reveal, however, that after you eat the GM corn, some inactive herbicide may become reactivated inside your gut and cause a toxic reaction.

Read on to find out how this happens:

Liberty herbicide can kill a wide variety of plants. It can also kill bacteria, fungi, and insects, and has toxic effects on humans and animals. The herbicide is derived from a natural antibiotic, which is produced by two strains of a soil bacterium. In order that the bacteria are not killed by the antibiotic that they themselves create, the strains also produce specialized enzymes which transform the antibiotic to a non-toxic form called NAG (N-acetyl-L-glufosinate). The specialized enzymes are called the pat protein and the bar protein, which are produced by the pat gene and the bar gene, respectively. The two genes are inserted into the DNA of GM crops, where they produce the enzymes in every cell. When the plant is sprayed, Liberty's solvents and surfactants transport glufosinate ammonium throughout the plant, where the enzymes convert it primarily into NAG. Thus, the GM plant detoxifies the herbicide and lives, while the surrounding weeds die.

The problem is that the NAG, which is not naturally present in plants, remains there and accumulates with every subsequent spray. Thus, when we eat these GM crops, we consume NAG. Once the NAG is inside our digestive system, some of it may be re-transformed back into the toxic herbicide. In rats fed NAG, for example, 10% of it was converted back to glufosinate by the time it was excreted in the feces. Another rat study found a 1% conversion. And with goats, more than one-third of what was excreted had turned into glufosinate.

It is believed that gut bacteria, primarily found in the colon or rectum, are responsible for this re-toxification. Although these parts of the gut do not absorb as many nutrients as other sections, rats fed NAG did show toxic effects. This indicates that the herbicide had been regenerated, was biologically active, and had been assimilated by the rats. A goat study also confirmed that some of the herbicide regenerated from NAG ended up in the kidneys, liver, muscle, fat and milk.

More information about the impact of this conversion is presumably found in "Toxicology and Metabolism Studies" on NAG, submitted to European regulators by the company's threats of legal action. The studies remained private.

Other GM news this month

- Lord Sainsbury, the billionaire science minister, is embroiled in a fresh controversy after it emerged that projects he set up to promote GM foods have been awarded more than GBP12m by his department.

The Sainsbury Laboratory, which researches GM crops, has received a 400% increase in government funding since Labour came to power in 1997, with grants of GBP8.7m. A further GBP4.2m has been given to Plant Bioscience in the past five years, a company set up by Sainsbury's charitable foundation, which markets spin-offs from the laboratory.

- A new study commissioned by the World Wildlife Fund into the growing of Bt cotton in India shows that there is no benefit to farmers. This finding is especially revealing, because the study was set up with the aim of getting away from the influence of Indian NGOs, who are referred to in the report in rather disparaging terms, and because it takes every opportunity to be positive about Bt cotton where it can. 

- Chief minister in the Maharashtra government, Vilasrao Deshmukh, has told the press that farmers in the Vidharba cotton belt have committed suicide in an attempt to get government aid (the state government had announced that it would pay each suicide victim's family 100,000 rupees if the reason for the suicide was "wrongful government policies or the forcible recovery of loans"). But farmers' group VJAS says that the suicides have nothing to do with government aid and everything to do with Bt cotton, which most of the farmers who killed themselves grew. The crop failed and left farmers with insurmountable debts. 

- India's TV news is catching up on the sheep and goat deaths following consumption of Bt cotton.

- Dr Ignacio Chapela reports that mostly unseen to American and European eyes, a massive transformation of the South American landscape is taking place. A new bread-basket for the world is being constructed in what used to be the wild and native lands of the Amazon basin. Monoculture of soybeans, and specifically herbicide resistant GM varieties of this crop, are the foundation for this massive geopolitical transformation. The social costs of the establishment of the Soy Republic, comprising the eastern watersheds of Bolivia, Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay, are staggering, yet invisible to Northern media. 

- Friends of the Earth Europe has warned the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) that it will only gain public trust if it frees itself from the biotech industry and employs neutral scientists.

- An recent incisive article on "coexistence" of GM and non-GM crops in Europe from the International Herald Tribune is at
http://www.gmwatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6575 

- In Italy, one town out of every four has joined a "GMO-free" campaign.
http://www.gmwatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6577