PR Posing as Science in Crop Biotechnology

[Clara T]

PR Posing as Science in Crop Biotechnology

Prof. Joe Cummins and Dr. Mae-Wan Ho expose the corruption of traditional standards in science reporting of GM crops

The emergence of genetically modified (GM) foods and crops has profoundly impacted scientific reporting not only in the popular media but also in peer-reviewed scientific journals. Public relations (pr) statements, once confined to the promotion of commercial products, now frequent the pages of scientific journals.

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PR by misrepresentation, permissive substitution and surrogate testing

Advocates have persistently maintained that GM crops are a simple extension of plant breeding and selection carried on for thousands of years. That fiction ignores the basic fact that GM crops are produced in the laboratory by illegitimate recombination – a process whereby pieces of foreign DNA break the host genome to insert themselves at unpredictable places - while traditional plant breeding and selection depending largely on homologous (legitimate) recombination during reproduction.

What is seldom stated is that GM crops are produced using synthetic approximations of natural bacterial genes, whether it is in conferring resistance to herbicides or to insect pests.
The synthetic approximations of natural genes are used because the bacterial genes function poorly in plants, which use different codes for the same amino acids. Hence, synthetic genes could be 60% homologous with the bacterial genes in DNA sequence and yet produce proteins that have the same amino acid sequence as the bacterial proteins. But amino acid sequences are also frequently altered in the GM plants to increase solubility. C-terminal amino acids (at the end of the protein chain), too, have been changed on the assumption, without any proof, that the changes do not affect biological activity.

Also concealed from the public is that "safety" assessment of GM crops has been performed using protein products and genes from the bacteria rather than the crops. The regulators have apparently agreed that the expense of purifying the products from GM crops need not be incurred as the products can be recovered at little expense from liquid bacterial cultures. So none of the safety tests have been done with the proteins and genes in GM crops!

more;
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/HPRPASICB.php