New 'event-specific' molecular characterisation devised by Belgian government scientists "highly important in the context food safety control". Monsanto's Roundup Ready soya was found to have scrambled and unknown genes. Is it legal? Is it safe?Dr. Mae-Wan Ho and Prof. Joe Cummins report.
Belgian government scientists point out that as labelling of foods containing GM ingredients is mandatory in all European member states, there is urgent demand for reliable and easy identification methods. Furthermore, in both Europe and the United States, companies seeking to market a GMO must submit a technical dossier, and any new and relevant information has to be brought to the attention of the competent authorities.
Up to now, however, most GMO identification methods depend on detecting gene fragments and sequences that are within the construct, but does not allow anyone to "discriminate between different GMOs containing the same insert and to identify different GMOs containing different copy numbers of the same insert." The scientists stress the need for "event specific" identification and analysis, in other words, a method that gives unequivocal identification of the specific transgenic line that has resulted from a single transformation event. It also requires that the transgenic line must be genetically stable in the first place.
With that in mind, they have devised a method for characterising the junctions between plant and insert DNA. We welcome the idea that such a detailed characterisation should be included in the technical dossier, which can be used to check the accuracy of the technical dossier submitted by the company. Monsanto's Roundup Ready soya was analysed as a test case.
Monsanto's technical dossier submitted for commercial approval claimed that RR soya had a single insert with the intended order of genes. It turns out not to be the case. Not only is the gene order of the insert itself scrambled, the plant DNA at the site of insertion is also scrambled, and there is a large 534 bp fragment of unknown origin in there as well.
The scientists, however, let Monsanto off the hook by suggesting that the genome scrambling took place at insertion. But there is not a shred of evidence for that. Either Monsanto was wrong or presented false data; or there must have been secondary scrambling. Either way, both Monsanto and our regulators were culpable in the approval process.
They state, "In the future, problems concerning the inaccurate description of transgene events can be avoided through a detailed characterisation of the transgene plant DNA junctions submitted to the competent authorities. These characterisation of the junction regions will also give the best information for the development of line specific identification methods, which are at lest from a European standpoint of high importance in the context of food safety control." That is precisely what ISIS has been pushing for since 1999 and before [2]. It also follows that RR soya must be withdrawn immediately for safety reasons.