------ Forwarded Message Follows -------
Date: Thu, 9 Apr 1998 13:15:54 -0500
To: info@natural-law.ca
From: Richard Wolfson <rwolfson@concentric.net>
Subject: misc GE news
UK Govt publishes list of GE-free suppliers
On March 31, the British Government published a list of Forty Eight
suppliers of Non-GMO soya in USA and Canada.
Geoff Rooker, Government Minister, explained that the list was in response
to many supermarkets complaining that they could not source non gmo soya.
[Thanks to Jim McNulty <jim@niall7.demon.co.uk> for this information
.....................
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Thanks to jim@niall7.demon.co.uk (jim mcnulty) for posting this release on
the <Ban-GEF@lists.txinfinet.com> news group.
HEALTH-JAPAN/ NO GENETICALLY-ALTERED FOOD PLEASE
April 8, 1998
TOKYO - Inter Press Service via NewsEdge Corporation : A growing number of
Japanese consumers are up in arms against the imports of genetically
modified food products, which are not subject to labelling despite their
easy availability here.
Despite assurances from the government, consumer groups say these products
could be hazardous to health and carry serious environmental implications.
"The Japanese are being used as guinea pigs by rich countries and their
corporations in the experiment of expanding genetically modified food,"
says Setsuko Yasuda of the Consumer Union of Japan. "But the message from
us is 'Stop.'"
......................
Thanks to Claire. Gilbert at <blazing@igc.apc.org> for forwarding the
following message on the case studies with genetic engineering, which may
be at the Greenpeace site http://www.greenpeace.org.uk.
Apart form the environmental and animal disasters that are catalogued, the
following cases bear directly on humans:
1. The soya bean was genetically engineered with genes from the brazil nut
and the blood serum of people known to be allergic to brazil nuts showed
and allergic response to the GE soybean in 7 out of 9 cases. Researchers
concluded that the allergenicity had been transferred with the transferred
gene.
Nordlee, J.D., Taylor, S.L., Townsend, J.A., Thomas, L.A. and Bush,, R.K.,
1996 Identification of a Brazil nut Allergen in Transgenic Soybeans, New
England Journal of Medicine, Vol. 334(11), p. 726.
2. Dutch researchers from the National Institute of Public Health and
Environmental Protection found that perfectly viable bacteria could be
isolated from dried lab coats. They went on to find that lab coats were
regularly infected and that bacteria could penetrate the coats to the
clothes beneath ( and then into the sewerage system via home washing), and
that genetically engineered bacteria could survive just as well on lab
coats as the wild type.
They point out 'the potential for genetic exchange is great' when the
bacteria enter the sewerage system - in other words the genetic
modifications could well find their way into the general population.
MacKenzie, D., 1992. Clean White Coats spread Mutant Microbes, New
Scientist, 21 March 1992, p.11.
3. A yeast was engineered to produce high levels of enzymes that are
important in the breakdown of sugar. It was found that concentrations of a
toxic and mutagenic product of the breakdown process, methyl gloxal (MG)
were 30 times higher compared to the original strain. The scientists
concluded:
'....in genetically engineered yeast cells, the metabolism is significantly
disturbed by the introduced genes or their gene products and the
disturbance brings about accumulation of the unwanted toxic compound MG in
cells. Such accumulation of highly reactive MG may cause damage in the DNA,
thus suggesting that the concept of 'substantially equivalent' for the
safety assessment of genetically engineered food is not always applied to
genetically engineered microbes.....'
Inose, T., and Murata, K., 1995. Enhanced accumulation of toxic compound in
yeast cells having high glycolytic activity: a case study on the safety of
genetically engineered yeast, International Journal of Food Science and
Technology, Vol. 30, p. 141.
4. And finally, there is the case of the infected tryptophan produced by
the Japanese firm Showa Denko using a newly modified strain of genetically
engineered bacteria. This has caused at least 36 deaths and some estimates
of 10,000 disabilities.
As all evidence of the production process was destroyed, it is not possible
to definitively link the contamination to the genetic engineering process,
as compared to failure in the post-production filtration process. For more
information on this disaster, see the website:
http://www.natural-law.ca/genetic/GENews12-23Trypt.html
D'Arcy,P.F., 1995. L-tryptophan: eosinophilia-myalgia syndrome, Adverse
drug reactions and Toxicological review, Vol. 14, p.37.
Mayeno, A.N. and Gleich, G.J., 1994. Eosinophilia-myalgia syndrome and
tryptophan production: a cautionary tale, TIBTECH, Vol. 12, p. 346.
_________________________________________________________
Richard Wolfson, PhD
Consumer Right to Know Campaign,
for Mandatory Labelling and Long-term
Testing of all Genetically Engineered Foods,
500 Wilbrod Street
Ottawa, ON Canada K1N 6N2
tel. 613-565-8517 fax. 613-565-1596
email: rwolfson@concentric.net
Our website, http://www.natural-law.ca/genetic/geindex.html
contains more information on genetic engineering as well as
previous genetic engineering news items
Subscription fee to genetic engineering news is $35 for 12 months
See website for details.
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