ISIS Press Release 29/07/04
Ban Plant-based Transgenic Pharmaceuticals
Prof. Joe Cummins and Dr.
Mae-Wan Ho call for a global forum and a ban on testing pharm crops,
especially in Third World countries
Sources
for this report are available in the ISIS members site.
Full details here
As one after another biotech giant retreated from genetically modified
(GM) crops for food and feed in Europe (see "Biotech investment busy going
nowhere", this issue), the industry is redoubling its efforts to develop
plant-based transgenic pharmaceuticals in North America and elsewhere.
In April 2004, California stalled a major attempt to introduce GM rice
producing human lactoferrin and lyzozyme into 10 counties, but efforts to use
rice and other food crops to produce hazardous pharmaceuticals have continued
unabated.
On 12 July, the European Union (EU) announced the award of 12 million
euros to a network of laboratories in 11 European countries plus South Africa
to explore the possibilities of producing pharmaceuticals grown in genetically
modified plants. The consortium, "Pharma-Planta", will use plants to produce
vaccines and treatments against major diseases including AIDS, rabies, diabetes
and TB. Human trials of the drugs are to begin within the next five years. The
project is co-ordinated in the UK by Prof. Julian Ma of St. George’s
Medical School London; and John Innes Centre, UK’s top GM crop research
institute is also a member of the consortium.
A day later, it was revealed that South Africa, the only member of the
consortium outside Europe, is to be the test site of the first pharm crops.
South Africa’s Council for Scientific and Industrial Research is
particularly interested in potential vaccines against HIV. Philip Dale, plant
technologist at John Innes Centre in Norwich and the project’s biosafety
co-ordinator, reportedly said that the cost of 24-hour surveillance of GM
fields in the UK has made it expensive to conduct similar trials in
Britain.
The use of Third World countries for testing and producing plant-based
pharmaceuticals unacceptable both in Europe and the United States smacks of
colonialism. It also raises the spectre of unmonitored and unregulated human
exposures to the dangerous products. This problem will be exacerbated as
opposition to pharm crops is growing in the United States, and more Third World
countries will be targeted for test sites and production facilities. ISIS has
played a key role in exposing the marketing of pharm crop products in the
United States previously unbeknownst to the public, via a gaping loophole in
the US regulatory system (see "Pharm crop products in US market", this
issue).
A coalition of consumer and environmental organizations in the US issued
a call for a moratorium on genetically engineered pharm crops on 21 July. They
want the California state agencies to conduct a rigorous investigation of the
potential hazards posed by a biotech company’s plan to produce
pharmaceutical drugs from genetically engineered rice.
There is an urgent need for proper international regulation on the
testing and production of plant-based pharmaceuticals. The first step may be a
wider discussion of the drawbacks and dangers of plant-based pharmaceuticals as
well the "advantages" put forward by proponents in academe and corporations.
The overlooked dangers of pharm crops include pharmaceuticals that are toxic,
that could produce immune sensitization followed by anaphylaxis, or oral
tolerance leading to loss of immunity to pathogens; and general loss of
confidence in the food supply. These have been discussed in numerous reviews
from the Institute of Science in Society.
The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has run a
number of electronic conferences around "Agricultural Biotechnology for
Developing Countries - an Electronic Forum". These moderated discussions have
been quite productive. It is time to have an electronic forum on "Plant-based
Pharmaceuticals in Developing Countries".
Do contact the administrator of the FAO project Dr. John Ruane, at
biotech-admin@fao.org to call for
such a forum as a matter of urgency. The FAO forums are described at the
following URL: http://www.fao.org/DOCREP/004/Y2729E/Y2729E00.HTM
It is important that the testing and production of plant-based
pharmaceutical in the Third World are made public before they are quietly and
extensively carried out without the informed consent of those directly
affected.
Meanwhile, it is imperative to impose a ban on field test releases and
biopharmaceutical production by multinational corporations and foundations,
especially in Third World countries.
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