ISIS Report 23/09/09

The Day of the Triffid in Transgene Contamination

Transgenic flax grown for several years in Canada has nevertheless contaminated probably the country’s entire flax seed stock; that’s why flax should never be used to produce transgenic industrial and pharmaceutical chemicals Prof. Joe Cummins    

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Transgene contamination of flax seed

Flax seed is used widely in the food industry, including bread, and as source of omega 3 fatty acids. On 10 September 2009, the European Union (EU) Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed (RASFF) reported finding an unapproved genetically modified (GM) flax/linseed variety in cereal and bakery products in Germany. The GM flax variety, FP967 (CDC Triffid), is not authorized for food or feed in the EU; it has tolerance to soil residues of sulfonylurea-based herbicides, and was developed by the Crop Development Centre at the University of Saskatchewan in Canada. Canada supplies approximately 70 percent of the total flax/linseed in the EU annually. Because GM flax FP967 is not authorized in the European Union, there is zero tolerance for the variety. That means any raw material or flax/linseed derivative analyzed to be positive for FP967 is illegal and not marketable in the EU. The test for the genetic modification of Triffid flax  was developed by Genetic ID  Laboratories in USA and Europe [1].

The ‘Triffid’ is a highly venomous fictional plant species, the titular antagonist from John Wyndham's 1951 novel The Day of the Triffids. The University of Saskatchewan appears to have used that great novel as a model for its GM creation.

Triffid yanked off seed market in 2001

The discovery of Triffid gene contamination in Canadian flax exports is surprising because Triffid flax seed has not been openly produced in Canada since 2001. Triffid was deregulated over a decade ago in Canada for environmental release for feed in 1996 and for food in 1998.  USA authorized the release of Triffid for food and feed in 1998, and for commercial growth in the environment in 1999 [2]. Triffid has been grown in the open fields in both Canada and US. But by early 2001, under pressure from Canadian flax growers anxious to protect their markets, Triffid was deregistered and removed from the market in Canada. By then, around 200 000 bushels of Triffid flax seed had been grown on farms across the prairies [3].

Why is Triffid in flax exports?

Triffid has probably contaminated most North American flax exports including 'organic' flax because the crop is significantly insect pollinated. Why has the GM contamination escaped careful scrutiny in Europe during those years of flax export? One explanation may be partly technical. The herbicides tolerated by Triffid flax are sulphonylurea derivatives and the genes transforming flax are not the usual genes used to produce herbicide tolerant crops. The promoter and terminator genes are native from the plant source of resistant genes Arabidopsis. What I am saying is that is that Triffid is a University of Saskatchewan product and does not employ the usual large company genes and that may be a reason they were not detected earlier.

Sulphonylurea herbicide resistance was selected for development because  that herbicide family is used  to control weeds of winter wheat  which tolerates the herbicide  but the herbicides persist in the soil  preventing crop rotation with broad leafed crops such as flax [4, 5]. Prior to  the approval of Trffid by Canada  in 1995,  the creators of Triffid, Professors McHuhen and Holm, chastised the government regulators for asking scientifically irrelevant question [6].  The current problem with Triffid suggests that the government regulators may have been badgered into arriving at a faulty conclusion.

Transgenic flax for industrial chemicals and pharmaceuticals

 During the past decade, there has been a lot of pressure to produce pharmaceutical products and industrial plastics precursors in flax so as to avoid polluting 'major' food and feed crops. This is being promoted by the usual GM brigade. Such mindless pollution of flax fails to recognize the crop’s natural dietary and medicinal properties. The main objection to the use of transgenic flax to produce industrial chemicals and  pharmaceuticals is that even though flax  is mainly self pollinated it is also significantly insect pollinated (to the order of five percent or more of the pollination [7-9]).  Gene flow from flax occurs to wild and weedy relatives that include several species native to North America as well as feral agronomic flax [10].

The detection of transgenic flax Triffid in Canadian imports for food and feed in Europe is disturbing because the production of Triffid flax was officially discontinued in 2001. The implication is that the entire Canadian flax crop may have been contaminated by exposure to the  genetically modified crop during the five years in which 200 000 bushels of  Triffid flax were produced and marketed in North America. The current problems with Triffid flax demonstrates most emphatically that flax is not suitable for producing transgenic industrial and pharmaceutical chemicals.

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