'Same' quality of manipulated soybean is absurd
Albert Heijn the biggest supermarket chain in the Netherlands, published an article in the february issue of its free magazine (circulation 1.8 million) which gave an untrue and misleading representation of Monsanto's genetically manipulated soybean. Albert Heijn is part of the Dutch multinational Ahold which owns supermarket chains in many countries around the globe (e.g. Stop & Shop in US).
The Natuurwetpartij (Natural Law Party of the Netherlands) filed a complaint with the Advertisement Code Commission against Albert Heijn. The Advertisement Code Commission has decided now that three out of four charges of the Natuurwetpartij are justified and stated Albert Heijn should make no such misleading advertising any more.
The most important charge made by the Natuurwetpartij was that Albert Heijn wrote that the quality of the genetically manipulated soybean had "remained the same". The company admitted that the composition of the manipulated soy is different but, but still maintained the quality is the same. This is absurd. The Advertisement Code Commission concludes: 'The quality of the gentically manipulated soy [...] is not the same as the quality of non-manipulated soy. The composition has been changed and in that case one cannot simply state that the quality has remained the same. For this reason the statement is misleading.'
Monsanto, a multinational chemical company, has genetically manipulated soy by shooting genetic material into it derived from a flower (petunia), a bacterium and a virus. The bacterium is the Agrobacterium Tumefaciens, a parasite that causes cancer in plants. The genetic material from this parasite produces with the help from a so called promotor of the cauliflower mosaic virus a protein in the soybean which has never before been part of the human diet. The long term effects of consumption of this protein are not known.
Dr. Joseph Cummins, professor emeritus in genetics from the university of West-Ontario, warns: 'Probably the greatest threat from genetically altered crops is the insertion of modified virus and insect virus genes into crops. It has been shown in the laboratory that genetic recombination will create highly virulent new viruses from such constructions. Certainly the widely used cauliflower mosaic virus is a potentially dangerous gene. It is a pararetrovirus meaning that it multiplies by making DNA from RNA messages.'
The Natuurwetpartij and the Advertisement Code Commission also objected to the way Albert Heijn referred to risk assessments of the bean by the Dutch government, the European Union and the Consumers Union. It created the impression that these institutions had themselves researched the bean, while they had in fact reviewed summaries of the literature.
The misleading advertising made by Albert Heijn is not an unicum. The Natuurwetpartij declares that false advertising is widely used by interested parties to promote genetic manipulation - an extremely objectionable practice. For example the false statement is often made that genetic manipulation is nothing but a further development of traditional breeding practices and of techniques such as the making of yoghurt and beer. Dr. George Wald, the professor emeritus in biology from Harvard and Nobel laureate in medicine who passed away recently, declared: 'Such intervention must not be confused with previous intrusions upon the natural order of living organisms; animal and plant breeding, for example; or the artificial induction of mutations, as with X-rays. All such earlier procedures worked within single or closely related species. The hub of the new technology is to move genes back and forth, not only across species lines, but across any boundaries that now divide living organisms. The results will be essentially new organisms. Self-perpetuating and hence permanent. Once created, they cannot be recalled.'
The genetic manipulation industry often falsely states that genetic manipulation carries not more or less risk than traditional breeding. Many scientists do not agree with this. Dr. Wald: 'Up to now living organisms have evolved very slowly, and new forms have had plenty of time to settle in. Now whole proteins will be transposed overnight into wholly new associations, with consequences no one can foretell, either for the host organism or their neighbors. It is all too big and is happening too fast. So this, the central problem, remains almost unconsidered. It presents probably the largest ethical problem that science has ever had to face. Our morality up to now has been to go ahead without restriction to learn all that we can about nature. Restructuring nature was not part of the bargain. For going ahead in this direction may be not only unwise but dangerous. Potentially, it could breed new animal and plant diseases, new sources of cancer, novel epidemics.' This statement of Dr. Wald annihilates the environmental claims that are often made with regard to 'modern biotechnology'.
Albert Heijn defends itself by saying that the quality of the soybeans has remained the same because according to our present knowledge the manipulated soy is not harmful to health. Our present knowledge however is utterly insufficient. Dr. John Fagan, professor in moleculair biology at Maharishi University of Management in Fairfield, US, points out that the present studies into safety 'fail to even begin to assess one very substantial class of risks that are inherent in genetically engineered foods. That class of risks consists of health hazards resulting from the unanticipated side-effects of genetic engineering. Such testing schemes are completely incapable of detecting unsuspected or unanticipated health risks that are generated by the process of genetic engineering itself.'
