keep your genes to yourself please, says the rice industry

The LL601 rice contamination scandal has been a costly wake-up call for the US rice industry. If you need any further proof for that claim read the comments sent today to the US Department of Agriculture by the USA Rice Federation on Ventria’s proposed field trials of pharma rice. (see my previous comments on cannibal rice for more background.) http://www.usarice.com/industry/communication/Final_Ventria_Kansas_comments.pdf
The USA Rice Federation asks “in the strongest possible terms that the permit for Ventria’s pharmaceutical rice be denied.”

The rice industry has gotten the message. In their comments to USDA they write that:

If Ventria’s pharmaceutical rice were to escape into the commercial rice supply, the financial devastation to the U.S. rice industry would likely be absolute. There is no tolerance, either regulatory or in public perception, for a human gene-based pharmaceutical to end up in the world’s food supply.

One further piece of evidence of the serious economic impact the contamination has had on the industry is this table showing the top ten export markets for US rice and the trade restrictions placed by those countries on US rice imports. http://www.usarice.com/industry/communication/exportimpact.pdf

The fallout from the LL601/604/60? contamination scandal must be considered a serious set-back for the genetic engineering industry globally. While ISAAA in its yearly report touts the ongoing expansion of global acreage planted to GMOs, the fact is that the industry has been limited to a few crops that are not primarily grown for direct human consumption: soy, corn, cotton, canola. The bulk of genetically engineered corn (maize) goes to feed animals in industrialized countries.

Rice was to be the next genetically engineered (GE) crop to be introduced worldwide (after Monsanto’s wheat was roundly nixed by the wheat growers of North America). The industry was salivating over the almost certain introduction of genetically engineered rice in China, which would have opened the door to the rest of Asia. Chinese authorities dealt a hard blow to these hopes when they announced at the end of 2006 that commercialization of GE rice was another 2-3 years away, at least. Even the Chinese, with their huge internal market, were put off by the international repercussions of their own rice contamination scandal over the last two years.

further reading on cannibal rice

"Does Africa Need a Genetically Modified Solution to Diarrhea" is available at: http://www.eraction.org/publications/medicinerice.pdf

Union of Concerned Scientists Uncovers Lax USDA Oversight of Pharma Crops
New Evidence Points to Need for Ban on Pharma Food Crops
http://www.ucsusa.org/food_and_environment/genetic_engineering/usda-ventria-oversight.html

cannibal rice?

Ventria Biosciences, formerly Applied Phytologics, is proposing to grow up to 3200 acres of genetically engineered rice in Kansas this year. The rice is engineered with human genes to produce two different human proteins: lactoferrin and lysozyme. The US Department of Agriculture is accepting comments on the application until the end of this week. It's the largest ever proposed field trial of a food crop engineered to produce drugs -- otherwise known as a pharma crop.

Below the Federal Register notice from the USDA, as well as a link to the Union of Concerned Scientists web alert about the whole thing.

http://a257.g.akamaitech.net/7/257/2422/01jan20071800/edocket.access.gpo.gov/2007/pdf/E7-3484.pdf

http://ucsaction.org/campaign/3_07_07pharma_rice

Ventria claims that the proteins will be used in the developing world to treat children with diarrhea. On paper, a noble cause. They also have tried to obtain "Generally Recognized as Safe" or GRAS status for their proteins from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Apparently they were pondering putting the proteins into "medical food" products. The FDA denied their GRAS petition. This is a significant conclusion by an agency that has a reputation for cursory, shoddy reviews of company GMO test data. So the proteins aren't safe enough for the FDA, but the company is going to feed the products to kids in the developing world. Sounds fair to me. (I am leaving out for now the story of how they tested the drugs on young children in Peru before doing animal testing in the US.)

The history of the company is an interesting one. Unfortunate that it is so little chronicled in the usual techno-utopian reporting about the pharma rice. When Ventria first started scaling up their field trials and got noticed by the rice growing industry, they were driven out of California by the reaction of farmers who thought that the threat of contamination of California rice by human genes was too great. So Ventria moved to Missouri. Anheuser-Busch got wind that Ventria was going to produce cannibal rice in regions where they sourced rice for their world-famous brews and used their political muscle to get that idea nixed. Rice producer opinion probably contributed to their expulsion from Missouri: "We just want them to go away," said Bob Papanos of the US Rice Producers Assocation...

Then Ventria moved to North Carolina, where little rice is grown and so contamination was not too big of an issue. Unfortunately the fields they found were close to a USDA facility involved in breeding and maintenance of heritage rice varieties. Unfortunate for the scientists at the USDA facility actually. You see the USDA plays the role of promoter of genetic engineering. They are supposed to facilitate the development of the technology. So they shut down the rice breeding operations at the agricultural field station to make their decision to allow the field trial in North Carolina less overtly problematic. Really.

Also interesting is the evolution over time of what exactly these proteins would be used for. Initially, when Ventria was known as Applied Phytologics, the rice was going to be used in infant formula, or in other baby food products. The proteins would be added to make the products more like mother’s milk – lactoferrin and lysozyme are actually two antibacterial proteins found in breast milk, as well as human tears. That didn’t fly – probably either with the FDA or with consumers.

So then Ventria tried the "treating diarrhea in the third world" idea as the raison-d'etre for the engineered rice. But clearly investors know that there’s not much money to be made from people who earn less than $1 a day. So Ventria also floated the product idea of "medical foods" with the FDA and with the venture capitalists that have been keeping this company afloat for the last decade. Ventria proposed to market its proteins in performance (sports) drinks, granola bars, yoghurt, and similar products for consumers who actually have money to spend. FDA just popped that balloon when they denied GRAS status for the proteins. So at least in terms of the global public and media message, "saving kids in the developing world" is the one they are sticking with for now.

techno-utopian rice

Continuing on the rice theme for the moment...

Last Friday the Boston Globe carried a story about anti-hay fever GMO rice. "Anti-hay fever rice may win over Japanese doubts." Apparently researchers are engineering genes into rice that code for a few of cedar pollen's allergenic proteins. The idea is that people would eat the rice and sensitize their immune system to the proteins, moderating their immune response -- sort of the same reaction as the body would have to allergy shots. Apparently engineered mice that were fed the rice sneezed less often than non-engineered mice when cedar pollen was dumped on them. (I kid you not -- they really said that in the article -- scientists now evaluate the effectiveness of their inventions by counting how many times mice sneeze.)

Ok, there are lots of red flags that should go up about engineering rice that might be used as an allergy treatment, like what happens to people who aren't now allergic to cedar pollen but might have some reaction to eating pollen proteins everyday in their rice. By now it should be clear to everyone that genes don't stay put. Non-allergic people are going to end up eating the cedar pollen rice.

But more striking to me than the bonehead idea to put proteins that are known to cause allergic reactions into one of the world's most important food crops... was the overt propagandistic nature of the news reporting. This rice, if it works at all beyond the mouse cage, is a decade or more away from reality. The organization that was promoting the story is named ISAAA -- International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-Biotech Applications. It's a non-profit organization that gets the bulk of its funding from the genetic engineering industry. They spend much of their time feeding "biotech will save the world" propaganda pieces to media outlets around the world.

This piece, more than most, reeked of gee-whiz techno-utopian gobbledygook. One wishes science and business reporters and editors would look at these stories just a little more critically. The rice industry is reeling from contamination event after contamination event, as genetic engineering firms can't keep track of their genes. The grocery industry is adamantly opposed to the use of food crops for production of human drugs, including cedar pollen rice, and reasonably so. Why waste newspaper space to carry yet another cheap propaganda piece developed by the industry to try to convince dubious consumers that someday, sometime in the future, they might see some benefit from eating genetically engineered foods?

Bayer can't control its genes

Late last Thursday, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced the identity of the latest mystery gene found contaminating US rice stocks: LL604. The gene is yet another experimental, unapproved variety that somehow made its way into commercial rice varieties. The USDA had no option but to ban the planting this growing season of Clearfield 131, a popular rice variety sold by BASF. Bet the folks at BASF aren't very happy...

Rice farmers are even more angry at the economic losses caused by careless genetic engineers. The solidly conservative California Rice Commission took a reasonable conservative action last week -- they voted in favor of a ban on all field trials of genetically engineered rice in California. While the Commission has no regulatory power to prevent field trials, they are an advisory body to the California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA). It is unlikely that CDFA would approve field trials contrary to the wishes of the Rice Commission.

The USA Rice Federation, the industry-wide advocacy body, minced few words in its condemnation of both the USDA and the genetic engineering companies that can't keep track of their genes. From Al Montna, Chairman of the federation: "...we are increasingly frustrated with the apparent lack of ability on the part of private companies and federal regulators to control research and maintain accountability of the resulting products. The current approach to research, development and management in the biotechnology industry must be replaced with more conservative methodologies."

Surely the contamination scandal couldn't have had that serious of an impact on the industry, you might be thinking. Just check out the USA Rice Daily newsletter from 12 March at http://www.usarice.com/industry/communication/daily.html.

At least 47% of US rice exports have been affected, including exports to Iraq (!), which is requiring the testing and certification of GE-free status of US rice imports. Last week, when Mexico announced it was stopping US rice shipments at the border until GE-free certificates could be produced, rice futures prices dropped almost 50 cents.

At last count there have been close to 60 lawsuits filed against Bayer by US rice farmers.