Rodent Trials Show Biotech is Squeaky Unclean

Pea weevil takes a 30% whack out of Australia's 100 million dollar pea industry and the GM strain, which inserted a bean gene into the peas that the pesky weevil could not digest, was touted to reduce the need for insecticide to tackle the problem.

But scientists at the John Curtin School of Medical Research in Canberra who led the immunological research found that when inserted into the pea, the bean gene triggered an immune reaction in mice. Their results were published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.

Slight as it seems, the case has fired up the anti-GM movement and may even have the potential to derail the biotech juggernaut. Point by point, here's why:

* Though CSIRO insists that the case shows that regulating GM does work, it does no such thing. Instead, it shows up the alarmingly weak science behind GM. Greenpeace spokesman Jeremy Tager said that Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ) approved a type of GM corn, Mon863, for consumption even though it had caused "serious organ damage" to rats in Germany. The FSAZ also claimed publicly that the rat study did not mean the corn was "unsafe." Greenpeace Germany sued the corn manufacturer, Monsanto, in 2004 to require it to release the rat study findings.

The problem gets worse in the US, which unlike Australia, does not even have a scientific body that studies food technology before springing it on the public. With rather touching trust, the FDA leaves the job of guarding pubic health to the biotech industry. So the only reason we know that Monsanto's soy is OK for human beings, is because Monsanto says so.

The FDA's convenient see-no-evil stance goes back to a 1992 policy which claims GM foods don't differ from other foods in any "meaningful or uniform way." But documents revealed by a lawsuit years later tell a different story. It seems the FDA's own experts did indeed think that GM foods were hazardous, but they were shunted aside by the FDA's policy chief, none other than ex-Monsanto attorney and future vice- president, Michael Taylor. Any wonder that a FDA microbiologist dismisses the agency's GM policy as "a political document" without scientific basis. Ultimately, the FDA keeps all regulation of GM voluntary, even the industry's massaged and poorly designed studies.

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