by BBC Newsnight
7 June 2002
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As Britain sits down to watch the Fields of Gold TV drama about a GM conspiracy, Newsnight's Science Editor Susan Watts reveals a true story of conspiracy and concealment. Last year a Mexican scientist revealed that genetically modified material had got into native species of maize plants grown in Mexico. Nature first published his paper which made worldwide news then retracted amid allegations that they had given into pressure from scientists backed by biotechnology companies.
Newsnight has learnt that Nature ignored the advice of most of its advisers when it decided to retract and that new Mexican Government research will endorse the Mexican scientist's main findings.
The story starts on the frenetic streets of Mexico City after Dr Ignacio Chapela of University of California at Berkeley alerted the Mexican Government to a discovery he'd made of national importance... He found himself unceremoniously deposited into one of the City's familiar green and white beetle taxis ... and escorted on an unfamiliar journey up a long road out of the city...
Dr Ignacio Chapela told Newsnight: "Here I am being led to a very important Mexican government official and under very strange circumstances we were driving into this very seedy part of town ...where people often go and hide from the police or dump people who have disappeared ...I really didn't know what was going to happen but there was this sense of intimidation going on and of course that was confirmed as soon as we got to the office...When he proceeded to tell me how terrible it was that I was doing the research and how dangerous it would be for me to publish."
I had been talking to government officials, because I thought it was the responsible thing to do, even though it was preliminary research', recalls Dr Chapela. [10] At one meeting the aide to the Biosafety Commissioner, Fernando Ortiz Monasterio, told Chapela that his boss wanted to see him. 'The guy just sat outside the door and when I came out, he almost took me by the hand and put me in a taxi with him to see his boss,' he says. A Hollywood script-writer could have conceived what happened next. Chapela was hauled up to Monasterio's 'office' on the 12th floor of an empty building. 'The office space was absolutely empty', recalls Chapela. 'There were no computers, no phones, the door was off its hinges, there were cardboard boxes as a table. The official is there with his cell-phone beside him. We are alone in the building. His aide was sitting next to me, blocking the door.' With obvious emotion, Dr Chapela recalls what happened next. 'He spent an hour railing against me and saying that I was creating a really serious problem, that I was going to pay for. The development of transgenic crops was something that was going to happen in Mexico and elsewhere. He said something like I'm very happy it's going to happen, and there is only one hurdle and that hurdle is you.' Sitting stunned, Chapela replied: 'So you are going to take a revolver out now and kill me or something, what is going on?' Then Monasterio offered Chapela a deal: 'After he told me how I had created the problem, he said I could be part of the solution, just like in a typical gangster movie. He proceeded to invite me to be part of a secret scientific team that was going to show the world what the reality of GM was all about. He said it was going to be made up of the best scientists in the world and you are going to be one of them, and we are going to meet in a secret place in Baja, California. And I said, "who are the other scientists"', and he said "Oh I have them already lined up, there are two from Monsanto and two from DuPont". And I kept saying "Well that is not the way I work, and I wasn't the problem, and the problem is out there".' Then events took a very sinister turn. 'He brings up my family', recalls Chapela. 'He makes reference to him knowing my family and ways in which he can access my family. It was very cheap. I was scared. I felt intimidated and I felt threatened for sure. Whether he meant it I don't know, but it was very nasty to the point that I felt "why should I be here, listening to all this and I should leave".'"
-- Monsanto's Mexican Maize Mischief, by sourcewatch.org
So just what WAS Ignacio Chapela's research? And why was he given the impression it would be better not to make it public... It's illegal to grow GM maize in Mexico. But when Dr Chapela tested crops in the field he found GM maize - a huge embarrassment to officials.
GM maize CAN be imported for food. Dr Chapela believes peasant farmers grew the modified seed and that pollen blown in the wind carried the added genes into native varieties. He was shocked enough to warn the government. He says officials were split, with Environment concerned... and Agriculture keen that his finding didn't get out.
When he refused to keep quiet about what he'd found in the maize, he says the Agriculture official made an extraordinary suggestion... that he join a research project DESIGNED to show that what he'd picked up was just the NATURAL presence of the same infectious agents used by the GM companies...
"We were supposed to find this in an elite scientific research team of which I was being invited to be part of and the other people were two people from Monsanto and two people from Dupont supposedly so at that point I said I don't need that ...," Dr Chapela said. Newsnight asked both Monsanto and Dupont if they were involved in any such project. Monsanto said no and Dupont has yet to respond. The dispute about the Mexican maize centres on whether Dr Chapela is a poor scientist or the victim of vested interests....
Chapela's research made two points -- first that genetically modified material had found its way into maize growing in Mexican fields and second that these genes had become so embedded into the plants' genome they might be passed on from generation to generation. This second finding is disputed -- which allowed the critics to attack the whole research project.
Chapela's paper appeared in the world-renowned Nature science journal. Editor Dr Philip Campbell told Newsnight, in his first full interview on the subject "I published because I thought it interesting scientifically and for policy..."
But when the letters from critics came in Dr Campbell did something which had never happened in the journal's 133-year history. He retracted the whole paper, although the main conclusion, which Nature itself press released as "scientists have detected transgenic DNA in wild maize," was unchallenged. He said: "In terms of what we published as far as I'm aware the first part of the paper hasn't been disputed..." Asked why he had retracted, he said "the paper as a whole shouldn't have been published..."
Chapela's supporters thought Campbell was responding to pressure from industry-funded scientists, but he denies this. He sent the paper to three referees before deciding whether to retract. Newsnight has obtained their confidential comments. Only ONE thought the paper should be retracted -- though all said there were flaws in its second part.
New genetics & hazards of genetic modification
The rationale and impetus for genetic engineering and genetic modification was the "central dogma" of molecular biology that assumed DNA carries all the instructions for making an organism. This is contrary to the reality of the fluid and responsive genome that already has come to light since the early 1980s. Instead of linear causal chains leading from DNA to RNA to protein and downstream biological functions, complex feed-forward and feed-back cycles interconnect organism and environment at all levels, marking and changing RNA and DNA down the generations. In order to survive, the organism needs to engage in natural genetic modification in real time, an exquisitely precise molecular dance of life with RNA and DNA responding to and participating fully in "downstream" biological functions. That is why organisms and ecosystems are particularly vulnerable to the crude, artificial genetically modified RNA and DNA created by human genetic engineers. It is also why genetic modification can probably never be safe.
1. Genetic modification done by human genetic engineers is anything but precise; it is uncontrollable and unpredictable, introducing many collateral damage to the host genome as well as new transcripts, proteins and metabolites that could be harmful.
2. GM feed with very different transgenes have been shown to be harmful to a wide range of species, by farmers in the field and independent scientists working in the lab, indicating that genetic modification itself is unsafe.
3. Genetic modification done by human genetic engineers is different from natural genetic modification done by organisms themselves for the following reasons: it relies on making unnatural GM constructs designed to cross species barriers and jump into genomes; it combines and transfers genes between species that would never have exchanged genes in nature; GM constructs tend to be unstable and hence more prone to further horizontal gene transfer after it has integrated into the genome.
4. Horizontal gene transfer and recombination is a major route for creating new viruses and bacteria that cause diseases and spreading drug and antibiotic resistance. Transgenic DNA is especially dangerous because the GM constructs are already combinations of sequences from diverse bacteria and viruses that cause diseases, and contain antibiotic resistance marker genes.
5. There is experimental evidence that transgenes are much more likely to spread and to transfer horizontally.
6. The instability of the GM construct is reflected in the instability of transgenic varieties due to both transgene silencing and the loss of transgenes, for which abundant evidence exists. Transgenic instability makes a mockery of "event-specific" characterization and risk assessment, because any change in transgene expression, or worse, rearrangement or movement of the transgenic DNA insert(s) would create another transgenic plant different from the one that was characterized and risk assessed. And it matters little how thoroughly the original characterization and risk assessment may have been done. Unstable transgenic lines are illegal, they should not be growing commercially, and they are not eligible for patent protection.
7. There is abundant evidence for horizontal transfer of transgenic DNA from plant to bacteria in the lab and it is well known that transgenic DNA can persist in debris and residue in the soil long after the crops have been cultivated. At least 87 species (2 % of all known species) of bacteria can take up foreign DNA and integrate it into their genome; the frequency of that happening being greatly increased when a short homologous anchor sequence is present.
8. The frequency at which transgenic DNA transfers horizontal has been routinely underestimated because the overwhelming majority of natural bacteria cannot be cultured. Using direct detection methods without the need to culture, substantial gene transfers were observed on the surface of intact leaves as well as on rotting damaged leaves.
9. In the only monitoring experiment carried out with appropriate molecular probes so far, China has detected the spread of a GM antibiotic resistance gene to bacteria in all of its major rivers; suggesting that horizontal gene transfer has contributed to the recent rise in antibiotic resistance in animals and humans in the country.
10. GM DNA has been found to survive digestion in the gut of mice, the rumen of sheep and duodenum of cattle and to enter the blood stream.
11. In the only feeding trial carried out on humans, the complete 2,266 bp of the epsps transgene in Roundup Ready soybean flour was recovered from the colostomy bag in 6 out of 7 ileostomy subjects. In 3 out of 7 subjects, bacteria cultured from the contents of the colostomy bag were positive for the GM soya transgene, showing that horizontal transfer of the transgene had occurred; but no bacteria were positive for any natural soybean genes.
12. The gastrointestinal tract of mammals is a hotspot for horizontal gene transfer between bacteria, transfer beginning in the mouth.
13. Evidence is emerging that genomes of higher plants and animals may be even softer targets for horizontal gene transfer than genomes of bacteria.
14. The CaMV 35S promoter, most widely used in commercial GM crops, is known to have a fragmentation hotspot, which makes it prone to horizontal gene transfer; in addition. it is promiscuously active in bacteria, fungi, as well as human cells. Recent evidence also suggests that the promoter may enhance multiplication of disease-associated viruses including HIV and cytomegalovirus through the induction of proteins required for transcription of the viruses. It also overlaps with a viral gene that interferes with gene silencing, an essential function in plants and animals that protects them against viruses.
15. The Agrobacterium vector, most widely used for creating GM plants is now known to transfer genes also to fungi and human cells, and to share genetic signals for gene transfer with common bacteria in the environment. In addition, the Agrobacterium bacteria as well as its gene transfer vector tend to remain in the GM crops created, thereby constituting a ready route for horizontal gene transfer to all organisms interacting with the GM crops, or come into contact with the soil on which GM crops are growing or have been grown.
16. In 2008, Agrobacterium was linked to the outbreak of Morgellons disease. The Centers for Disease Control in the US launched an investigation, which concluded in 2012, with the finding: "no common underlying medical condition or infection source was identified". But they had failed to investigate the involvement of Agrobacterium.
17. New GM crops that produce double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) for specific gene-silencing are hazardous because many off-target effects in the RNA interference process are now known, and cannot be controlled. Furthermore, small dsRNA in food plants were found to survive digestion in the human gut and to enter the bloodstream where they are transported to different tissues and cells to silence genes.
18. Evidence accumulated over the past 50 years have revealed nucleic acids (both DNA and RNA) circulating in the bloodstream of humans and other animals that are actively secreted by cells for intercommunication. The nucleic acids are taken up by target cells to silence genes in the case of double-stranded microRNA (miRNA), and may be integrated into the cells' genome, in the case of DNA. The profile of the circulating nucleic acids change according to states of health and disease. Cancer cells use the system to spread cancer around the body. This nucleic acid intercom leaves the body very vulnerable to genetically modified nucleic acids that can take over the system to do considerable harm.
-- Ban GMOs Now: Especially in the Light of the New Genetics, By Dr Mae-Wan Ho and Dr Eva Sirinathsinghji
The second referee said "none of the critics seriously dispute the main conclusion" and the third said,"none of the comments has successfully disproven their main result that transgenic corn is growing in Mexico and crossing with local varieties". Yet Dr Campbell published the retraction - citing only the FIRST referee.
Asked why he hadn't made the referees views clear Dr Campbell said "What we were doing was giving our judgement based on a variety of pieces of advice we'd received - our standard procedure is to make our own judgements and we wanted to make clear that there were problems with the evidence based on our judgement based on the advice of independent referees."
Newsnight also learned more about the alleged internet dirty tricks campaign. As soon as Chapela's paper was published, attacks on him started to appear on the Internet. His supporters suspected a PR company called the Bivings group - which helps Monsanto with its Internet work -- was using a new technique called viral marketing. On its website, Bivings advised: "there are some campaigns where it would be undesirable or even disastrous to let the audience know that your organisation is directly involved".
Chapela's supporters claim to have tracked down several examples of messages that purport to have come from concerned individuals but appear to originate from Bivings computers. Bivings told us one email did come from someone "working for Bivings" or "clients using our services", but they deny running a secret campaign.
Now the Mexican government's biologists have carried out their own battery of genetic tests on cobs of native maize to find out if GM genes are really finding their way into Mexico's traditional varieties. They've used two independent labs to avoid the criticisms surrounding Chapela's work and Newsnight has learned that they've found the smoking gun - the new results strongly support Chapela's original claim - finding telltale signs of DNA from genetically modified maize throughout Mexico's remote regional farmland...
***
Transcript of Newsnight feature
7th June 2002
(Mexico City) The story starts on the frenetic streets of Mexico City after a scientist alerted his government to a discovery he'd made of national importance...
He soon found himself unceremoniously deposited into one of the City's familiar green and white beetle taxis ... and escorted on an unfamiliar journey up a long road out of the city...
(Chapela driving)
Here I am being led to a very important Mexican government official and under very strange conditions... we were driving into this very seedy part of town ...where people often go and hide from the police or dump people who have disappeared ...I really didn't know what was going to happen but there was this sense of intimidation going on and of course that was confirmed when ...he proceeded to tell me how terrible it was that I was doing the research and how dangerous it would be for me to publish.
So just what WAS Ignacio Chapela's research? And why was he given the impression it would be better not to make it public...
It all comes down to the humble tortilla...it's made from maize, and Mexicans are proud that this is the birthplace of this staple food. It's a cultural icon and it's illegal to grow GM maize here. But when Dr Chapela tested crops in the field he found GM maize -- a huge embarrassment to officials.
GM maize CAN be imported for food. Dr Chapela believes peasant farmers grew the modified seed and that pollen blown in the wind carried the added genes into native varieties. He was shocked enough to warn the government. He says officials were split, with Environment concerned... and Agriculture keen that his finding didn't get out.
When he refused to keep quiet about what he'd found in the maize, he says the Agriculture official made an extraordinary suggestion... that he join a research project DESIGNED to show that what he'd picked up was just the NATURAL presence of the same infectious agents used by the GM companies...
(Chapela) "We were supposed to find this in an elite scientific research team of which I was being invited to be part of and the other people were two people from Monsanto and two people from Dupont supposedly so at that point I said I don't need that ...."
(Newsnight) Both Monsanto and Dupont deny involvement in ANY SUCH project.
He went ahead and published his original research in Nature magazine. Almost immediately a wave of condemnation rolled in... This time from scientists in San Francisco... The criticism stung because Berkeley is where Dr Chapela has his OWN labs...
But Berkeley is also home to a giant programme of research backed by the GM industry - the university signed a $25 m deal to work with one of the world's most powerful biotechnology companies.
There are in effect two camps at Berkeley. Dr Chapela's supporters suspect a conspiracy when they see scientists using funds from the GM industry come out against his work... the critics dismiss this...
(FREELING) no...I can speak for myself ...I guess I'd be the head of the conspiracy - there was no such
(Newsnight) Michael Freeling is DELETING INDIVIDUAL genes from maize plants - one by one - ...this row shows the dramatic effect of deleting just one gene. ..
Dr Freeling uses money from the university's tie-up with the Syngenta company which develops GM seeds ...He also wrote a critical letter to Nature about Dr Chapela's work - but says the two are not linked...
(Freeling) Bad science is bad science -- anyone can see it...
(Newsnight) So the dispute about the Mexican maize centres on whether Dr Chapela is a poor scientist or the victim of vested interests....
Chapela's research made two points - first that genetically modified material had found its way into maize growing in Mexican fields, and second that these genes had become so embedded into the plants' genome they might be passed on from generation to generation. This second finding is disputed -- which allowed the critics to attack the whole research project.
Nick Kaplinsky is Dr Chapela's toughest critic... and another Berkeley scientist. But even he accepts that GM genes are probably out there.
(Kaplinsky) Their paper had two claims: the first one was that there's transgenic corn in Mexico, which is kind of a no-brainer. The second part of their paper claimed that the transgenes were jumping around or behaving like infectious agents, and that would've been a huge finding if it had been true, but their science was completely incorrect there.
(Newsnight) There now seems to be widespread agreement that this part of the paper was flawed...Kaplinsky calls it a "beginners' mistake" and says it doesn't matter if he IS partisan...
(Kaplinsky) Since our scientific critique is right -- and the independent referees agreed with that -- does it matter if we're biased -- you know I mean if you're right, you're right I guess.
(Newsnight) As soon as Chapela's paper was published, attacks on him started to appear on the Internet. His supporters suspected a PR company called the Bivings group -- which helps Monsanto with its Internet work -- was using a new technique called viral marketing. On its website, Bivings advised: "there are some campaigns where it would be undesirable or even disastrous to let the audience know that your organisation is directly involved". Chapela's supporters claim to have tracked down examples of messages that purport to have come from concerned individuals but appear to originate from Bivings computers. Bivings told us one email did come from someone "working for Bivings" or "clients using our services", but they deny running a secret campaign.
The pressure now switched to London and the world-renowned Nature science journal in which Chapela's paper appeared. Since Charles Darwin's time it has published key discoveries, like the make-up of the atom, the Watson and Crick paper on the structure of DNA, and the decoding of the human genome ...then last November the paper on Mexican maize.
(Campbell: editor of Nature) I published because I thought it interesting scientifically and for policy...
(Newsnight) But when the letters from the critics came in, Campbell did something which had never happened the journal's 133-year history. He retracted the whole paper, although the main conclusion, which Nature itself press released as "scientists have detected transgenic DNA in wild maize," was unchallenged.
(Campbell) in terms of what we published, as far as I'm aware the first part of the paper hasn't been disputed...
(Newsnight) But you still felt it necessary to retract?
(Campbell) Uh hum yes...
(Newsnight) can you tell me why exactly....
(Campbell) yes, because as I said, the paper as a whole shouldn't have been published.
(Newsnight) Chapela's supporters thought Campbell was responding to pressure from industry-funded scientists, but he denies this. He sent the paper to three referees before deciding whether to retract. Newsnight has obtained their confidential comments. Only ONE thought the paper should be retracted - though all said there were flaws in its second part.
The second referee said "none of the critics seriously dispute the main conclusion" and the third said "none of the comments has successfully disproven their main result that transgenic corn is growing in Mexico and crossing with local varieties". Yet Campbell published the retraction -- citing only the FIRST referee.
(Newsnight) if it's your own judgement, why refer only to the one who disagreed, not the two who supported?
(Campbell) what we were doing was giving our judgement based on a variety of pieces of advice we'd received -- our standard procedure is to make our own judgements, and we wanted to make clear that there were problems with the evidence based on our judgement, based on the advice of independent referees.
(Newsnight) Just outside Mexico City, scientists funded largely by the World Bank, are working on modified maize for Africa that can resist four different insect pests at once...they see engineered crops as a solution to world hunger...their maize gene bank is a key element in global food security.
Inside this earthquake-proof vault is the world's largest collection of tropical maize -- there are 25,000 varieties stored in this cold room...when Chapela's paper came out, scientists here ran an urgent check to make sure GM genes have not found their way into this vital reference stock by accident...
So far they've found no foreign genes. Now the scientific discussion is over whether escaped genes will have any long lasting effect anyway.
First the Mexican government wants the extent of the problem settled once and for all. Its biologists have carried out their own battery of genetic tests on cobs of native maize. They've used two independent labs to avoid the criticisms surrounding Chapela's work. According to the experts in molecular biology, detecting positives in those additional 3 tests would be the smoking gun, and that smoking gun has now be found. These bio-containment greenhouses are one of the few places in Mexico where it's still legal to grow GM maize... But it's too late to worry about keeping modified crops apart. Newsnight has learned that the results strongly SUPPORT Chapela's original claim - finding telltale signs of DNA from genetically modified maize throughout Mexico's remote regional farmland...
(ends)