The European Commission approved BASF’s genetically engineered Amflora potato for cultivation in the European Union in March 2010.\u00a0 Amflora is now grown in open fields in Germany, Sweden, and the Czech Republic.\u00a0 The Amflora potato has been engineered to contain the nptil gene, “an antibiotic resistance marker gene for neomycin and kanamycin.”\u00a0 If the antibiotic resistance is transferred from the potato cells to bacteria infecting humans,\u00a0it could be dangerous by reducing the effectiveness of these antibiotics.<\/p>\n
Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO)\u00a0has investigated how this decision was made and learned that there was a “fierce lobbying battle by BASF,” including an “avalanche of letters,” threats by BASF to relocate outside of the EU, and threats of legal action.\u00a0 CEO also found that more than half of the approving panel had conflicts of interest.\u00a0 The conflicts ranged from receiving research funding from the biotech industry to “writing or reviewing industry-sponsored publications.”\u00a0 Some of the panel members were actually involved in the creation of the potatoes with antibiotic resistance.\u00a0 Even though the panel did not include any medical experts, the panel decided that “neomycin and kanamycin were antibiotics with ‘no or only minor therapeutic relevance.'”\u00a0 However, the World Health Organization (WHO) did label these antibiotics as “critically important” in 2005.<\/p>\n
Last year’s approval appeared to be an attempt to pre-empt an expected European Union directive “which sought to phase out the use of antibiotic resistance marker genes which may have adverse effects on human health and the environment.”<\/p>\n
Why is this important?\u00a0 The potato will\u00a0only be grown\u00a0in Europe, right?\u00a0 We won’t have any of these antibiotic resistant potatoes here?\u00a0 We don’t have Africanized honey bees, South American pythons, or piranhas either, do we? Would we have an input if our government wanted to approve the antibiotic resistant potato?\u00a0 Wouldn’t the biotech industry lobby our government in the same way it pressured the European panel?\u00a0 For twenty years many genetically engineered crops have been approved for cultivation in the U.S., including soybeans, corn, sugar beets, cotton, and, as of\u00a02011,\u00a0alfalfa, all without\u00a0adequate, independent testing of the safety for humans, or even animals.\u00a0 In fact, the vast majority of soy (94%)\u00a0and corn (66%)\u00a0produced in the U.S. is already genetically engineered, and most of us eat it every day–over 75% of processed foods contain genetically engineered ingredients. The FDA has forbidden labels that give any information about GMOs, including forbidding labeling that says the product does not contain GMOs, claiming such labels would just confuse the consumer.<\/p>\n
See my previous posts\u00a0What Does Genetically Engineered (or GMO) Mean?<\/a>\u00a0<\/em>and GMO Foods Should Be Labeled<\/a>\u00a0<\/em>for more information.<\/em><\/p>\n Additional resources: <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The European Commission approved BASF’s genetically engineered Amflora potato for cultivation in the European Union in March 2010.\u00a0 Amflora is now grown in open fields in Germany, Sweden, and the Czech Republic.\u00a0 The Amflora potato has been engineered to contain …<\/span> Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[59,18,19],"tags":[48,28,405,56,31],"class_list":["post-1227","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gmos","category-organic-food","category-real-food","tag-farfa","tag-ftcldf","tag-gmos","tag-soy","tag-sustainable-farming"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p70SEj-jN","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.realfoodhouston.com\/wp-files\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1227","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.realfoodhouston.com\/wp-files\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.realfoodhouston.com\/wp-files\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.realfoodhouston.com\/wp-files\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.realfoodhouston.com\/wp-files\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1227"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"http:\/\/www.realfoodhouston.com\/wp-files\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1227\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1239,"href":"http:\/\/www.realfoodhouston.com\/wp-files\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1227\/revisions\/1239"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.realfoodhouston.com\/wp-files\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1227"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.realfoodhouston.com\/wp-files\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1227"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.realfoodhouston.com\/wp-files\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1227"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nFarm and Ranch Freedom Alliance\/GMOs<\/a><\/em>
\nCorporate Europe Observatory, Approving the GM potato: conflicts of interest, flawed science and fierce lobbying<\/a>; <\/em>CEO’s Amflora conflict of interest report<\/a>; The declarations of interest for EFSA’s 2009 GMO Panel<\/a>; The scientific expertise of ENTRANSFOOD<\/a>; and BASF’s letters to the Commission<\/a><\/p>\n