According to the medical biotechnologist, Dr Michael Antoniou (item 1), the Medical News Today article "Research shows antibiotics in genetically modified plants are a non issue" (item 2) contains numerous errors and questionnable claims, as well as conveniently ignoring evidence that fails to fit its reassuring thesis.

Yet this article has popped up on a whole series of websites in the few days since publication - allindianews.com, science.bio.org, innateimmunity.net, bioportfolio.co.uk, seedquest.com, junkscience.com, monsanto.co.uk, etc., etc.

The article's authorship is unspecified but the original source appears to have been the European Food Information Council. EFIC is coy about sponsorship, referring only in passing to "food and beverage" companies, but interestingly the strikingly similar IFIC - the International Food Information Council - has amongst its sponsors:

Archer Daniels Midland Company
BASF
Cargill, Incorporated
Dow AgroSciences, LLC
DuPont Agricultural Products
Monsanto Company and
Syngenta
http://www.gmwatch.org/profile1.asp?PrId=64&page=I

At the bottom of the Medical News Today article it says, "For more information, contact W. De Greef at ALSS". ALSS is Applied Life Science Strategies whose highly minimal website - www.alss.be -appears to be partly still under construction and partly made up of references to events which occurred 6-7 years ago!

The Managing Director of ALSS - a "consultancy working on issues related to the use of biotechnology in food production" - is Willy de Greef (ie the contact given at the end of the article). Until the end of 2002 de Greef was the Global Head of Regulatory Affairs - Biotechnology for GM giant Syngenta. And as such he would have had to deal repeatedly with the regulatory hurdles arising out of concerns over the antibiotic resistance genes used in GM crops.

1.Comments by Dr Michael Antoniou
2.Research shows antibiotics in genetically modified plants are a non issue
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1.Comments by Dr Michael Antoniou
on Medical News Today web page article "Research shows antibiotics in genetically modified plants are a non issue" (04 Oct 2004, reproduced below)

This is a typical industry sweeping statement. (Note: Is it a co-incidence that this is an AstraZeneca sponsored web page?).

I'd like to know what scientific community the article is referring to when it states "The conclusion of the scientific community is that antibiotic resistance markers in genetically modified plants do not add any measurable risk to the environment or to human health and need not be a matter of concern."!

There are numerous errors:

1. Reports by Maewan Ho and Joe Cummins clearly describe that kanamycin and other similar antibiotics are still being used in human and veterinary medicine (Cummins, 2001).

2. I am not aware of "Intense research has been undertaken over the past ten years on the possibility of gene transfers." This on the whole has been a neglected area.

3. What work has been done to be able to say that "To date, there have been no reports of the reliable and stable transfer of ARMs from genetically modified plants to human pathogens."? I agree that perhaps no one has shown transfer into recognised human pathogens, but has anyone been stupid enough to try this? Non-pathogenic model systems are usually used to assess the likelihood of this happening. Since no-one is eating GM food as a staple over prolonged periods of time as yet (only processed stuff from soya and maize), you cannot even look at the American population for such events. So this is clearly an unanswered question within a real world/life context.

4. He conveniently ignores the FSA sponsored University of Newcastle study where human volunteers were studied after being fed a single GM Soya containing meal (Netherwood et al., 2004). As Heritage points out in his commentary on this study (Heritage, 2004):

"Nevertheless, on balance, the data presented in the paper support the conclusion that gene flow from transgenic plants to the gut microflora does occur. Furthermore, because transfer events seem to have occurred in three of the seven subjects examined, it may be that trans-kingdom gene transfers are not as rare as suggested by the UK GM Science Review Panel"

"They (the authors) propose that the gene transfer events from transgenic plants to gut microflora for which they provide evidence are highly unlikely to alter gastrointestinal function or endanger human health. I would conclude, however, that whereas this may be true for the construct examined by Gilbert's group, it may not be true in other cases, such as genes that encode resistance to antibiotics used in human medicine."

5. Even very low levels of ARM gene transfer from GM plants to bacteria would be significant in the presence of the appropriate antibiotic. Those few bacterial cells that had taken up the ARM gene would survive and flourish, while those that didn't would die off rapidly. The result? Potentially fatal infectious disease!

References:

Cummins, J. (2001). Kanamycin Still Used and Cross-Reacts with New Antibiotics. ISIS Report - May 27. http://www.i-sis.org.uk/kanomycin.php

Heritage, J. (2004). The fate of transgenes in the human gut. Nature Biotechnology 22: 170 - 172. doi:10.1038/nbt0204-170
http://www.nature.com/cgi-taf/DynaPage.taf?file=/nbt/journal/v22/n2/full/nbt0204-170.html

Netherwood T., Susana M Martin-Orue, SM., O'Donnell, AG., Gockling, S., Graham, J., Mathers, JC. and Gilbert, HJ. (2004). Assessing the survival of transgenic plant DNA in the human gastrointestinal tract. Nature Biotechnology 22, 204-209.
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2.Research shows antibiotics in genetically modified plants are a non issue
Medical News Today, 04 Oct 2004
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/medicalnews.php?newsid=14379

The probability that antibiotic resistance markers (ARMs) which are used in some genetically modified plants could transfer to bacteria harmful to humans is less than winning first prize in the national lottery three weeks in a row.

Antibiotic resistance markers are important tools for the development of genetically modified crops. They are used to identify and isolate the gene or genes that have been moved from one plant to a plant that is to be genetically modified. There are no antibiotics in our food as a result of using these markers.

Concerns have been raised that the use of ARMs could have a negative impact on the use of antibiotics in human medicine. Two genes are widely used in plant biotechnology: kanamycin and ampicillin. These two antibiotics have been specifically chosen because, as a number of recent studies have shown, they have outlived their practical use. Nearly all strains of pathogens they used to kill are now resistant to them. Nevertheless, some people still fear that introducing these ARMs in crops could add to the load of resistance genes already present in our environment, and thus somehow affect human pathogens that have not yet been converted into the resistant forms.

A number of recent studies on the presence of ampicillin resistance genes inhabiting the human digestive tract show that usually more than 50% of the samples contain ampicillin resistant individuals. It is known that many of these naturally ampicillin resistant bacterial populations can transfer the resistance genes to human pathogens.

Intense research has been undertaken over the past ten years on the possibility of gene transfers. To date, there have been no reports of the reliable and stable transfer of ARMs from genetically modified plants to human pathogens.

"It is easy to transfer from bacteria to bacteria, but not from plant to bacteria," says biologist Willy De Greef, managing director of Applied Live Science Strategies, a consultancy working on issues related to the use of biotechnology in food production. "Data show that the chances of such a transfer actually taking place are infinitely small at less than 1 in 1018. This does not totally exclude transfer altogether, but it's incredibly unlikely. The chance that human pathogens will acquire antibiotic resistance from other bacteria in our living environment are in fact millions of times larger."

The conclusion of the scientific community is that antibiotic resistance markers in genetically modified plants do not add any measurable risk to the environment or to human health and need not be a matter of concern.

For more information, contact W. De Greef at ALSS, Fax +32 9 244 6449, website: http://www.alss.be, email-: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

http://www.eufic.org