BioChica Update

Hi Everyone,

It's been a while since I've written here, so I thought I'd give you all an update on what I've been doing/writing.

First off, I'm going to continue using this space for scientific papers. I'll continue taking requests so if anyone has any papers on risks of GMOs or any trait they'd like to know more about, let me know and I'd be happy to review (you can email me at biochica.gmo at gmail dot com). I just haven't come across any topics lately that I've really wanted to investigate. Most anti-GMO claims seem to be the same ones recycled over and over again.

Second, the makers of the movie Science Moms launched the film and it's available to download. About a year ago, when filming was wrapping up, the moms featured in the film started discussing what to do next. We had seen the raw footage from the film and were excited. We decided to start a non-profit spin-off named SciMoms, geared towards parents. Our goal is to tackle a wide variety of topics ranging from vaccines and GMOs to bouncy castles and skincare. As parents, we get so much contrary information, that it's difficult to know what's right and we plan to dig into the science and contact experts to get the correct information. Our very first blog post outlines our mission and vision for the site.

About a year ago, I wrote about the importance of breaking information bubbles and silos that we find ourselves in. I really hope that this new website can reach new audiences. We have a bunch of different projects including a comic that I've been making!!

So, if you wouldn't mind telling friends/family/relatives/coworkers about this new project, I'd appreciate it. In learning about websites, marketing, and audience reach, I've learned that mailing lists are important :) So please sign up for our mailing list here to receive monthly updates.

Third, I've been writing for broader audiences on Medium, which is a blogging website. Since I don't promote or do ads for my writing, I thought that Medium might be a good way to reach more people. It's that whole "breaking bubbles" thing again. So, if you want to follow me on Medium and read articles that I've written recently, you can do so here.

Finally, on a more personal note, I'm going to start a Masters certificate in bioinformatics! I don't know how I'll find the time to juggle everything with my day job and the kid, so we'll see what happens.

Hope you all have a great 2018!!

A GMO pineapple with a blush

A couple of months ago, I saw an article about a new "pink pineapple" that was being approved by the FDA and was a GMO. I've wanted to learn more about the variety, so in this blog post I'll be exploring the topic.

The pineapple was developed by Del Monte Fresh Produce (not to be confused with Del Monte Foods). The company plans to label it as "extra sweet pink flesh pineapple" and it will be grown in Costa Rica. In addition to pink flesh, it has a few other traits and we'll go through these one-by-one. Much of the information below came from the FDA submission documents.

Pink Flesh

To understand how the pineapple's flesh was made pink, we have to review how beta-carotene is made in plants. Beta-carotene is a pigment that has an orange color and is essential to us for vitamin A synthesis. We usually associate it with carrots. Its synthesized in plants in a multi-step process involving several enzymes. One of the intermediates in this pathway is lycopene, which is also a pigment but is bright red. Watermelon, tomatoes, and grapefruit are all fruits that are rich in lycopene. It is due to the accumulation of this pigment that the pineapple turns pink.

How was this accomplished? To make a pink pineapple, two things need to happen: a lot more lycopene needs to be made and its conversion to beta-carotene needs to be halted. To make more lycopene, the gene for phytoene synthase from a tangerine was added and was over-expressed (meaning that it was regulated in a such a way that the gene produced a lot of the phytoene synthase protein). This means that the crop can produce a lot more lycopene and beta-carotene.

However, the developers of the crop wanted lycopene accumulation without its conversion to beta-carotene. To achieve this, they silenced the lycopene β-cyclase (b-Lyc) and lycopene ε-cyclase (e-Lyc) genes in the pineapple using RNA interference. This is a naturally occurring defense mechanism that scientists have harnessed to silence genes by using the sequence of the gene itself. It triggers a pathway within the cell that chews up the RNA for the targeted gene. In this case, scientists added snippets of the b-Lyc and e-Lyc genes from the pineapple in a specific configuration. Once these snippets were turned on or expressed, it triggered the degradation of the lycopene-cyclase enzymes which are needed to convert lycopene into carotenes. Without this conversion, lycopene accumulates and the pineapple gets its beautiful pink colour.

Pineapple farm in Ghana
Image from Wikimedia Commons

By now you're probably wondering "Ok, pink pineapples are cool. But why?" Good question. The patent on the pineapple, which was published in 2013, claims "Carotenoids may contribute fundamentally to human health and in recent years there has been considerable interest in dietary carotenoids with respect to their potential in alleviating age-related diseases in humans." With a quick google search you can find tons of websites claiming that lycopene can do everything from preventing cancer to preserving bone health. Since lycopene is an antioxidant, there are a lot of websites that sell antioxidant supplements with information about the compound. However, there's little evidence supporting this.  The CDC states,"research studies have shown inconsistencies in the relation between carotenoid intake and protection from cancer." Regarding antioxidants, multiple studies have been conducted using dietary supplements and the NIH summarizes these findings by stating that "antioxidant supplements did not help to prevent disease."

Consequently, regarding this particular trait, I think that we should consider it as part of our diet rich in fruits and vegetables. As part of such a diet, it may help prevent disease. However, it's not a panacea that will cure you of your ailments. It's also a very stunning fruit from a visual perspective. Pineapple is a favorite in our house, so having a pink pineapple would be very nice to have on a fruit platter. And if that helps us eat more fruits, then why not have it as an option in our food supply? But if I'd had my choice in traits, I would have picked a pineapple that's easier to cut and handle :)

Alrighty, moving on to the next trait...

Controlled flowering

The second trait in the pineapple is controlled flowering. According to this paper: "A major limitation that afflicts pineapple growers is the phenomenon of natural flowering, which results in unscheduled fruiting. The percentage of natural induction is highly unpredictable and the incidence may vary from 0% to 100% in any given year (Kuan et al., 2005), which causes serious scheduling problems for growers and, in particular, fresh market growers".

Ethylene is a plant hormone that controls pineapple flowering, among many other things. According, to the same paper cited above, farmers currently use ethylene to "force" flowering which has been practiced for decades. This paper, which compared natural vs forced flowering, highlights that forced flowering "(a) advances flowering, (b) improves uniformity of flowering, (c) makes the harvest moment predictable, and (d) makes harvesting more uniform". The paper found that natural flowering was much more costly, but fruits produced by forced flowering were not as high quality as pineapples produced through natural flowering.

In 2006, a paper was published outlining that by silencing an enzyme involved in the synthesis of ethylene, they could delay natural pineapple flowering. The same idea was carried out in the making of the pink pineapple: an enzyme involved in the biosynthesis of ethylene (1-aminocyclopropane-1-carboxylic acid synthase) was silenced. This allows farmers to use ethylene to force flowering whenever they'd like so that all the pineapples can produce fruit at the same time.

I was left with a lot of questions about this trait, and I can only speculate on the answers. I imagine that the trait could reduce food waste on the farm. I do not know whether the need to apply ethylene increases the carbon footprint, if this is done mechanically. Ethylene ripens some fruits, however, the pineapple does not produce much ethylene to begin with, so I don't know what the silencing of ethylene synthesis does in this regards. 

Regulation

The regulatory documents state that the GM pineapple is substantially equivalent to its control, with the exception of increased lycopene (which is expected) and decreased beta-carotene (which is also expected). The amount of lycopene present matched those of other fruits, such as watermelon. There were a couple of other metrics that were significantly different between the GM and the control, however, these were within the range of natural variation for the crop.

The crop will be labeled as "“Extra Sweet Pink Flesh Pineapple”. According to this article, the regular Del Monte pineapple is labeled as "extra sweet", so the pink one isn't any sweeter than "normal".

Conclusions

So, will I buy this pineapple? If I were to guess, I'd say that the company started working on this pineapple about 10 years ago when the antioxidant craze was at its peak. But 10 years later, that craze has fizzled away. I think the company has a pink pineapple that's visually beautiful, but has no real health benefit. I'd buy this pineapple if it doesn't cost more than usual. I'd like to know whether the controlled flowering trait reduces food waste, because if that's the case it would be worth paying a small premium. Otherwise... meh?

Man, I learned a crap ton about pineapples by writing this post... Let me know if you have any questions below.

The Future of FrankenFoodFacts

To my spouse and all my readers,

The past couple of days have been interesting, to say the least. I'm writing this blog a few days after the US elections, where in an incredible upset, a candidate that believes vaccine cause autism and does not believe in climate change was elected into office. There's a lot of other things about the president elect that concern me, but for the sake of this blog post, I'm going to keep it science focused. 

I write this article, genuinely struggling to figure out how to move forward as a science communicator. That people are in echo chambers, that experts are ignored, and that narratives have a strong appeal are things that I have long known, but now more than ever I struggle to figure out how to break through all that. And I'm fairly certain that it's not in the writing of this blog. Because if anyone wants to find out about GMO safety, all the information is already available to them. There is little that I can say that hasn't already been said.

In my draft blogs, I currently have a post entitled "Brexit and Organic Consumers Association". In the post, I was outlining the elements that these two movements have in common: appealing to people's fears and shunning expertise. I had written: "So it surprises me to no end that the public feels that expertise in certain topics is no longer relevant. And I don't know what to do about it, because in the opinion pieces I've written outlining the importance of experts and consultants, and the irony of having taxpayers fund their work and ultimately reject the suggestions that these experts make, I get comments from individuals accusing scientists of being "know-it-alls" or of being arrogant. Here's an example:

@BioChicaGMO Scientists egos are too big to consider the ideas of layman. The are as arrogant as the are certain of their sill ways.

— david becker (@davidbecker19) June 4, 2016

To some extent, I understand. An individual has an opinion and wants that opinion to be heard and respected. But we aren't all well versed in everything. I don't believe to know the solution to economic problems any more than I know how to build a deck for my back yard. I feel comfortable deferring to experts on both topics, not just the latter.

The problem is that when we turn to the wrong people for advice, they often provide incorrect information. Team Brexit said that the opinion of experts were not relevant. Bernie Sanders recently spoke about the dangers of GMOs and featured Jeffrey Smith from the so-called "Institute of Responsible Technology", whose lack of scientific knowledge has been highlighted in the past. Donald Trump has said that vaccines cause autism even though they don't." 

Rather than listening to experts, be they farmers speaking about agriculture, economic experts warning us about tax policies, scientists yelling at us about climate change, or military experts writing about a candidate's rhetoric, what ends up happening is that we believe in opinions that validate the biases we already hold.

The individuals who read this blog are already inclined to believe its content. I started this blog to document my journey as I learned about transgenic crops. With time, as I felt more certain about the safety of these crops, the tone and focus of the blog changed and I considered myself more of an advocate for GMOs. I will continue using this space to document my learning, but I don't think I'll continue promoting it. The people who don't believe in GMO safety aren't going to read it and I don't have the resources or the time to promote this blog so that it enters their sphere.

I'm not quitting science communication. Far from it (although a HUGE part of me does want to quit, to focus on my career so that I can further increase my income and my kid's success, and I'm working very hard on quieting that voice). Here's what I think I'll be doing going forward:

• Focus on educating kids before their minds need to be changed. 
• To this end, I'll be working more closely with Biology Fortified to create resources and tools for educators
• Work with Moms4GMOs to try to get our message into new outlets and publications, so that we can decrease our reliance on social media as the primary method to broaden reach.
• Social media bubbles don't pop very easily. The more we rely on social media, the more we're just preaching to the choir. 
• The stark reality that social media has contributed extensively to the decline in factual information, and that speaking to kids and educators wouldn't necessarily rely on social media makes this option even more appealing.

I'm more than happy to answer questions and review papers, so if you have any, please send them my way. 

Things I Have in Common with GMO-Opponents.

Dear Angry Person Commenting on my Post,

I hear you. I genuinely do. You're telling me that corporations are destroying the environment. That nature is being harmed. That greedy CEOs don't care about anything other than lining their pockets. That politicians are turning a blind eye to the suffering and destruction around them because those same CEOs are keeping them in office.  You're angered by your inability to exert change: that our democracy is being hijacked by the highest bidder. I understand where you're coming from. You're frustrated with the undue role of industry in our political and social systems, with the blatant corruption that exists in society, particularly when corporations can get away with so much.

You think that I'm ignoring you. But I'm not, and I agree with you. I, too, am concerned about the future, about my children and grandchildren: will they have clean air? Will they have enough water? And why doesn't anyone seem to care about this?? I, too, am aghast by the ruling on Citizens United vs FEC. I, too, feel powerless when our elected representatives stand idly by while nature's clock is ticking.

You're frustrated by the fact that the laws we need in society to protect our environment are being ignored because some politicians are ideologically driven to believe that climate change isn't real. These ideologies are fueled by corporate lobbyists, so it's natural that you don't want corporations to be "tinkering" with our food.

You think that I'm a cold, mechanical scientist who is letting this happen. That I'm ignoring the evidence that we're being slowly poisoned because I, too, am part of the system that is letting this destruction happen. You think that GMOs, which I am defending here and are made by the same companies that you distrust so strongly, are the newest evil that they have unleashed on our planet.

I hear you. But here's where I believe we disagree.

We have societal challenges that we'll be facing in the next few decades: global warming and population growth. Both of these bring with them additional challenges that will impact agriculture even further: more plant borne illnesses, more land dedicated to homes/roads/industry, deepening droughts, etc. As we confront these problems in agriculture, we need every tool at our disposal.

You're trying to single out a crop modification technique when the lines between these modifications are incredibly blurry since the end result can be the same. For example, there are herbicide tolerant crops generated by transgenesis (i.e. GMOs) but there are also herbicide tolerant crops generated by mutagenesis. In trying to draw these lines, you may eliminate a powerful, precise, and efficient tool that we may need down the road to help us face these challenges.

You claim that we should have access to an economical, healthy, and safe food supply. But what if in the process of trying to achieve that goal you eliminate a tool that could have actually helped you achieve it? Take for example citrus greening: if we don't find a solution for it in the next few years, our citrus industry may get decimated. There's quite possibly a genetic modification that could address citrus greening. Should we remove the solution from the table just because of the way the modification was introduced?

In the course of writing this blog, I've been put in the uncomfortable position of defending companies

Me

whose actions I may not always agree with, but have developed the transgenic crops that I support. And I do this because I have read no credible evidence to suggest that there's a risk that is uniquely associated with GMOs. I do this because the scientific consensus is strong on the side of GMOs. This is the same scientific consensus that you defend when you speak of global warming. Why do you trust one and not the other? Why do you trust the scientific institutions on one and not the other? If the gas and oil industry is orders of magnitude larger and could not buy the consensus on climate change, then what leads you to believe that the agricultural industry has somehow bought a consensus on GMO safety?

You and I are not so different. We care about many of the same things. The elimination of GMOs is not a silver bullet that will somehow solve the issues in our society. We should focus our efforts on the real issues and not a convenient scapegoat that has been placed in front of us.

Sincerely,

A Mother of a Four-Year-Old Who Believes that She Has a Moral Responsibility to Protect the Planet for Future Generations

Vitamins and nutrients from GMOs

This week, my fellow #Moms4GMOs Kavin Senapathy and I published an article in Forbes magazine (every time I think of "Forbes magazine", I get that Bruno Mars song stuck in my head...). Our article was about how there are documented instances of foods losing their nutritional content when they obtain Non-GMO certification from the Non-GMO Project. There was a LOT we wanted to write, but we had to keep it short so we focused on baby formula. So in this post, I wanted to write a few more of my thoughts on this important topic.

The nutritional fortification of our food is a big deal. Sometimes, food is enriched with nutrients that are lost during food processing, like when nutrients are added back to flour. Then there are foods that are fortified to provide more nutrients for health. Cereals are a good example.

The enrichment and fortification of our food is of importance to public health. Micronutrient deficiencies are an issue in developing nations, as well as underprivileged segments of our population. As such, the World Health Organization has recognized the fortification of food with micronutrients as beneficial to public health because it can “deliver nutrients to large segments of the population without requiring radical changes in food consumption patterns.” (see this publication from WHO and this post from CDC for more info).

So the fact that these nutrients are being removed from food just to obtain a certification that is of no health benefit is mind boggling, because our food is actually becoming less healthy because of it. Genetically modified yeast and bacteria are often used to make micronutrients because they're very efficient. Think of them as vitamin producing mini-factories. At the same time, many vitamins use corn or soy as starting material in manufacturing, and this corn or soy may be genetically modified which is somehow a "health risk"...

Multivitamins. Image from Wikimedia Commons.

The idea that anti-GMO activists believe that this is a risk just blows my mind. Genetically modified corn is used as starting material to make a vitamin. In that process, it's fermented/processed. A pure vitamin is produced. A miniscule, yet nutritionally important amount of the vitamin is added to a food during it's processing (which is why it's a micronutrient). And somehow, people are concerned that Round-Up or some other contaminant made its way through all of that in sufficient quantities to pose a risk?

No doubt there are detractors who argue that fortification and food enrichment does not address the issues that we’re facing with nutritional deficiencies in America; that we should strive towards diets with more fresh fruit, vegetables and whole grains as sources of vitamins and minerals. While I agree this is the ideal and should be our societal goal, we cannot simply reduce the enrichment of our food without having achieved it. The removal of these nutrients due to a marketing label that has no scientific basis puts at-risk individuals in our population in harm’s way.

Defining the GMO debate: Guest post by Mommy PhD

This is a guest post by a fellow #moms4gmos, Dr Alison Bernstein, aka Mommy PhD. You can follow her on twitter (@mommyphd2) or on Facebook.

An old article from Nathanael Johnson on Grist, What I learned from six months of GMO research: None of it matters, from January 2014 showed up in my feed on various social media platforms recently. You may wonder: if none of it matters, why are we still talking about GMOs two years later? To many people, it may not be immediately obvious why this conversation about GMOs is important.

Here’s why I am talking about GMOs and why I think the public conversation about GMOs is important:

Genetic engineering is an important tool for tackling problems of food security around the world.

In the original article, Nathanael wrote that stakes are low in the GMO conversation. I’ll admit, the implications do seem more remote and less severe than they do for, say, the issue of childhood vaccinations. This is especially true for those of us living in the US and other countries where food is abundant and our choices are varied. However, to say the stakes are unimportant seems naive about the realities of food production, particularly in the developing world. Here are a couple of examples of real world problems for which genetic engineering is an important tool to use to solve these problems.

• Opposition to GMOs has delayed the testing and use of Golden Rice (rice fortified with beta-carotene, the precursor of Vitamin A) in populations where children are literally going blind and dying from Vitamin A deficiency. According to the World Health Organization, Vitamin A deficiency is the leading cause of preventable blindness in children. Each year, between a quarter and a half a million Vitamin A-deficient children become blind and, of those, half die within 12 months of going blind. This is most common in Southeast Asia, where rice is a staple of the diet.Rice is low in the dietary precursor of Vitamin A, beta-carotene. Golden Rice produces higher levels of beta-carotene that could provide a significant proportion of the daily required amount of vitamin A. However, anti-GMO opposition has prevented testing and development of this product that could have a dramatic effect on the lives of children in Southeast Asia. Is Golden Rice the only option to provide Vitamin A supplementation? Of course not. Is Golden Rice a very good way to provide Vitamin A supplementation? Probably (we need to study that, but anti-GMO opposition has prevented even studying it). Biofortification is important in crops in other areas of the developing world, where people have little variety in their diets and would greatly benefit from additional nutrients. It seems tragic to disregard a tool that has already been developed while children continue to suffer because some people are afraid of or don’t understand the technology.

• Citrus greening (Huanglongbing) is a disease that kills citrus trees. This is devastating for citrus growers in California, Florida, and other citrus-producing states. In Florida alone, according to a 2012 study from the University of Florida’s Institute of Food and Agriculture Sciences, citrus greening cost Florida $3.63 billion in lost revenues and 6,611 jobs in the first 5 years since citrus greening was detected in Florida. There are non-genetic engineering strategies out there, but there are significant issues in the implementation of those strategies. Despite success with other disease resistant crops (e.g. ringspot-resistant papayas, which saved the Hawaiian papaya industry), researchers and farmers have been unable to move forward with genetically engineered orange trees because of anti-GMO sentiment. In the developing world, disease resistance is especially critical where diseases threaten staple crops that make up a huge proportion of local diets.  As with Vitamin A deficiency, genetic engineering is not the only answer. However, it is a powerful tool that can be used in combination with other tools to address these really serious problems. Ruling out this technology based on fear and misinformation is hurting citrus growers and the economy.

These are just two examples of issues where the stakes are high. While genetic engineering is not the only strategy available to address these problems, other strategies are failing, or not working fast enough. Disregarding an entire set of tools based on fear and ignorance restricts our ability to find solutions to real problems. Using all the tools available to us seems to be the best way to approach these problems.

Pro-GMO: I don’t think it means what you think it means

Many people think “pro-GMO” means pro-everything that biotechnology ever produces. This is not the case, in my experience. “Pro-GMO” is a misnomer in the sense that people who are “pro-GMO” do not typically lump all genetically engineered products together and accept them blindly just because they are genetically engineered. In fact, one of the main reasons for opposition to mandatory labeling is that the proposed  labels group all genetically engineered crops together with no regard to what the product is. This makes a GMO label meaningless. Instead, those who are “pro-GMO” push for the consideration of each product on its own merits, because the method of breeding tells us nothing about the finished product.  

“Pro-GMO” is also somewhat meaningless, because “GMO” itself, as used in the public discourse, is a meaningless term. Genetic engineering is a breeding method, a very precise breeding method. It refers to a specific a set of techniques used to produce a plant with some desired trait. Nearly all the plants (and animals for that matter) that we eat today have been genetically altered by humans through mutagenesis, crossbreeding and artificial selection. The “natural” or wild counterparts of these foods would be unrecognizable to us. To call only food produced by transgenesis “GMOs”, while ignoring all the others makes no sense.  If genetically modified organism means “any organism that has been modified due to human intervention”, then nearly all of our food is a GMO. The method by which that modification occurs is irrelevant. Lumping everything made by transgenesis together creates an arbitrary category that tells us nothing about the end product. The type of breeding used to create a plant tells us nothing about the properties of that plant. An apple is an apple no matter how it was created.

Most people who are “pro-GMO” recognize that not every genetically engineered crop developed will be useful or a good option for every problem. I have never seen someone who is “pro-GMO” say that genetic engineering is the one and only answer to all of the world’s agricultural and food problems. Genetic engineering is just one piece in a larger toolkit for farmers and scientists to address issues of correcting vitamin deficiencies, reducing pesticide use, increasing the sustainability of agriculture, and saving important crops from disease. However, genetic engineering is a powerful technique and to disregard it entirely because a segment of the population doesn’t understand it is shortsighted.

Pro-GMO is really pro-science and pro-evidence-based policy.

To me, the real issue in the GMO conversation is a much broader concern, not exclusive to GMOs or even agriculture. The real issues are not allowing fear and scientific illiteracy to drive policy and promoting evidence-based policies. The GMO conversation is not occurring in isolation. It is part of a larger conversation about science- and evidence-based policy. Those of us who are adamant about GMOs are so because we are advocating for science- and evidence-based decision making in multiple domains. The future of GMOs in agriculture just happens to be a domain that is a matter of considerable public concern at the moment.

We continue to talk about GMOs because to not advocate for evidence-based policies is to allow an environment to persist where it’s acceptable for creationism to be taught in science classes despite overwhelming scientific consensus on evolution; for politicians to do nothing to combat global warming despite overwhelming scientific consensus on global warming; for parents to choose not to vaccinate their children, contributing to outbreaks of preventable diseases, despite overwhelming scientific consensus on the safety and efficacy of vaccines; and for quacks to take advantage of desperate people by selling fake cures and false hope for cancer, autism and other real and fabricated diseases. We advocate for science and evidence-based policy about GMOs because we advocate for this in all areas. Note: This post was originally published in the Sound of Science Blog in October 2015.

Dear Christie Brinkley: We Aren’t Guinea Pigs

This letter is co-written by Mommy, PhD and BioChica (Dr Alison Bernstein and Dr Layla Katiraee. For more information about the authors, please see the end of the letter). Dear Christie,

We read this week about your new book and watched your interview on FOX Business. As scientists and science communicators, we are concerned that, while your motivations to help people eat healthy diets is honorable, your knowledge of genetic engineering, pesticide toxicity and the agricultural industry is not accurate. We are part of a group of moms (#Moms4GMOs) who also want to make healthy choices for ourselves and our families. We have previously reached out to other celebrities who are using their public platforms to spread misinformation and fear about the food supply in the US.

In our original letter, we addressed many of the concerns that you and others have raised about genetically engineered crops and pesticides. We hope that you will take the time to read the letter and the references we provided. There are a couple of points that were highlighted in your interview that we would like to discuss briefly here.

Colony Collapse Disorder is caused by many things, but GMOs are not one of them.

As you may know, much of our food relies on pollination by bees, so the health of these insects impacts all of us. Colony collapse disorder affecting honey bees is a topic of much controversy. This phenomenon is defined by the USDA as “a dead colony with no adult bees or dead bee bodies but with a live queen and usually honey and immature bees still present”. There are many theories on what may be causing CCD; the primary culprits seem to be parasites like the Varroa mite and flowerless landscapes, together with other factors, including exposure to pesticides and stress due to transportation. However, exposure to GMOs does not rank among the possible reasons underlying CCD.

Attempts to link GMOs to CCD have commonly focused on two factors: glyphosate and worm-resistant traits. Glyphosate, which is an herbicide used with some varieties of GMOs and is commonly used in gardens and parks around the country, has been examined to determine if it impacts honeybee health. A recent study examined the impact of the commercial formulations of 42 common pesticides on honeybees at concentrations actually used in the field. Due to the popularity of glyphosate, this herbicide was also included in the study. The study concluded that, while some pesticides are extremely toxic to bees, glyphosate was not harmful to their health.

Worm-resistant corn (commonly referred to as Bt-corn) is designed to kill the larval stage of many damaging insects, such as caterpillars, as they chew on the corn leaves. These crops have also been studied to determine if they impact honeybee health: a meta-analysis published several years ago concluded that their research “support[s] safety assessments that have not detected any direct negative effects” of the trait on the honeybee.

For more information on the science of CCD, we recommend these articles:

• http://scientificbeekeeping.com/sick-bees-part-18e-colony-collapse-revisited-genetically-modified-plants/
• http://thoughtscapism.com/2015/10/14/if-you-care-about-bees-look-past-neonicotinoids/
• http://www.thefarmersdaughterusa.com/2015/06/the-real-buzz-on-bee-pocalypse.html
• http://www.biofortified.org/2015/08/better-know-a-scientist-entomologist-amelia-jordan/

GMOs are the most tested and regulated food items: we are not guinea pigs.

The term “GMO” is commonly used to denote a crop or ingredient that is made using a laboratory technique known as “transgenesis”. But there are many different types of GMOs: non-browning apples, nutrient fortified rice, virus-resistant papayas, herbicide-tolerant soy, and pest-resistant corn. These cannot all be lumped into a single category. To underscore that the process is irrelevant and it is the trait that is important, herbicide-tolerant sunflowers have also been developed using traditional methods by the German chemical producer BASF and Dupont. By current rules, herbicide-resistant crops developed with targeted genetic engineering undergo extensive testing prior to being sold, while herbicide resistant crops developed by traditional breeding require no testing. In fact, genetically engineered food items are the most tested and regulated food in the market. No other foods undergo premarket approval by the EPA, FDA and USDA.

The sheer volume of data and number of studies on different traits used in biotech crops may surprise you. As a simple exercise, searching the NIH’s database of scientific studies for “MON810”, which is the trait that gives corn resistance to worms, identifies over 170 studies that have examined this trait. These range from multi-generational feeding studies to molecular analyses of the protein that makes the corn resist worms. Thousands of scientists around the world are dedicating their efforts to the development and testing of these crops, which defies notions implying that these crops are released into the market without being thoroughly tested.

For information about studies on GMOs and worldwide approvals of genetically engineered crops, check out these two databases.

• Genera: http://genera.biofortified.org/
• The International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications GM Approval Database: http://www.isaaa.org/gmapprovaldatabase/default.asp

The US food supply is safe, regardless of the breeding or farming method used.

We read about your adoption of an organic diet over concerns about possible links between GMOs and pesticides to sterility and breast cancer. Pesticides are important tools in agriculture, which farmers use judiciously depending on many factors including the type of pest and the type of crop, among many others. It is important to know that organic food production uses pesticides as well, and that pesticide residues in the US on non-organic produce are far below safety limits, but we have no data to compare it to for residues on organic produce. Furthermore, there’s no conclusive evidence suggesting that adopting an organic diet is significantly healthier (see meta-analyses here and here, and here and here for discussion of this research). Each pesticide has its pros and cons, and not using any pesticide at all can have significant consequences, including lower crop yields.

Despite searching for information, we found little to no credible evidence linking sterility or breast cancer to GMOs. It is a basic concept of scientific research that, when examining a cause-effect relationship between two items, the null hypothesis is what you start with - that there is no connection between the two items. This means that until someone comes up with a study showing that A causes B, then the null hypothesis stands: A does not cause B. Without this important principle, you could propose any hypothesis and people would have to “prove you wrong”. Instead, the burden of proof falls on those proposing a relationship between two items; they must provide evidence for that hypothesis.

Additionally, hypotheses are not invented out of whole cloth; they are based on previous knowledge. In considering how seriously to take a hypothesis, scientists consider plausibility, possible mechanisms, and what we already know about the subject. When a hypothesis has no plausible biological mechanism by which A can cause B, based on everything that we already know about biology, the burden of proof is even higher on those proposing the relationship between A and B and these hypotheses are often dismissed. This requirement for proof underlies the popular phrase “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence”. In the case of GMOs, breast cancer, and sterility: despite many studies of the health effects of GMOs, there is no evidence for a link to breast cancer or sterility and no plausible mechanism to explain such a link. At a minimum, scientists would need to have seen an increase in these things since the introduction of the first GMO in 1996. However, neither breast cancer rates nor infertility have increased since 1996. Thus, scientists have no evidence that GMOs are in any way associated with breast cancer or sterility and no plausible reason to hypothesize that they are. All the current evidence shows that GMO food is as safe as non-GMO food.

In North America, we have the luxury of having an abundant food supply with many options and choices. This includes the choice of being able to avoid GMOs entirely by adopting an organic diet, which excludes  genetically engineered crops and ingredients derived from them. However, in areas of the world where such abundance does not exist, GMOs can be extremely beneficial. GMOs may not solve world hunger, eliminate global warming, or ward off pests, but these crops will help us as we face these challenges. Disregarding an entire set of tools, based on the fears and privilege of those of us fortunate enough to have these choices, restricts the ability of farmers and scientists around the world to find solutions to real problems in agriculture.

Farmers have written about how they make their choices regarding pesticide use, and we encourage you to check out these resources:

• What are pesticides, and why do we use them on the farm?
• Why do farmers apply pesticides?
• How much glyphosate is sprayed on our crops?

To learn about the benefits of GMOs, see:

• Bt cotton cuts pesticide poisoning
• Genetically modified crops and food security
• Environmental impacts of genetically modified crops
• The Promise of GMOs: Nutrition

Talk to farmers and scientists about genetic engineering

From our original letter:

“Please, don’t co-opt motherhood and wield your fame to oppose beneficial technologies like genetic engineering. Certain celebrities have misled thousands of parents into thinking that vaccines are harmful, and we see the same pattern of misinformation repeating itself here. When GMOs are stigmatized, farmers and consumers aren’t able to benefit from much-needed advancements like plants with increased nutrients, or plants that can adapt to changing environmental stresses.

We, like millions of other Americans, line up to see your movies, and respect your occupation. Though our jobs differ, we share a common goal: to raise healthy, happy, successful kids. As moms we feel it is our responsibility to use the best available information to protect our children’s health, and to let the best science inform the choices we make for our families. We ask you to take the time to learn about how genetic engineering is being used by farmers, and the potential it has to help other moms raise healthy, happy, successful kids.

You have the opportunity to influence millions of people, so please use that influence responsibly, and ensure that your advocacy is supported by facts, not fear.”

We would like to extend the same invitation to you: talk to scientists, talk to farmers, talk to the experts in these fields. Arm yourself with knowledge, not fear, to help you make informed, healthy choices.

Sincerely,

Alison and Layla

About the letter writers:

• Dr. Alison Bernstein (aka Mommy PhD) is a scientist, writer, and mother of two (ages 7 and 2).
• Dr. Layla Katiraee is a scientist, writer at FrankenFoodFacts and Biology Fortified, and mother of a 3-year-old.