Monsanto, Patents and Seeds - Part 3

From Wikimedia Commons

It's a Lazy Sunday afternoon. The kid is napping after I caved and gave him the "chupón". And since the Chroni-what!-cles of Narnia isn't playing, it's a perfect time to research patents and lawsuits! YAY!

This is the last post in this series. Previously, I covered agreements between Ag companies and farmers, as well as Terminator gene technology. I also wrote about what is arguably the most famous lawsuit that Monsanto has brought against a farmer (Monsanto vs Schmeiser). Throughout this whole time, I've been investigating the claim that Monsanto sues farmers whose fields get inadvertently contaminated with its seeds.

In my search for a case that Monsanto may have unfairly brought to a farmer, I came across a story that I think seals the deal on this whole question. In a court case from 2013, known as OSGATA vs Monsanto, a coalition of organic farmers, seed distributors and anti-GMO organizations tried to invalidate 23 of Monsanto's patents. The case's background states that these groups do not want to use/sell transgenic seeds or glyphosate. However, their concern is that if they do become contaminated "they could quite perversely also be accused of patent infringement by the company responsible for the transgenic seed that contaminates them".

The intro to the court document explains that in 2011, Organic seed growers went before a judge in the Southern District of New York stating that they had started growing conventional produce since the threat of contamination from GMO was so high. They had to take expensive precautions such as creating a buffer zone, so that they wouldn't be sued by Monsanto. One grower testified to the fact that the only reason why he grows conventional seeds is the threat of a lawsuit from Monsanto, and if this threat didn't exist then he would go back to growing organic seeds. So, these growers requested Monsanto to “expressly waive any claim for patent infringement [Monsanto] may ever have against [appellants] and memorialize that waiver by providing a written covenant not to sue." The main issue was the fact that Monsanto's promise to never sue a farmer whose fields have been (unknowingly) contaminated by their seeds was a statement on their website. It wasn't a law. It wasn't something that they had sworn to under oath. It was just something on their webpage which, at the end of the day, could be false advertising or a PR gimmick. In back-and-forths between lawyers, Monsanto wrote that they have no reason to go after farmers for low level contamination because there's no financial incentive, and that if the motives of the growers/farmers is true (i.e. that they don't intend to use/sell transgenic seeds), then their fear of a lawsuit is unreasonable. The judge threw out the case based on the fact that "these circumstances do not amount to a substantial controversy and . . . there has been no injury traceable to defendants". All this was just in the 2011 district court case.

The case then goes to the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, whose court documents are the ones I'm summarizing. The discussion states that “jurisdiction generally will not arise merely on the basis that a party learns of the existence of a patent owned by another or even perceives such a patent to pose a risk of infringement.” It goes on to state that the appellants have to demonstrate that there's a substantial risk that harm may occur or that they have to go through expenses/costs to mitigate those risks.

Now, here's what blows my mind: the Organic growers/seed distributors (OSGATA) concede that Monsanto has never threatened to sue them. OSGATA states that their fear is based on the fact that Monsanto has taken 144 growers/sellers to court and settled 700 additional cases out of court. Monsanto argues that none of these cases have been due to inadvertent contamination.

So OSGATA was not able to demonstrate that Monsanto had ever sued due to the inadvertent use of their seeds. Kuh. Ray. Zee.

However, the court conceded that the way patent laws are written, that using even a small amount of a patented material without authorization could constitute patent infringement. For the purposes of the appeal, the judge proceeded with the ruling based on the assumption that inadvertent contamination constitutes patent infringement, and that inadvertent contamination was inevitable (Monsanto also acknowledged that cross-contamination was a possibility).

The record states that this whole argument is moot if Monsanto really doesn't intend to sue. Apparently, the Supreme Court has recognized that a covenant not to sue nullifies a controversy between parties. Monsanto has a written policy on their website against inadvertent contamination and the court documents record Monsanto's position on this whole argument. Monsanto and the organic growers agree that "trace amounts" means approximately 1% contamination. The ruling states that although this is not a covenant not to sue, it has a similar effect and constitutes a judicial estoppel (I had to look this one up on Wikipedia. It means that you can't contradict something that's been established as truth by yourself or others).

OSGATA stated that Monsanto's refusal to provide a covenant had a "chilling effect" and that farmers/growers would have to forgo the activities that they would have otherwise liked to pursue. The judge stated that a "chilling effect" isn't something tangible, that the appellants need to have something more specific than that, and that the future harm described is speculative and hypothetical.

The court ruling ends with this statement in the concluding paragraph: "the appellants have alleged no concrete plans or activities to use or sell greater than trace amounts of modified seed, and accordingly fail to show any risk of suit on that basis. The appellants therefore lack an essential element of standing."

The organic movement considered this case to be a partial victory because they now had in writing that Monsanto would never sue them for inadvertent contamination. But I'm not sure I understand this... I think you'd have to be so paranoid about what Monsanto might do that you'd be willing to incur massive legal fees to make sure that a hypothetical never happens, even when you can't produce proof that it might.

So how is it that this myth about Monsanto suing farmers still circulates? Based on the 30 minutes that I saw from the movie "David vs Monsanto", you could believe that Monsanto plants evidence and works with testing companies to ensure that you your testing is >1%. You could believe that the 700 court cases that were settled out of court were against farmers who were inadvertently contaminated, but just didn't have the money to fight Monsanto in court. You could believe that all the court cases had judges and witnesses who were paid off by Monsanto. You could also believe that Monsanto is really a modern mafia who will break your kneecaps if you don't buy their seeds.

My perspective on this is that Monsanto is a huge company that has better things to do than to sue the small farmer who inadvertently uses their seeds. Think about the negative publicity that it would mean for them. From a practical perspective, it would probably represent a greater expense to them in legal fees than what they would recoup through the settlement or court case. From a paranoid perspective, they're too busy collecting the teardrops from orphaned field-working toddlers for use in the GMO creation process.

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Edited on Nov 6th, 2015 to clarify that the OSGATA case was considered a partial victory by organic food advocates, not a complete victory. See comments.

Review of "GMO Myths and Truths" - Part 1

During a recent twitter exchange, I was sent a document entitled "GMO Myths and Truths: An evidence-based examination of the claims made for the safety and efficacy of genetically modified crops". The document was sent to me as evidence that many scientists are opposed to GMOs. I will be reviewing this 123 page document in its current version (1.3b), in several parts.

My delicious Urban Rabbit lunch salad

The document has three authors. The first author has a PhD in Molecular Genetics, is well published, and works on developing human gene therapies. The second author is an editor at GM Watch and a research director at Earth Open Source (who put together the document). The third author, has a PhD in molecular genetics, and is also the founder and CSO at a GMO testing and certification company. He is also the co-founder of Earth Open Source. Earth Open Source is an anti-GMO organization, whose website's main page includes the infamous "lumpy rat" pictures from Seralini's now-retracted article (for my views on the retraction of the study, please see here). I highlight the background of the authors to note that there are only 2 scientists, one of whom benefits financially from anti-GMO sentiments.

The first section of the document outlines that although proponents of GMOs state that the genetic engineering process is just an extension of natural breeding, is safer than mutagenesis, and more precise than traditional cross-hybridization, it actually isn't. They admit that the genetic engineering process has become better and more precise, but you can still cause unintended consequences. They list a whole slew of unintended consequences that could happen. The word "could" is key in this section.

Well, we've gotten better at a lot of different things over the past few decades. As mentioned, the authors admit that we've gotten better at creating transgenic crop, but they omit that we've gotten astronomically better at detecting unintended consequences. Technologies such as whole genome sequencing and microarrays are used because of the whole "we don't know what we don't know" phenomenon. These technologies will allow you to analyze RNA and DNA so that you can identify mutations that you didn't intend to make or RNA hybrids that you were unaware of. In a recent Q&A with the Arctic Apple company on GMO Skepti-Forum, Arctic Apple's staff mentioned that they had the genome of their apple sequenced (for a review of the Arctic Apple, please see here). All 750 million bases of it. And their conclusion was that there were no unintended mutations. So it's not surprising that in an online search, I was able to find out that companies such as Monsanto and Dow Agro use these technologies as well to study GMOs.

As I understand it, you make many different transgenic lines in the process of making a GMO and you test them to find out which ones are expressing the gene you're interested in at the level you desire and in an appropriate location. Yes, the authors of the document provide information on the many ways things could go wrong, but that's why a transgenic plant isn't made in a single shot. I sort of feel that this section in the document is like making a giant list of all the parts in your car that could break down and then concluding that you shouldn't drive your car... (Spouse, I'm reminded that my car is making a weird humming sound. Could you check it out?)

There are a few segments on mutagenesis and cis-genesis in the document, and I've previously reviewed this topic here (briefly, cis-genesis is taking a gene from the same species and modifying it. Mutagenesis is using chemicals/radioactivity to modify a trait within a species. Plants derived through mutagenesis are not considered GMOs, but are lumped under "conventionally bred organisms"). The authors are of the opinion that these technologies are just as risky as transgenesis, and should be regulated and tested. My personal opinion on this topic is that the technology used to generate the trait shouldn't matter, and that the degree of regulation/testing should depend on the trait itself.

Section 1 of the document boils down to a difference of opinion between these two authors and many other scientists. The authors conclude the first section stating that using genetic engineering to create new strains is unnecessary, because conventional breeding can meet crop breeding needs. Well, I'm not sure that's accurate, unless you discard transgenesis altogether, and I think that many scientists would disagree with this point of view. I feel that this whole section was like a side-by-side comparison of using a knife vs using a food processor, and then concluding that you don't need a food processor because the knife can do the same thing, but stressing all the additional risks when you use the food processor such as the possibility of getting electrocuted, shocked, etc. The document skipped over the benefits of the food processor and its strengths, and failed to highlight the drawbacks of a knife.

Section 2 questions the idea of "substantial equivalence". I have to read all the papers that they're citing, so I'll leave that for another day. For now, Baby Boy is being weaned off his pacifier and he's not happy about it, so I've gotta boot.

David vs Monsanto - Part 2 of "Patents and Seeds"

Canola Fields
Image from Wikimedia Commons

This is part 2 of a multi-part series on Patents and Seeds. Previously, I covered the basics, including agreements between farmers and seeds suppliers, as well as the Schwarzeneggar gene (i.e. Terminator). This week, I'll mostly be writing about lawsuits between farmers and the patent holders on seeds.

According to Monsanto, they have never sued a farmer who has inadvertently used their seeds (this is a statement whose validity I'll explore throughout the series). They have, however, sued farmers who have allegedly replanted Monsanto seeds with knowledge of what they were doing. The most famous of these cases is against Canadian farmer Percy Schmeiser, whose story is now the subject of a documentary made by Journeyman Pictures "David versus Monsanto". This movie production company is also behind the documentary "Designer Babies & Gene Robbery", so I'm not sure how unbiased their productions may be. I actually watched a good chunk of the movie (which is just over 1 hour and freely available here) and my comments on it are below.

Anyway, here's a summary of the case as best I could tell based on court documents (see Section II entitled "Salient Facts" in the Canadian Supreme Court Case and the Federal Court Case): Mr Schmeiser had been a farmer in Saskatchewan for over 50 years (if you haven't been, you should go. Saskatoon is lovely). He grew canola, among other crops. He saved seeds from a portion of his field every year for planting the following year. In the mid-90's, a bunch of his neighbours switched to Round-Up Ready (RR) canola. He never purchased a license to plant the crop. In 1998, testing revealed that >90% of his 1000 acres were Round-Up Ready. The Federal court case states that Mr Schmeiser did not deny the presence of GM canola on his field but he claims that he did not deliberately plant or deliberately cause the planting of the seeds (see paragraph 11 of the document). Mr Schmeiser additionally stated that he had suffered substantial damage and loss due to the GM canola, because his own strain that he had been developing over the course of many years got contaminated. Additionally, he argued that in order to have infringed upon the patent, he must have sprayed his fields with Round-Up, and he claims that he did not do this. Finally, Mr Schmeiser's defense team argued that by releasing the gene into the environment in an uncontrolled manner, Monsanto had lost or waived their rights to an exclusive patent.

So Mr Schmeiser found out that there was Round-Up Ready growing on his field in 1997. He routinely sprayed the area around power-poles and ditches, and he noticed that a portion of the plants he had sprayed had survived the spraying, i.e. were Round-Up resistant (keep in mind that Round-Up is used to kill grass and plants - see previous post for more info on Round-Up). So he then conducted a test. He sprayed 3-4 acres of field along the roadside with Round-Up, and he noticed that about 60% of them survived, with a higher density along the roadside. This road is used by his neighbours for delivery/transport of canola seeds. He then used the seeds from that field, including the swath tested for Round-Up, to plant the following year's crop.

Mr Schmeiser's canola was tested by a private firm who conducts random audits of canola crops. The farms are either identified by Monsanto among their licensed farmers, or they receive anonymous tips/complaints. The private firm received an anonymous tip from someone who claimed that Mr Schmeiser was growing Round-Up Ready canola, when he didn't have the license for it.

Seriously... Wouldn't this make a fantastic whodunnit movie?? I can just imagine Clint Eastwood as Mr Schmeiser. And that anonymous tip would be left by someone who's face you can't see and is muffling their voice with a handkerchief, and later on in the trial you recognize the handkerchief sticking out of the Monsanto lawyer's pocket (played by Kevin Spacey). But the next-door neighbour also has the same handkerchief, so who was it??? But let's continue investigating this fascinating saga!!

Between 1997-1998, a series of samples were taken and tested. Some were by court order, but the first series were just from road-side samples (allegedly taken without trespassing, although this is heavily contested in the documentary). The samples showed from 0-98% Round-up tolerant canola. In 1999, Mr Schmeiser was advised to buy new seeds, since the lawsuit had started.

The judge in the Federal Court Case wrote that Mr Schmeiser's argument that Monsanto cannot control their patent/products defies all evidence, including the fact that Monsanto tests crops/fields, and removes "plants from fields of other farmers who complained of undesired spread of Roundup Ready canola to their fields." Two farmers testified that they had called Monsanto to have unwanted crops removed from their field, which had been done (in the documentary, Mr Schmeiser said that all the witnesses had been paid off by Monsanto). The judge also stated that Mr Schmeiser himself admitted to have kept seeds that had been shown to be Round-Up Resistant for replanting. The judge agreed with expert testimony that the wind/birds/bees alone would not account for the high concentration of GM crop found on the field, therefore, the patent had been infringed upon. He dismissed Mr Schmeiser's claim that in order for Monsanto's patent to be infringed upon, it would have required his fields to be sprayed with Round-up.

When it came to the all-important topic of money, the judge took middle ground. He threw out Monsanto's claim for exemplary damages. Monsanto was also seeking $105,000 representing the profit that Mr Schmeiser made on Monsanto's seeds/patent. The judge said that this was too high and asked for Mr Schmeiser and Monsanto to agree to a mutually beneficial amount within a given time period.

That's the Federal case. In the movie version that I'm writing in my mind, there's a fictional character (Mr Schmeiser's daughter) played by Emma Stone. She's a sassy, high-strung girl who always speaks her mind, and oddly enough, her lines in the movie sound a lot like my opinion. At some climactic point in the movie, she turns to her dad and says "Seriously Dad? You replanted those seeds and you're going to put up a fight? Why not just settle?? Do we really need this?"

But somehow, Clint Eastwood, aka Mr Schmeiser, keeps fighting and takes it all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada. Cut to a screenshot of Parliament Hill with the Canadian flag flying, and the tulips in full bloom. Ottawa's a beautiful place if you haven't visited. You should go. And yes, you're all thinking it so let's just get it out in the open: I'm a shill for Travel Canada :)

So what happened at the Supreme Court? The ruling was in favor of Monsanto, but when you read the court document, quite a few of the judges wrote partially in favor of Mr Schmeiser. The word "partially" is important here, because they didn't agree with all his arguments. The biggest issue that the judges had was whether or not higher life forms are patentable. Mr Schmeiser's team had argued that the patent was over the gene and the seed, not over the plant because plants are not patentable as higher life forms. Mr Schmeiser had ultimately "used" the canola plant and not the seed (at least I think that's what the court documents say... All this legalese is pretty new to me). A few of the Justices agreed with this argument, but not the majority. Ultimately, the majority of the Justices ruled that Mr Schmeiser had infringed on the patent by keeping and replanting the seed.

To better understand Mr Schmeiser's point of view, I watched the documentary. Actually, I only watched 30 minutes of it, because so much of what was said contradicted the official court documents. Within the first 5 minutes, Mr Schmeiser says (I transcribed the following quote from the movie): "This is what the judge ruled. Number One: If you are contaminated against your wishes by Monsanto's GMOs, you no longer own your seeds or plants, they become the ownership of a corporation, in this case Monsanto. He also ruled we were not allowed to use our seeds or plants again. He also ruled that all our profit from our 1998 canola crop goes to Monsanto."  Mr Schmeiser's point of view is that Round-Up resistant canola was introduced without much testing and that government officials were blinded by Monsanto's promise of better yields and more nutritious crops (which isn't factual, since Round-Up Ready's whole premise is that it is nutritionally equivalent). Mr Schmeiser also stated that he had developed his own strain of canola, which had taken him 50 years to develop, and that Monsanto's contamination of his fields destroyed all his work and effort (his claim to this unique strain was also in the Federal court case). I have to be honest: if you like conspiracy theories, you'll be drooling throughout this entire film. It's a goldmine. The documentary also interviewed a few other farmers, but I can't comment on their cases since I haven't read their court documents.

There are quite a few misleading "facts" in the documentary. In the 30 minutes that I watched, not once did it mention that Mr Schmeiser had replanted the Round-Up Ready seeds with full knowledge of what they were. It makes you doubt the awesomeness of his own canola strain. In the court documents that I read, no where did it state that if a farmer's field is contaminated against his wishes, then the seeds/profits go to Monsanto. If this is in a separate court document or perhaps in a section of the proceedings that I glossed over, it would be great if someone could send it to me. The documentary fails to address the laws surrounding patents. The fact of the matter is that Monsanto's seeds are patented, and if you're a farmer and you don't like Monsanto's business practices, then you don't have to plant Monsanto's seeds.

Well, I'm not sure how my movie would end. Maybe with a scene of Clint Eastwood staring over his field of canola and watching in despair as the wind from his neighbour's fields sweep towards his own? So, here's a thought, which I know many people out there also share. Monsanto has promised not to use its Terminator gene technology out of pressure from many groups. I understand that one of the arguments against Terminator technology is the fact that it would force farmers in developing nations to repurchase seeds, even if it's being used for subsistence farming.  But most farmers in developed countries already buy new seeds every year, whether these seeds are genetically modified or not. So why not create a strain of genetically modified crops with Terminator technology and market it only in developed nations? Wouldn't this be easier for both farmers, those growing conventional crops as well as organic farmers? These would decrease the amount of "genetic contamination" and all the hassles that come with it for both sides, and improve the success of co-existence? What are your thoughts on this?

So that's just a single case. For my next post on this topic, I'll keep exploring the topic of whether Monsanto has ever sued a farmer who inadvertently used their seeds.

On a personal note, the web (also known as a series of tubes) turned 25 this week, so I want to wish it a very happy birthday and acknowledge that I wouldn't be able to write this blog or even do research if it weren't around. It's pretty awesome that I can access Canadian Federal Court cases out in Northern California. But, the web can definitely be obnoxious and a pain in the rear. However, in the end, I've lived in 3 different continents and don't live anywhere close to my family, and its the interwebz that has made it possible by making it less lonely. My nephew thought that I lived in a place called "Skype" for the longest time, and my kid is headed in the same direction. Here's hopin' that the next 25 years fill it with more of the useful stuff than the toxic guck :)

Getting E. coli poisoning from GMOs

I can't sleep. It's 1:00AM, and instead of tossing and turning and keeping my husband awake, I've opted for exhausting myself by writing.

This week's post is brought to you courtesy of Twitter. It all started when my twitter feed linked me to a doozy of a story, about how you can get E. coli poisoning from GMOs. The author outlines that E.coli is used during the course of genetic engineering to replicate DNA since it is highly prolific. But, the author highlights, it is also able to transfer DNA laterally to and from other species. Then the author says: "It is possible that a mutated form of e-coli resulting from the cloning process used in creating GMOs could get into the gut of a person or animal that eats a transgenic plant." The author then highlights that Dupont has partnered with the USDA in "identifying hard-to-identify strains of E.coli". The theory comes full circle with the statement: "with this convenient partnership, even if harmful strains of e-coli relating to GMOs are discovered, it is likely that the public will never hear it from the USDA or DuPont."

I feel like the author of this post missed out on an opportunity to write for the X-files a few years back.

I then spent two days with the individuals posting these articles trying to discover how this could happen, but it never when beyond "the YUK factor" of using E.coli in generating our food. I even offered a 1 hour tutorial to share information on E.coli's use in genetic engineering, which got turned down (I wonder how my previous customers would feel if they knew that I was offering consulting services FOR FREE on the interwebz). What I did notice was that there were a couple of comments that probably made great memes for someone which got retweeted a whole bunch of times. They were mostly about how our babies are being exposed to E.coli and how our GMO corn is contaminated with E.coli. YUK.

To quote one of my colleagues, "my biggest concern is the unpredictability of evolutionary mutability, and the off-target effect of E. coli-mediated GMO excrutabilation likely resulting in contamination/Monsantinization of our 1.21 gigawatt-phase diarrhea chute." Doesn't make sense? Well, neither does the spontaneous mutation of E.coli from GMOs.

Since my tutorial was turned down, I will write down a few facts about E.coli's use in genetic engineering here.

• E.coli is used in the lab specifically because the strain used IS NOT HARMFUL. The non-virulent nature of the bacteria isn't due to a mutation that might spontaneously arise to make it virulent again. There are entire genes that are different between virulent and non-virulent strains of E.coli. In fact, this paper that looked at 61 different strains of E.coli found that only 80% of their genomes are in common. That's much less than the >95% that we share in common with chimps.  
• E.coli is used in the lab because it grows like crazy. When it replicates it also copies its DNA.
• If you add the DNA that you're interested in studying to E.coli's DNA, then that will also replicate.
• Why would you do this? Well, many procedures in the lab require a lot of DNA (by "a lot", I actually mean microgram or nanogram quantities. But for a molecular biologist, that's a lot). So how else can you get that much DNA that you're interested in? The issue of amplifying and copying DNA is not unique to the process of making GMOs. So the technique of adding/removing DNA from E.coli, also known as cloning, is very common.
• Here's an extremely simplistic overview of E.coli cloning: to add/remove DNA, you add an enzyme that cuts your gene of interest (enzyme is known as "restriction enzyme"). Then you purify the piece that was cut. The way that your gene was cut will be in a specific pattern, similar to that of a puzzle piece. Then, you cut the bacterial DNA with the same enzyme so that the two puzzle pieces will fit together. The pieces get "glued" together with yet another enzyme known as a "ligase". The glued piece of DNA goes into the bacteria, which then replicates. A few hours later... voila!! You have lots of bacteria that have lots of your DNA of interest.
• But then, and here's the part that the authors of the lovely article above fail to mention, you have to get your DNA out of the E.coli. To get the DNA out of the bacteria, by definition, involves killing the bacteria. You pop the bacteria open, you clean up the goop, and you have bacterial DNA. THEN, you have to cut the DNA again so that you can get that piece of DNA that you were trying to amplify all along. So you leave the E.coli DNA behind, which again, was inconveniently left out in the article above. I've even made a pretty picture :)


• If you add DNA for entire genes to bacteria, sometimes they can actually produce that protein. This is the life-saving technology used to generate insulin, many synthetic vitamins, and drugs. In the case of insulin, the strain of bacteria used is E.coli. And despite my searches on the web, I've been unable to find a case of someone getting E.coli poisoning from insulin. Try telling a diabetic that there's a YUK factor when it comes to their insulin.

So, today (which, at 4AM is actually yesterday) is International Women's Day and I'm going to end with a very personal comment here: To my fellow women. To all the brave moms out there doing their best, just like me. You do the groundbreaking women in science an immense disservice by willingly choosing to remain ignorant on a topic and then perpetuating erroneous information. We women in science do what we do only because there was a Rosalind Franklin and a Nettie Stevens who paved the way for us. And you're dropping shards of glass on that path. I kid you not. When you're up-in-arms about babies being exposed to E.coli through GMOs, you spread misinformation, perhaps even prey on the susceptibilities of other moms, and you perpetuate decade-old stereotypes about gender. The specific one I refer to is depicted in this oft-used clip from the Simpsons, where Mrs Lovejoy appears in town-hall meetings where progressive topics are addressed screaming "Think of the children!" and pulling her hair out. The specific stereotype I refer to is that we are emotionally driven creatures who sacrifice logic and common-sense when it comes to the safety of our children. Aren't we supposed to be helping each other out? Aren't we supposed to be part of a brighter generation of women who can be moms AND be smart? So why is it that you willingly turn down knowledge and choose to spew gibberish about how "GMOs are changing our evolution"? To paraphrase a recent interview I saw with Neil deGrasse Tyson, I can't blame you if you are unaware of scientific facts and truths. That is probably just a factor of the education system that exists today. However (and this part is my own opinion, not Dr. Tyson's), I can blame you if someone tries to correct you and educate you on these scientific truths and you choose to ignore them.

So let me make this abundantly clear: there is NOTHING, let me repeat that: NOTHING, written in that article about the risks and dangers of E.coli's use in genetic engineering that is accurate. If you want to argue against GMOs, please use arguments that are evidence based and do not propagate scientific illiteracy. Think of the children!

Patents and Seeds

From Wikimedia Commons

One of the common criticisms that I read about "Big Ag" is that our food should not be patented. This is the first in a multi-post series looking into the topic of intellectual property surrounding seeds.

I have a few disclaimers here. First of all, there are very few scientific publications on the topic of seed patents. So most of my research was done reading the information from court cases, company websites, Wikipedia, and news sources. Second of all, I work for biotech companies who are able to make their profits and pay me due to patenting laws. As my husband says to the kid every morning when I leave the house "Mommy is going to go bring home the bacon" (on some joyous occasions, that's a figurative AND literal statement.... Mmmmmm... Bacon-topped meat loaf...). I am only able to do so because the companies I work for make unique products whose patents are vigorously protected and defended. Even when I went through grad school, we signed documents regarding patents (and how anything we discovered would be property of the University/Hospital). I work on products that take years to make, millions of dollars in investments, and countless hours of work from teams of researchers. To have that reverse engineered and remade elsewhere in a few months would be disrespectful to our work and disingenuous at best. As such, I believe that patents have a purpose, which is the same purpose as copyrights/patents on art, music, electronics, and software: to respect the work of its authors. But I agree with the President's statement at the State of the Union address, where he mentioned that patent laws need to be reformed, because frankly, some patents are just ridiculous (I was quite happy the Supreme Court ruled against the patenting of naturally occurring genes).

With that in mind, let's investigate the topic of intellectual property surrounding seeds.

I began by reading the Wikipedia entry on the International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV), as well as UPOV's website. This organization was established about 50 years ago with the express purpose of protecting new varieties of plants with Intellectual Property laws. The organization has a long list of member nations, including the US, Canada, Chile, and many nations in the EU. Interestingly, the plants protected under its laws are not only genetically modified plants, but also plants generated through traditional breeding (see previous post on this topic). In order to be granted breeder's rights, the plant variety must be new, distinct, and must be genetically stable and uniform (basically meaning that each seed should be genetically identical to the next). The breeder's rights are then protected through legislation in each member nation. Breeders can license their technology to other companies or institutions.

There are also exemptions, including uses such as research and subsistence farming. My understanding of that is if I plant a few seeds in my backyard for my family and don't sell anything, then I'm not violating any laws. So I think you're in the clear if you plant seeds from the delicious butternut squash you bought at the grocery store.

Before moving on, let me reiterate that GM seeds are not the only plants to have patents. Check out this database with a whole slew of patents, most of which are not transgenic plants. The patenting of seeds is much broader than just GM crops. Keep in mind that developing a novel traditionally bred plant also takes much research and trial/error. Pluots didn't just appear in a day :) During a trip to Singapore, we learned that they have research facilities dedicated to generating new orchid strains and that orchid sales are a major source of income to the nation, so decorative plants are also the result of biotech.

Next question: how do breeders make their money if you can just replant seeds from one year to the next?

Before I started writing FrankenFoodFacts, I had heard about Terminator Gene technology and had been under the impression that all genetically modified seeds used this technology. If you haven't heard about it, it's a seed from the future that returns to save the world from doom. Hilarious!! Actually, the gene that is modified in these crops makes the seeds sterile, so you would not be able to replant seeds from one year's crop to the next. It would effectively force farmers to repurchase seeds every year. If you search the interwebz, there's plenty of noise on how Monsanto is destroying the world with these seeds (see here and here). But the thing is that there is no commercially available crop with Terminator Gene technology. Monsanto's website states that they have made a commitment not to use this technology in food crops. Whether or not you believe their promise, the fact remains that they have not used it to date even though they've had the technology in their hands for over a decade.

So instead of using Terminator Gene technology, Monsanto and its customers sign a contract called the "Monsanto Technology Stewardship Agreement" or MTSA (yeah... it's a pretty marketing-y name) and they obtain an annual license. Syngenta has a very similar agreement. As part of the agreement, you commit not to sell or distribute the product in regions where the product is not registered. You agree to follow all the directions and instructions for growing the product, particularly EPA restrictions. The document outlines that if Monsanto believes that a customer has retained seeds, the company will request all the appropriate documents to determine if new seeds were purchased. Monsanto also has the right to test and inspect a grower's field (although I'm not sure how this right is exercised if the suspected grower doesn't have a relationship with Monsanto... Maybe through a court order?). Bayer CropSciences website didn't have their method for licensing enforcement outlined, but agreements between farmers and Ag companies seem to be the norm. As far as I can tell (and unlike my cell-phone plan), farmers are not locked into a multi-year contract, so they can choose to plant a different vendor's seeds whenever they want (please ping me if I'm wrong).

One really interesting thing I learned is that Monsanto customers who purchase crops that have the Bt trait have to plant an insect "refuge" (page 4 in the link). For an explanation on the Bt trait, please see previous posts or Wikipedia. Anyway, the insect refuge is a portion of the land that is planted with non-Bt crop. In the scenario where an insect has mutated to resist Bt and survives within the Bt-crop field, it will hopefully mate with a "normal" insect that is happily chomping away in the non-Bt portion of land. This will lead to baby-insects that are susceptible to Bt. Therefore, you don't end up with "super-insects" that might take over the land and reenact Starship Troopers.

The next thing I wanted to learn about was the subject of lawsuits. Something that I've read time and over again is that Monsanto routinely sues farmers whose fields are contaminated with GMOs.

But this is getting quite long, so you'll have to read part 2 next week.

If you have any questions or aspects of patents that you want me to look up in this multi-part series, please comment below. Or you can email me at my brand-spankin'-new email address biochica.gmo@gmail.com

GMOs and toxins leach through your skin

Last week, the tweets were flying furiously in a "Right to Know" campaign regarding fem care products (for more information, see here). Apparently, there's concern over the fact that feminine hygiene products are not labelled, we do not know what's in them, and that may include GMO cotton. Two "experiments" were performed:

Every item here is potentially toxic
Wikipedia Commons

1) Two pads were incinerated in someone's backyard: one was Always and one was organic cotton. The Always pad burned differently and released a lot of "toxins".
2) Two tampons were submerged in ultra-purified water on someone's kitchen table: one was O.B and one was organic cotton. The O.B tampon supposedly released a lot more fibers, which are assumed to be rayon, and the O.B tampon also developed spots, which are assumed to be mold.

Based on these experiments, there's a petition to Procter & Gamble to disclose the make up of their fem care products.

The concern is that the contents of the fem care products will leach into our systems, since "our skin is the largest and most absorbent organ in our body" (that's from Dr Mercola's site, highlighting the dangers of inorganic fem care products).

I'll begin with the fact that there's no evidence for the causation or even association between synthetic fem care products and health issues. Let me outline the steps I took:

• I checked Snopes.com for any information on tampons and pads. There are two false urban legends regarding tampons being associated with toxic shock syndrome, as well as the presence of asbestos in tampons. There is also a false urban legend regarding the use of sanitary pads being linked to cases of uterine and bladder cancer. 
• I went to pubmed and typed in "feminine hygiene products". I found 1337 hits. That's not a typo. 1337 various studies have been carried out examining different aspects of feminine hygiene products ranging from their use in HPV detection, HIV prevention, and health education. Study methods range from the examination for irritation with new film surfaces to the analysis of changes in bacterial cultures with feminine care products.
• I checked the American Cancer Society's webpage, which stated that the link between tampons and cancer is "absurd". I searched on the American Medical Association's webpage, and couldn't find anything.
• After that, I stopped.

With 1337 studies performed, the alleged toxicity of fem care products is not an issue to our doctors or to the FDA. Instead of speculating that it's due to payoffs from big corporations like P&G or Unilever, I will propose that it's because it's not a problem.  

There are several issues at hand. One is that the team or individual behind this whole movement has not done their homework. If I was able to find this information during my lunch break at work, then so could they. This is perhaps best highlighted by the fact that O.B tampons are not made by P&G and that their petition on change.org is to the incorrect person. As to the burning of the products, I hate to say it but that experiment is up there with putting salt water fish in fresh water to see if they'll die. Always products contain glue, plastic liners, and other oil-based compounds which anyone would expect to burn differently from an organic cotton pad. As for the mold, if you look at the pictures those brown specs are present even at 2 hours. But even at 24 hours, the likelihood that it's mold is pretty low, and it's probably just cotton fibers. 

Second is that if you are going to argue that toxins from GMOs and from hygenic products leach into your system through your skin, here's a list of items that you should be aware of:

• The cotton clothes you wear are probably made of GM cotton
• The natural baby care products may contain ingredients from GM crops. 
• The fabric in your car and child's car seat might contain GM cotton
• The production of many types of fabrics and plastics require alcohol, which might be ethanol made from GM corn or soybeans
• Your wool clothes might be from animals that are fed GM alfalfa 
• Your leather furniture might be from animals that are given GM feed
• The taxi that you take might be running on ethanol gas from GM corn, as well as the municipal vehicles in your area. All that GM DNA might be in the air...

And then there's all those toxins from all the other things that come into contact with your skin and how they might impact your health:

• Your cell phone cover is in your hand or in your pocket for most of the day, and probably contains "toxins" that make the plastic durable and robust
• The mouse on your computer has a rubber wheel, which may contain natural rubber from a farm that douses its trees with pesticides
• Your desk and table are probably made of composite wood that release tons of formaldehyde that you're breathing and is entering your pores
• and a million different things

There is no evidence that any of this is true. In the past, I've shown how we might create a sharknado or a zombie apocalypse, in similar hypothetical statements. At this point, we're beyond sharknados. We're at sharktopi (is that the plural of a sharktopus?). 

My next point is regarding your "right to know". I am willing to bet Baby-Boy's two chubby cheeks that in the highly unlikely scenario that P&G responds to your request, the list of ingredients in their feminine care products will include compounds with words like "poly-X" or "ethyl-Y" or "nitro-Z" and you will be displeased because they won't sound "natural". Someone out there will do a bit of research and will probably discover that those compounds are also present in other ominous things like trash bags or the sole of your shoes, and you will panic. So instead of making a ruckus and trying to get a giant corporation to disclose trade secrets which they are not legally obliged to provide, why don't you just buy organic fem care products and be done with it?

Finally, the video with the fem care product bonfire was put together by a company that sells "100% natural fem care products". So isn't there a possibility that you're being duped by a company that's trying to sell their product into believing that there's an issue when there really isn't one?

I'd like to close with a personal note. My sister, the mother of two phenomenal kids, is a chemical engineer and has been working for P&G for over 5 years. She started as an intern and has worked with them in two different countries, so I've met a few of her friends and colleagues. And she worked in their fem care product lines. I've always felt that the mark of a good product is brand loyalty, especially from its own employees. And I have never seen a company with employees as loyal to their products as P&G, with the possible exceptions of Google and Apple. So if you think that they put products out there without proper testing, you're wrong. If you think they'd create products that would knowingly endanger you, you're outta whack.

I've said this before and I'll say it again: yes, big corporations (correction: ALL corporations including companies that make "100% natural tampons") are in the business of making money and to create a crummy product or a product that would be recalled would not be conducive to their goals.

Also, P&G makes awesome commercials for the Olympics :)

YAY TEAM CANADA!!!!

Whether or not Round-Up Kills

This post is going to look into the topic of Round-Up.

You may have seen bottles of Round-Up at Home Depot and other retail stores. It's a weed and grass killer that many people use to get rid of weeds/grass on driveways, pathways or flower beds. The active ingredient in the herbicide is glyphosate.

So how does glyphosate kill weeds and other plants (source is here)? It basically interferes with a biochemical pathway which plants need in order to make 3 crucial amino acids (in case you were curious, the name of the pathway is the shikimate pathway). It messes up one of the enzymes needed in the pathway, the amino acids never get made, and the plant dies. The enzyme that gets inhibited by glyphosate is called 5-enolpyruvylshikimate-3-phosphate synthase, but it's been wisely abbreviated as EPSP (phew!). I could only find evidence that this enzyme exists in plants, fungi, and microbes. So it does not seem to be present in animals.

There is a bacteria whose EPSP enzyme is not affected by glyphosate. The EPSP synthase gene from that bacteria has been inserted into specific crops, thereby creating glyphosate resistant crops. As a consequence, growers can spray their fields with glyphosate/Round-Up. Most plants/weeds will die because the EPSP synthase enzyme will be inhibited. But the transgenic crop will continue to grow because it has the bacterial version of EPSP synthase, whose activity is unaffected by glyphosate.

Round-up Resistant crops have been growing long enough that Monsanto's patent on Round-up has expired (note that the patent on the GMO seeds has not expired, so I think that growers who use Monsanto Round-up Resistant crops have to use Monsanto's Round-up). (I've been corrected on that last comment. Growers who use Monsanto seeds to not have to use Monsanto's Round-Up).

This week I received requests from two people to review papers that look at glyphosate causing cell death. The most recent paper published on the topic came out last month in the International Journal of Toxicology (as a side-note, it took me forever to get a copy of this paper. We scientists should be more vocal in our demands for open-access journals). Due to this paper, there has been a flurry of articles/blogs highlighting the dangers of GMOs. So what did they do in the paper? Basically, they took liver cell lines and grew them under different conditions. As treatments, they used diluted Round-Up, as well as several components of Round-Up. Then they examined cell death both directly, as well as biochemically (they looked for the presence/absence of proteins associated with cell death). To summarize their results, the cells treated with Round-Up died.

Similar studies had been performed by other groups. A study published in 2009 (which I do not have access to and could only read the abstract) reported similar findings. What was unique about the more recent paper is that they used less Round-Up for their study.

I bet you're wondering if I will stop feeding my family Round-Up Resistant GMOs over this. There are several thoughts going through my head over this.

1) How much glyphosate are you really eating? When I first read these papers, my gut reaction was "hmmm... I should do a better job washing my fruits and veggies". But then it hit me: none of my fruits and veggies are glyphosate-resistant GMOs. Round-Up Ready seeds are cash crops: canola, corn, cotton, etc. Our bananas, apples, delicious peaches, and succulent pomegranates are not GMOs (although I've previously argued for a GMO pomegranate... I'd buy that sucker in a heartbeat). By the time any components from glyphosate-resistant GMOs enter my food, they've been washed, stripped, boiled, pressed and reduced to a compound. So how much glyphosate is actually there? I tried to do a web search to find out how much glyphosate is in processed food, and I had a tough time with that search. Thanks to twitter, it was suggested that I review a report put together by the USDA's Agricultural Marketing Service (thank you @geneticmaize!). This annual report examines the amount of pesticide in our food and water, including items such as baby food. For the analysis, all items are prepared in the way we normally eat them; for example, tangerines are peeled, bell peppers are gently washed under cold water, etc. They examine both imported and national produce, and one of the items they examined in their 2011 report (released in 2013) was the amount of glyphosate in soybean. The results state: "Of the 300 samples tested, 271 (90.3 percent) of samples contained glyphosate at levels ranging from 0.26 parts per million (ppm) to 18.5 ppm." The tolerance of glyphosate is set at 20 ppm, so none of the samples tested exceeded the maximum allowable levels. So we're not eating any more than we should in our food supply. However, one may argue that perhaps the "amount we should be eating" is not set correctly, which is what the papers I originally cited above will argue.  That brings us to point #2.

2) In vivo and in vitro studies are vastly different. Spouse: I know you just read that and said "what??" In vitro means tissue culture or lab work. In vivo means live rats, mice, or other model organisms. So what does my statement mean? Here's an example: we use Windex every once in a while (no where near as much as we should, according to My Big Fat Greek Wedding). You probably don't think twice about it. Now, would you ever consider spraying it directly in your eye? Would you consider spraying it on an open wound, even if you water it down? If you were to design an experiment to test the toxicity of Windex, which one is more accurate: to spray Windex, use it as instructed, and measure what it does to you over a period of time? Or would you spray it on an open wound in diluted form and measure what it does over a period of time? You could argue that you should do both. However, scenario #2 is not what happens in the real world.  In vitro studies (which are tissue cultures in the lab), are basically cells out in the open. It's difficult to work with them and I'm sure you heard me whine and complain about my cells "dying" when I was back in grad school. They're finicky and they die when you don't shower them with loving care. They're excellent models for many things. But I'm not sure if they're a good model for measuring toxicity, because it's like spraying something directly onto an open wound, but with the effect amplified x1000. Which is why toxicity for EVERY COMPOUND I USE IN THE LAB is measured with in vivo models (that means rats and mice). Check out the Material Safety Data Sheet for water: they tested it on rats. If we are to begin measuring the toxicity of compounds using in vitro assays, then we have to go back and do this for everything we use and eat in our daily lives. I am willing to bet a trip for two to Morocco (which is the next place on my list of places to visit... hint, hint Spouse), that the majority of the compounds we use in our daily lives will kill cells in vitro.

Even the use of in vivo studies can be argued as being too rigorous. I remember that one of the post-docs that did my training would seldom wear gloves in the lab, even when working with Ethidium Bromide, which is a known carcinogen. When I asked him what the hell he was doing, he said that to replicate the rat studies which demonstrate the carcinogenic behaviour of Ethidium Bromide in humans, you'd have to take a syringe-full of the compound and inject it directly into your bloodstream. Of course, I use gloves and goggles when working with that crap because I believe that safety recommendations are put in place for a reason, but I thought that it was an interesting argument (although I don't agree with it). Which brings me to point #3.

3) No one ever said glyphosate was good for you. Dude, it's an herbicide. People have committed suicide by drinking it. As such, you have to wear protective gear and use it carefully, as outlined in the instructions for use and the Material Safety Data Sheet. Check out all the warning messages and icons on the instructions for use (yeah... they're in Spanish, but I'm testing to see if icons are universal :) ). So am I surprised that in vitro cells will die with glyphosate? Hellz to the no. But, that brings us to an important point: these studies may highlight the fact that it's important to review maximum limits of exposure for workers who work with these chemicals and that employees should be properly trained. This 2013 story from the Associated Press highlights what can happen when glyphosate is improperly used and when proper safety standards are not in place (although it's been spun by many to be about the evils of Monsanto and glyphosate). But that also brings me to my final point.

4) Is it safer than the alternative? If you believe that there's a lot of glyphosate residue in processed food and that glyphosate in our food supply will harm you, but that it's being covered up Monsanto, then the alternative is to eat certified organic foods. Keep in mind that if you believe that story, then you have to believe that this is a massive cover-up involving hundreds of scientists who want to kill you (in which case, you've uncovered the Oath of all Scientists). Then the question becomes: is it any better? A very common misconception is that organic food crops do not use pesticide/herbicide. They do. I think that the only way to make sure that absolutely no pesticide/herbicide is used is to grow your own food, but it would be incredibly naive to believe that everyone could grow their own foods. The full list of substances that are allowed under US Organic Certification is listed here. For example, if you scan through the list you'll see that hydrogen peroxide is an allowable substance for plant disease control. Here's the MSDS sheet for hydrogen peroxide. If you've ever had it applied to a wound as a disinfectant, I probably don't need to tell you that if you dilute it and put it on cells in tissue culture, they'll probably die.

So, what's my conclusion? I don't think there's enough evidence that sufficient glyphosate is in our food supply to merit any alarm or that there's enough glyphosate in our food supply to be toxic to us. I think that the revision for limits of exposure of chemicals is a good idea if there's any new data suggesting that it should be re-examined. I don't think that the papers on cells dying in tissue culture are enough evidence to merit this re-examination. I think that glyphosate is a chemical that is dangerous at certain limits, but I also don't think that glyphosate should be treated any differently than any other chemical and compound that we're exposed to. I'm of the opinion that there's no global conspiracy to poison us: that scientists are out there doing their job just like you and me. As a consequence, I believe that Material Safety Data Sheets and EPA guidelines are drafted and implemented with a body of data that has been gathered after proper testing. Otherwise, I'm truly SOL given the stuff I work with in the lab all day.

3/23/2015: The International Agency for Research on Cancer recently updated their categorization for glyphosate based on existing research, suggesting that it's a possible carcinogen (group 2A classification). I have to read the papers that they reviewed to determine exactly what studies placed the compound in this category. However, it's important to note that their categorization was extremely specific: risk for non-Hodgkin lymphoma in agricultural exposure, and evidence in animal models, so it meshes with what I've already written above. I'll write up a new post after I've reviewed the papers.