Ministry of Agriculture Expert Says: GMO Safety Is Not for the Neighbor Auntie Wang to Decide

Whether GMO food is safe or not “is not for the neighbor Auntie Wang to decide”

Regarding the safety of GMO food, there has never been an end to the debate, from abroad to at home.

On October 17, Kou Jianping, Director of the GMO Safety Management and Intellectual Property Division of the Department of Science, Technology and Education of the Ministry of Agriculture, said that the safety testing and assessment of GMO food is carried out by authoritative institutions, and it is not “for the neighbor Auntie Wang to decide.” But what exactly is the structure of these authoritative institutions? And how do they conduct testing? Are they truly authoritative? These questions, like mysterious biotechnology itself, are more than just “one step away” from the general public.

Controversy Has Always Been Part of the Development of GMO Technology

“Many of our scientists still pay attention to the development of this endeavor with a conscience. Our scientists are not as heavily tied to interests as many people claim.” said Huang Kunlun, a member of the National Agricultural GMO Safety Committee. He stated that when conducting safety assessments of GMO products, he also always remains objective: “On any occasion I say that the technology itself is advanced and has potential, but that does not mean this technology has no risks, so we must view it objectively. It is not that because we support the development of GMO technology, we take a one-sided stance.”

In early December 2009, two insect-resistant transgenic rice varieties developed by Huazhong Agricultural University, “Huahui No. 1” and “Bt Shanyou 63,” received safety certificates issued by the Ministry of Agriculture for transgenic rice for the first time, but after the safety certificates expired, renewal approval was long delayed. “GMO technology, like the emergence of other new technologies, will encounter controversy.” Huang Kunlun said that it is normal for people to have such controversy when they do not yet fully understand GMO technology.

But Huang Kunlun did not realize the reasonableness of controversy and opposition from the very beginning. “When we previously engaged in scientific research, we simply thought that as long as scientific knowledge was spread and people understood it, there would be no fear, but even if you explain it ever more clearly, fear still arises.” Huang Kunlun said.

Although he can accept this normal controversy, what troubles GMO technology researchers are doubts that are not based on a scientific perspective. “Rumors move their lips, and refuting rumors runs your legs off.” said Wang Zhixing, a researcher at the Biotechnology Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences: “Rumors do not require relevant professional knowledge to understand. To spread something that refutes a rumor may require professional knowledge or on-site investigation. Refuting rumors cannot be done by talking nonsense.”

“For example, in the domestic Northeast corn incident, media reports said that sows that ate GMO corn would not give birth to piglets, and that all the mice died out. We later specially organized people to investigate locally and found that this was not the case at all.” Huang Kunlun said. Regarding the current rumors that GMO food causes harm, Huang Kunlun said that so far no claim has scientific basis and experimental confirmation.

Most concerns about the dangers of GMO food revolve around whether it will cause genetic or mechanistic changes in the human body. Huang Kunlun said that as long as the protein expressed by GMO food is not an allergenic protein or toxic protein, after entering the gastrointestinal tract it is digested into small molecular components, providing the nutrition and energy the human body needs. “In fact, the foods people commonly eat also contain thousands upon thousands of genes, and modern science has not found a single case in which genetic material from food was integrated into the human body's genetic material through food.”

Compared with rumors, Liu Peilei, Deputy Director of the GMO Safety Management Division of the Science and Technology Development Center of the Ministry of Agriculture, said that refuting rumors is much more difficult. They printed brochures and also organized corresponding rumor-refutation work, but the results were minimal: “The public will not necessarily read your response; that is the key.”

“Today's internet looks at click counts. The higher the click count, the more it appears at the front; rumor refutations get low click counts, and some people just ignore them when they see them. So when rumor-refutation content is put online, it is quickly covered up by information with high click counts.” Huang Kunlun said.

In addition to the controversy over safety, the claim that benefits are obtained through promoting GMOs was also denied by Huang Kunlun: “Now I myself, including the people in the testing center, have not said that we will have interest relationships with GMO products in the future. We only conduct safety assessments.”

But regarding interests, Huang Kunlun has his own understanding: “As a research and development person, if you make a major contribution, you will certainly be rewarded; obtaining benefits is deserved. For example, Mr. Yuan Longping, who researched hybrid rice technology, developed so much hybrid rice and then promoted the development of the entire rice industry. Would you say he should or should not receive a state reward of 1 million yuan?”

“Advancing the development of the GMO industry is our ultimate goal, but we must advance healthy and sustainable development. It is only acceptable if it is safe; anything unsafe, or that has not undergone complete safety assessment, must be stopped there.” Liu Peilei said that safety is the foundation of the development of the entire industry, so every step of safety work must certainly be done well. It cannot be that only the development prospects of the industry are valued while the possible risks are not considered; this would also be unfavorable to the development of the entire industry. “But we hope that whether people support GMOs or oppose GMOs, everyone can discuss it from a scientific perspective, rather than relying on rumors.” Liu Peilei said.

What Does GMO Food Safety Refer To?

“We have always been talking about whether GMOs are safe or not, but in fact many people still have not clearly understood the concept of safety.” Liu Peilei said. In his view, GMO technology itself is neutral, so the starting point of the debate should be the safety of GMO products, and according to the current situation, mainly the safety of GMO food.

The “safety” of GMO food is also not something that can be fully presented by its literal meaning alone; it still has its own particularity. “When evaluating the safety of GMO food, it refers to relative safety, not absolute safety.” Huang Kunlun said.

Huang Kunlun, who has long conducted research on food safety and GMO food safety at China Agricultural University, said that no food is absolutely safe: “Take the beans we eat, for example. If they are not cooked thoroughly, they will contain toxic substances. Including potatoes and others, they all contain toxic substances to some extent.”

When evaluating the safety of GMO food, there is one principle: the principle of comparative analysis. It was developed from the concept of “substantial equivalence” proposed by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in 1993. This principle has become an internationally recognized standard for determining the similarity of a GMO food and its comparator food in terms of health and nutritional characteristics.

The principle of comparative analysis means that when evaluating whether GMO food is safe, it must first be compared with the crop before genetic modification, such as comparing transgenic soybean with non-transgenic soybean. “Inserting or deleting this gene, compared with the crop before the insertion, if it does not increase its risk, we call it substantial equivalence, that is, it is substantially equally safe, and vice versa.” Liu Peilei said.

In the 1990s, DuPont Pioneer used biotechnology methods to successfully introduce the 2S albumin gene from Brazil nuts into soybean, effectively increasing the level of sulfur-containing amino acids in soybean. But later, when researchers conducted allergenicity studies, they found that people allergic to Brazil nuts were also allergic to this transgenic soybean, and therefore inferred that 2S albumin might be the main allergenic component. Subsequently, this experiment was terminated.

Huang Kunlun said that if a certain crop already had risks such as causing allergies in consumers before genetic modification, such as peanuts and nuts, it cannot be used as evidence to show that the crop after genetic modification is unsafe, “because this has nothing to do with the gene we transferred in.” And in fact, crops such as peanuts that currently have a history of causing allergies do not have corresponding GMO products.