Page 285 - Environment: The Science Behind the Stories

the sCIeNCe BehINd the stORy

transgenic Chapela’s most vocal critics received
Contamination funding from biotechnology corpora-
tions. Some pointed out that Nature,
of Native Maize? whose impartiality is critical to its
reputation as a first-tier science journal,
David Quist and Ignacio Chapela’s was engaged in commercial partner-
Nature paper reporting the presence ships with biotechnology corporations
of DNA from genetically engineered as well.
corn in native Mexican maize (p. 262) Later, investigative journalists
set off controversy the moment it was revealed that the earliest influential
published. dr. ignacio chapela (left) and dr. david critics of Quist and Chapela’s work
A number of geneticists ques- Quist (right) were actually biotech PR people hiding
tioned their conclusion that transgenes behind false identities and posing as
had entered the genomes of native In April 2002, Nature published scientists. Supporters of Chapela and
maize landraces in remote areas of two letters from scientists critical of the Quist noted similarities with the way
Oaxaca. Some of these critics argued study and stated that “the evidence other researchers raising questions
that the low levels of transgenic DNA available is not sufficient to justify the about genetic engineering had been
Quist and Chapela detected indi- publication of the original paper.” personally attacked by industry PR
cated, at most, first-generation hybrids Quist and Chapela responded by firms and industry-funded peers.
between local landraces and transgenic acknowledging that some of their initial Meanwhile, hoping to resolve
varieties. Other critics noted that the findings based on iPCR were likely inva- whether transgenes had in fact
technique they relied on, the poly- lid. But they presented new analyses entered Mexican maize, dozens of
merase chain reaction (PCR), is highly to support their fundamental claim and other researchers began work on the
sensitive to contamination and careless pointed to a Mexican government study issue. In 2005, a research team led by
laboratory practices. that also found transgenes in Oaxacan Sol Ortiz-García of Mexico’s Instituto
Quist and Chapela had also maize. Nacional de Ecologia and Allison Snow
suggested that the invading genes The correspondence published of The Ohio State University published
had split up and spread throughout in Nature set off a broader debate on results from an extensive survey of
the maize genome. They had used a the editorial pages of scientific jour- maize from across Oaxaca, in the
technique called inverse PCR (iPCR) nals, in newspapers and magazines, Proceedings of the National Academy
and had reported that the transgenes on the Internet, and in the halls of of Sciences of the USA. They ana-
were surrounded by essentially random academe. GM proponents empha- lyzed 154,000 seeds from 870 maize
sequences of DNA. Several geneti- sized that Chapela had spoken out plants in 125 fields at 18 localities in
cists argued that iPCR was unreliable, against his university’s plan to enter 2003 and 2004, yet they detected no
that the pair had used insufficient into a $25-million partnership with evidence of transgenes. Their statistical
controls, and that their results could the biotechnology firm Novartis (now analysis indicated with 95% certainty
have arisen from similarities between Syngenta), sparking a debate that had that if transgenes were present at all,
the transgenes and stretches of maize divided the UC Berkeley faculty. GM they likely occurred in fewer than 1 out
DNA. opponents countered that Quist and of 10,000 seeds.

In 2013, biotech companies appeared to gain even more widely commercialized, likely because corporations have less
power when a rider in a budget bill passed by the U.S. Senate economic incentive to do so. Whereas the Green Revolution
stripped the courts of the ability to revoke USDA approval of was a largely public venture, the “gene revolution” promised
any GM crop found to be unsafe. Dubbed the “Monsanto Pro- by genetic engineering is largely driven by the financial inter-
tection Act” by its critics, it inspired a groundswell of opposi- ests of corporations selling proprietary products.
tion from food safety advocates and citizens who viewed it as Indeed, corporations patent the transgenes they develop
a violation of the government’s system of checks and balances. and go to great lengths to protect their investments. Thou-
So far, GM crops have not lived up to their promise of sands of North American farmers have found themselves at
feeding the world’s hungry. Nearly all GM crops are engi- the mercy of the Monsanto Company. This first came to light
neered to express either pesticidal properties (e.g., Bt crops) in Canada, after Monsanto’s private investigators took seed
or herbicide tolerance. Crops with traits that might benefit samples from canola plants grown by Saskatchewan farmer
poor farmers of developing countries (such as increased nutri- Percy Schmeiser (Figure 10.28) and charged him with violating
284 tion, drought tolerance, and salinity tolerance) have not been Canada’s law that makes it illegal for farmers to reuse patented

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