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	Farming Information for Rural Ministry Briefing 56 GM Science Review Report
	The GM Science Review was commissioned as part of the wider debate on genetic modification (GM) by the Secretary of State for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. It aims to take an open look at the science of GM crops and food in a way that recognises the interests and concerns of the public as well as the science community. The review panel includes scientists and social scientists from a wide range of backgrounds. The institutions from which they were drawn included universities, specialist research institutes, research groups associated with biotechnology companies, and organisations with particular environmental concerns. The Review Panel invites comments on the report via its website www.gmsciencedebate.org.uk/ which will be open to receive them until 15th October 2003. The full report (300 pages!) can be accessed at the same address. The main conclusions of the report GMs and uncertainty New technologies always bring uncertainties and generate new gaps in knowledge. The way to resolve controversies is to do better science by going back to the real world and examining it with better tools and better ideas to improve understanding. We cannot know everything and if we were paralysed by gaps in knowledge we would never get anywhere new. At the same time history tells us that sometimes we have rushed forward incautiously to exploit new technologies, only subsequently to appreciate the medical, social, environmental or other costs. The reliability of GM technology is a concern to many people. However imprecision and unpredictability are features common to conventional and GM plant breeding. For both, testing must ensure that plant varieties and the foods made from them are safe. For GM crops and GM food it is important also to test the potential unanticipated effects that might arise. The EU regulatory system demands a high level of scrutiny in the testing of GM crops and powerful tools are available to do this. Human health Tests done so far provide no evidence that currently commercialised GM crop varieties or foods made from them, are toxic, allergenic or nutritionally deleterious. However the techniques used in the tests have limitations. For example we do not have an exact understanding of what causes us to be sensitised to allergens (GM or otherwise). Transgenic DNA and non-transgenic DNA appear to share the same fate once ingested by humans, being very largely, but not entirely, degraded in the gut. There is a possibility that there might be gene transfer to gut bacteria but from the few studies that have been carried out there is no compelling evidence that gene transfer occurs under natural conditions. On balance, we conclude that the risks to human health are very low for GM crops currently on the market. But the situation may prove to be more challenging in future, depending on the crops developed. We must continue to develop safety assessment, surveillance, monitoring and labelling systems, and to have in place effective strategies to tackle problems. Animal feeds Several studies have been unable to find transgenic DNA (or its gene products) in milk, meat or eggs produced from animals fed on GM crops. Invading the wild? Detailed field experiments on several GM crops, including those most likely to be introduced first to the UK, (herbicide-tolerant sugar beet, oilseed rape, and maize) have demonstrated that they are very unlikely to invade the countryside or become problematic plants. Nor are they likely to be toxic to wildlife or to perturb soil structure in such a way that the functioning of soil communities is substantially affected. We know the extent and pattern of gene flow for these crops. Maize has no wild relatives in the UK with which to cross-pollinate. Beet and oilseed rape have but field studies indicate that there is very little gene flow from these crops to wild relatives. The few studies that have been carried out so far have been unable to detect evidence for gene flow between GM plants and either bacteria in the soil or viruses. If gene flow does occur, then preliminary indications suggest it is very rare. The possibility of gene flow to other microbes, (e.g. fungi and protists), has not been well studied and is an important area for future research. The publication of the UK farm-scale evaluations of GM herbicide tolerant crops will clarify some of these uncertainties. Longer term Looking further ahead, it is clear that complexity and uncertainty will increase as the range of plants and traits introduced increases. Gaps in our knowledge exist in the areas listed below: We do not have a precise understanding of what determines whether a new plant becomes invasive (as happened with Japanese knotweed and rhododendrons). Genes associated with resistance to pests and diseases have greater potential than herbicide resistant genes to lead to the local expansion of a plant population if transferred from a GM crop. However, there are other natural constraints that could prevent an increase in population growth rates in such cases. It may be significant that genes for pest and disease-resistance inserted into crops by conventional breeding have not produced invasions of wild relatives. This may be because the hybrid relative also inherits the rest of the genes from the agricultural plant and they reduce its competitiveness in the wild. ‘Stacking’ of transgenes in crop plants or wild relatives is a distant future possibility in the UK. However, if it occurred (as it has with herbicide-tolerance genes in oilseed rape in Canada) it would involve plants with unintended and unstudied gene combinations. Predicting the ecological behaviour of such plants in advance of their accidental production will be difficult. We do not have sufficient data to make precise predictions about the environmental impacts of GM crops so a case-by-case approach continues to be best. Each product brings different potential benefits for different stakeholder groups; each may pose different environmental or health risks. To date, in countries that have the experience of growing GM crops, there have been no reports of them causing significant environmental damage. This is an important point to recognise, but equally, we must be cautious in drawing general conclusions as these observations are based on relatively few field experiments and the findings may not be entirely relevant to the UK situation. In making judgments about GM crops, it is vital to scrutinise the risks and benefits and to make comparisons with non-GM crops grown in conventional, organic or other lower intensity farming systems. The difficulty in generalising confidently from one country to another also applies to evidence from the USA, China and India indicating that use of some GM pest-resistant crops has resulted in reductions in pesticides, and the replacement of certain herbicides by others with a lower impact on the environment. It is also important to recognise that non-GM plant breeding is becoming progressively more sophisticated and able to provide novel modifications to crops that can raise similar issues as those considered in this review. Sources www.gmsciencedebate.org.uk/ www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99993959 www.fwi.co.uk/article.asp?con=11177&sec=17&hier=17 Alan Spedding, July 24, 2003,
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