Coalition response on Bt brinjal 5 - more annexes (19/7/2006)

ANNEXES BELOW INCLUDE: 
feedback on Monsanto Mahyco's claims (annex 9)
a note from an Ayurveda expert (annex 2)
a note by Dr Arpad Pusztai (annex 4)  
comments by Dr. Mae-Wan Ho and Prof. Joe Cummins (annex 5)
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Annexure 9 [to the June 15th letter to the Minister for Environment & Forests]:

Specific feedback to the company’s claims on its findings through Bt Brinjal tests and trials:

It is utterly meaningless to comment on the company’s claims apparently based on their studies and trials with Bt Brinjal. This is because no protocols are described for the tests nor any numbers or tables presented. However, from whatever’s put up on the MoEF’s website,:

1         Is there data on how many different ways is brinjal consumed by different communities in India and how it is fed to animals? How has the impact assessment taken this on board? What happens in all those cases where the brinjal is consumed directly, both by human beings and by animals?

2         The tests related to allergenecity and toxicity prescribed as part of biosafety testing are obviously inadequate as the experience with Bt Cotton in Indiashows. Despite being cleared as safe, Bt Cotton is reported to be causing widespread allergies in cotton growing belts of the country. Therefore, the protocols for such tests need to be re-looked at to capture the real adverse potential and such revised and better protocols applied for Bt Brinjal testing, especially given that it is a food crop with the toxin consumed in large quantities with no or very little processing.

3         Feeding tests done on goats do not capture the potential hazards as goats are known to be hardy animals, compared to sheep for instance. The protocol used in the case of Bt Cotton was to feed goats with cotton seed and the results apparently showed that there is no difference between feeding the goats with Bt Cotton seed and non-Bt Cotton seed. There were no multi-generational feeding tests done. What was not clear however was what the exact research protocol was - how old was the cotton seed, for instance? It is now clear that the tests did not capture the reality of farmers grazing their animals on Bt Cotton plants and not seeds. They also do not in any way predict what could happen with sheep. In the case of Bt Brinjal, there was no change in the testing regime from the Bt Cotton testing regime, despite such valuable lessons emerging from the field and despite this being a vegetable!

4         It is not enough to understand the effect of the Bt gene alone while understanding the impacts on human health and environment. It is important to capture the effects of the other genes transferred too. For this, a set of tests have to be evolved and undertaken.

5         It is surprising that the company says that the Bt toxin rapidly degrades in the soil. Published literature shows that this is not the case. There are many studies that show that Bt toxin can persist in the soil and retain its insecticidal activity. It is in any case known that the half life period of Cry1Ac toxin in plant tissue in the case of Bt Cotton is around 41 days. In such a case, why are the studies done by the company showing that the protein presence was non-detectable? At what stage of the crop was the test done?

6         What is the implication of growing Bt Brinjal in terms of the next crop, given the potential impacts on soil?

7         It is also surprising that pollen flow studies were done for just one year in two locations. Other information from India on pollen flow in Brinjal has results that should make any regulator sit up and take a cautious approach. The protocols used for devising Minimum Standards for Seed Production and Certification should be used here, since they have the worst case scenario built into the framework.

8         Such pollen flow studies should begin by listing out the wild species and related [compatible] species available in India in various regions of brinjal cultivation and check the effect of Bt Brinjal growth on such species, in a controlled environment [and not in farmers’ fields]. Where is the data on associated biodiversity [like insects, birds, animals, microbes etc.] which depend on brinjal and its related crops [both wild, related and cultivated] and where are the impact studies on such associated biodiversity?

9         No detailed molecular characterization has been provided by the company. This is important, since we now know that developers cannot control where the transgene insert lands and that DNA rearrangements occur, with the potential to affect the spatial and temporal expression patterns of nearby genes.

10     Bt protoxins differ immunologically from the truncated proteins used for testing purposes. There is evidence that the toxic portion of Cry1A proteins can have a different 3-D conformation depending on whether it is part of the protoxin or in its free state. DNA structurally associated with the protoxin is released during the proteolysis process that generates the toxic fragment from the protoxin. If safety testing was performed on truncated versions of bacterial surrogate proteins rather than the full-length plant-produced Bt proteins that people are actually exposed to, such testing is absolutely inadequte. It has been found often that biosafety testing does not take into account such a difference and it is not clear how the tests were conducted here.

11     It is obvious that investigations have not been carried out to check whether the bacteria in the GM agro-ecosystems have 'picked up' DNA sequence fractions of kanamycin resistance reporter genes or streptomycin-resistance reporter genes.


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