Regulators Discover a Hidden Viral Gene in Commercial GMO Crops

the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has belatedly discovered that the most common genetic regulatory sequence in commercial GMOs also encodes a significant fragment of a viral gene (Podevin and du Jardin 2012). This finding has serious ramifications for crop biotechnology and its regulation, but possibly even greater ones for consumers and farmers. This is because there are clear indications that this viral gene (called Gene VI) might not be safe for human consumption. It also may disturb the normal functioning of crops, including their natural pest resistance.

occupymonsanto360.org...

Synopsis: A scientific paper published in late 2012 (Podevin and du Jardin) shows that US and EU GMO regulators have for many years been inadvertently approving transgenic events containing unsuspected viral gene sequences. As a result, 54 different transgenic events commercialized internationally contain a substantial segment of the multifunctional Gene VI from Cauliflower Mosaic Virus (CaMV)

www.bioscienceresource.org...

Another dang good reason why these food should adleast be labelled. It is becoming more evident and clear that these companies do not know what they are tinkering with and we and the planet are guinea pigs

reply to post by purplemer


Hard evidence in a scientific journal will surely hush the nay-sayers!

GMOs have got to go!

I agree completely. Keep bringing the heat OP. Eventually people will start to inquire more about the safety of GMO's. If at least all we can do is get them properly labeled, I will still feel as though we accomplished something as a group.

It's the "eco-terrorists" that pollinate what doesn't belong to them that we should worry about. What a shame. The illusion of choice is getting harder to swallow.

I'm confused....

Proteins that inhibit a virus' defense against attack are found in plants, right? And then, therefore, if the virus infects the plant, the plant is producing proteins that inhibit the virus' ability to protect itself, which in turn means the plant can affect an effective defense against the virus. Essentially, the plant is resistant to that (and maybe other) virii.

It's either that or they engineered the plant to accept the detrimental virus in order to reduce yield and infect humans who consume the plant with something... right?

Someone like phage is going to come in here and propound that this is not scientific evidence.

God damned scary to think about what these geneticists are doing, not even considering that they could be creating more than they bargained for.

Nice to read an aricle that fat out tells it like it is. Someone said in a post about GMO's that people voted to not have food labeled so its their own fault. Since then I've asked at least a dozen people when this voting took place and no one I've spoken to knew of any such choice. I would like to know what was missed on that one because I always vote.

I am under the impression that nearly everything with wheat or corn is now GMO (unless it clearly says "no GMO"). The manager at my local health food store substantiated this for me, and it seems to be a common belief from people I've talked to. If had more time right now would so some research.

First, it's cauliflower mosaic virus. It's a retrovirus, so finding it inserted into a host plant's DNA would be stock behavior, that's how a retrovirus works. It's also a plant virus. You cannot be infected by it. Genetic mod guys use the promoter sequence on CMV to cause their additions to be expressed.

GMOs are poisons that is all that people needs to understand, we all know what poisons are, they can kill you plain and simple, this is the best way to show how dangerous GMOs are, because while some of us understand the science behind GMOs most people have not clue. so just call it poisons and the rest of the people will understand.

I went to the source article and found tons of "Maybes," "Possiblies," "In the futures," etc. I have to admit I wasn't much impressed. So I went to the 2012 study that the article is based on. (It's the first link in the article) Here are some snippets. What were they trying to do?

Determine if OR Fs within P35S show similarity to allergenic proteins. The strategy used to search for similarities with toxic and allergenic proteins is in line with current risk assessment requirements in the European Union.

Multiple allergen databases and search algorithms, described in the EFSA GMO Panel opinion, were used to determine if any of the translated ORFs in the two selected P35S sequences showed similarity to known allergens (Table 1).

None of the searches identified similarities to known allergens.

Determine if OR Fs within P35S show similarity to toxic proteins. The toxin database was obtained by selecting a subset of sequences from the GenBank non-redundant protein database. No significant hits were obtained to the toxin database using the DNA sequences of the two 35S promoters; all hits had e-values higher than 0.6 (Table 1).

As no scientific literature has been reported on any allergenic properties of CaMV and no similarities have been shown to know allergens, it can be concluded that the P6 protein is most likely not an allergen. In addition, a toxin database was constructed, and no significant sequence similarity with the P35S variants was detected. These data suggest that the P35S variants do not contain ORFs that encode for proteins that have allergenic or toxic properties.

Yeah, we can say that such and such hasn't been proved to cause no harm whatever. But what is there in the article that has been proved?

Found this, published June 20th.

U.S. Approves a Label for Meat From Animals Fed a Diet Free of Gene-Modified Products

The Agriculture Department has approved a label for meat and liquid egg products that includes a claim about the absence of genetically engineered products.

It is the first time that the department, which regulates meat and poultry processing, has approved a non-G.M.O. label claim, which attests that meat certified by the Non-GMO Project came from animals that never ate feed containing genetically engineered ingredients like corn, soy and alfalfa.

The funny part is, this only allows a producer to label these specific products "Non-GMO" rather than forcing all producers to admit their products contain GMO's.

I guess that's one way to distinguish your choice of food. Hopefully as many companies as possible will label their products "Non-GMO" and the only ones left will almost be a "contains GMOs" label in itself.

reply to post by eisegesis


Not only that- but the product only has to have 1 ingredient that is 'organic' to be labeled as such. The main ingredient might be organic, but it can still contain gmo soy/corn/canola products etc.

Anyone want to try and disagree with this?

Scientists Compare Rat Genome With Human, Mouse

In their Nature paper, the researchers reported that, at approximately 2.75 billion base pairs, the rat genome is smaller than the human genome, which is 2.9 billion base pairs, and slightly larger than mouse genome, which is 2.6 billion base pairs. However, they also found that the rat genome contains about the same number of genes as the human and mouse genomes. Furthermore, almost all human genes known to be associated with diseases have counterparts in the rat genome and appear highly conserved through mammalian evolution, confirming that the rat is an excellent model for many areas of medical research.

Also...

Humans have 23 pairs of chromosomes, while rats have 21 and mice have 20. However, the new analysis found chromosomes from all three organisms to be related to each other by about 280 large regions of sequence similarity - called "syntenic blocks" - distributed in varying patterns across the organisms' chromosomes.

Now take that new found knowledge and apply it to this.

Long term toxicity of a Roundup herbicide and a Roundup-tolerant genetically modified maize

The health effects of a Roundup-tolerant genetically modified maize (from 11% in the diet), cultivated with or without Roundup, and Roundup alone (from 0.1 ppb in water), were studied 2 years in rats. In females, all treated groups died 2–3 times more than controls, and more rapidly. This difference was visible in 3 male groups fed GMOs. All results were hormone and sex dependent, and the pathological profiles were comparable. Females developed large mammary tumors almost always more often than and before controls, the pituitary was the second most disabled organ; the sex hormonal balance was modified by GMO and Roundup treatments. In treated males, liver congestions and necrosis were 2.5–5.5 times higher. This pathology was confirmed by optic and transmission electron microscopy. Marked and severe kidney nephropathies were also generally 1.3–2.3 greater. Males presented 4 times more large palpable tumors than controls which occurred up to 600 days earlier. Biochemistry data confirmed very significant kidney chronic deficiencies; for all treatments and both sexes, 76% of the altered parameters were kidney related. These results can be explained by the non linear endocrine-disrupting effects of Roundup, but also by the overexpression of the transgene in the GMO and its metabolic consequences.

Any questions?

reply to post by eisegesis

I'd be happy to disagree with the Sertalini findings you present in the third panel of your post. So would the European agency responsible for food safety and six separate country's food safety labs. A small part of the reason is that he wouldn't release any of his raw data. That's a serious red flag for any real scientist.

Here's the end of a letter to the Editor of a scientific journal:

Discussion is important in science, but this publication stirred vigorous criticism by several scientists around the world. It has risen up great attention by the media that had no chance of getting an external expert opinion due to unusual non-disclosure clauses. The initial unbalanced media coverage is causing damage to an important tool for global food security. It is also important to avoid unnecessary distress and pain of the animals (e.g. Directive 2010/63/EU), the experiment should not go beyond the point required to meet the scientific objectives. I urge you to take adequate measures to keep the high standard quality of publications that come to your journal. This paper as it is now, presents poor quality science and dubious ethics.

www.sciencedirect.com...

Basically, it's been rejected around the world as a flawed study, except by people who are passionately opposed to GMO foods.

Originally posted by purplemer
from Cauliflower Mosaic Virus

The gene fragment is from the Cauliflower Mosaic Virus.
Its a naturally occuring plant virus.
It infects plants.

Read about it here:

If you're worried about being infected by plant viruses, I suggest you:
1. Never go outside.
2. Never eat any plants.

Originally posted by Bedlam
First, it's cauliflower mosaic virus. It's a retrovirus, so finding it inserted into a host plant's DNA would be stock behavior, that's how a retrovirus works. It's also a plant virus. You cannot be infected by it. Genetic mod guys use the promoter sequence on CMV to cause their additions to be expressed.

edit on 26-6-2013 by Bedlam because: (no reason given)

they would be to the human body and the fragments could be mistaken as disease bodies and cause a autoimmune reaction.

www.cancer.gov...

www.sott.net...

Originally posted by alfa1

Originally posted by purplemer
from Cauliflower Mosaic Virus

The gene fragment is from the Cauliflower Mosaic Virus.
Its a naturally occuring plant virus.
It infects plants.

That's absolutely nothing to worry about for human consumption.

The cauliflower mosaic virus, called CaMV, is found in many commonly eaten vegetables such as cauliflower, broccoli, and cabbage. If you eat fresh vegetables, you eat billions of cauliflower mosaic virus particles, but that’s not a problem because plant viruses don’t infect people.

Source

reply to post by charles1952


Lucia de Souza

Lúcia de Souza, Ph.D. is a biologist with extensive experience in teaching and has been actively involved in biosafety for several years. Since 2005, she is the vice-president of the Brazilian National Biosafety Association (ANBio). She is also the deputy executive secretary of the Public Research and Regulation Initiative (PRRI).

And her most recent post...

Brazilian virus-resistant beans

This work is an example of a public-sector effort to develop useful traits, such as resistance to a devastating disease, in an “orphan crop” cultivated by poor farmers throughout Latin America. It is a milestone as it is the first fully “publicly funded homemade” recombinant biotechnology crop improvement strategy that has reached this stage in a developing country.

Conflict of interest?

While the results of the test are debatable, it still is food for thought. The type of specimen used had a high rate of developing tumors but the key words are "increase", "more often" and "rapidly". There were also many other complications as well.

nice OP - OP - have c(_) (cuupa joe) on me.

Me and mine attended the anti GMO rally held in Denver a few weeks back.
Encouraged by the turn out as opposed to a couple of years ago.
First rally around 30 of us - I was able to meet Jeff Smith and have him autograph his book 'Seeds of Deception'
Recent rally at least 2000 and this would (probably) be repeated the world over.

Jeff pointed out that GMO corporations wish to genetically modify all living organisms - including humans - as in the 'bad seed'.

my 2 cents (not provable) they are directing attacks against the females - causes obesity and miscarriages.

checkout :
SeedsofDeception

Thanks OP.

I guess monsanto and others of the GMO club can't buy up every organisation that produces a negative study.

The ones they can't cast doubt over they buy, the others they simply smear and claim quackery or bad science.

Here's a lengthy article on caMV and the Gene VI...and yes, while this virus is indeed present naturally in many plants including food crops, when it is artificially inserted into a plant that itself has already been genetically tampered with...unpredictable results can ensue.

Here's the article...skim if you like, but not too fast would be my advice.

caMV Gene VI virals inserted in GMOs

reply to post by eisegesis

Dear eisegesis,

I'm confused. The link to the Brazilian bean story you provided takes me to what looks like a success story. I found myself almost saying Hooray! towards the end. Was there something negative in the story that I missed?

With respect,
Charles1952