Jul 8, 2010

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4th round table on plant genetics

Quality standards for safety research – Environmental groups pull out

Are there unanswered or insufficiently resolved questions about the biological safety of genetically modified plants? Which research topics have been neglected and which should be prioritized in future? Biosafety research was at the heart of the fourth round table on plant genetics at Germany’s Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). As always, opinion differ widely on the subject. The environmental groups pulled out of the meeting shortly before it was due to be held on 7 July 2010 in Berlin.

Dr Georg Schütte, BMBF State Secretary, summed up the meeting with cautious optimism: "The open, intensive discussion at the round table has shown that careful – in many cases interdisciplinary – scientific research into the impacts of genetically modified plants continues to be necessary. This is the only way we can obtain the expertise necessary for the assessment and responsible use of global dynamic developments in the field of genetic engineering." Schütte chaired the round table on behalf of Research Minister Annette Schavan. As at previous meetings, there were around thirty representatives from science, politics, industry, associations and churches.

Safety research: A greater influence through quality

The debate was kick-started by a paper on "Biological safety research on genetically modified plants". The paper looks at GM plants currently in development to derive topics that biosafety research should already be investigating. In a few years, for instance, there could be plants on the market that produce novel renewable raw materials, or plants with improved drought or salt tolerance.

Above all, the paper formulates preliminary proposals for necessary quality standards for biosafety research. "Again and again we see that findings from biosafety research are not given enough consideration in political decisions – e.g. concerning cultivation bans for GM plants," says Prof. Inge Broer of Rostock University, one of the authors. "Our aim is to draw up clear, convincing quality standards for serious biosafety research based on scientific principles, so as to be able to make a more significant contribution in the area of political consultancy."

Research into safety-related issues, for instance, requires a clear, scientifically founded cause and effect hypothesis. However, although scientists should do this as a matter of course, this is, the paper claims, not always the case. Several participants from research bodies also stressed the need to take natural variation into account when evaluating research results. It is known, for instance, that the composition of fine substances in plants varies between different varieties and even between individual plants. Results for GM crops are problematic only if they lie outside this natural range.

It was felt that research findings are often interpreted incorrectly because people do not differentiate clearly between the harmful effect a substance or GMO is found to have e.g. on other organisms in laboratory experiments and the actual exposure of the endangered organism under natural conditions.

BfN: Unanswered questions, methodological gaps

For Prof. Beate Jessel, President of Germany’s Federal Agency for Nature Conservation (BfN), however, the main problems are methodological gaps and issues that have not yet been sufficiently well researched. For instance, she believes that "system connections and impacts on biodiversity have not been sufficiently well researched." She also feels that biosafety research "has not sufficiently addressed the question of how combinations of various different insect toxins (Bt protein) and the use of broad-spectrum herbicides will affect biodiversity and ecosystem services in agricultural landscapes." The breakdown of transgenes and their products and what happens to them in various environments, for instance in aquatic ecosystems or in the soil, is another issue that Prof. Jessel believes has not been studied or adequately resolved.

Not all the scientists present shared her view. For instance, Stefan Rauschen of RWTH Aachen University, who coordinates the BMBF-funded research group studying the environmental impacts of GM maize, pointed out that some of the supposed deficits mentioned by the BfN and cited in another position paper submitted by the University of Vechta were already being studied in some of the group’s current research projects. One of them, for instance, is investigating the possible environmental effects of a GM maize that produces various Bt proteins and possesses herbicide resistance. If there are synergy effects between these traits, they will be reflected in the results.

Environmental groups pull out

Shortly before the round table, Germany’s Nature and Biodiversity Conservation Union (NABU) and Deutscher Naturschutzring (DNR) announced they were pulling out of the meeting. They accused the BMBF of refusing to engage in serious dialogue with the critical public.

The environmentalists’ criticism focused in particular on the BMBF’s response to a 9-point list for ecological risk research presented in September 2009. The response was, the groups claim, "unacceptable in content and form".

The 9-point paper, which has the support of other groups, addresses in particular issues relating to risk assessment and the approval of genetically modified crops. It criticises the health risk assessments of GMO products in the current European approval procedure, claiming that the data on which the assessments are based is insufficient and that the methods used are not thorough enough. Furthermore, the paper calls for economic impacts to be taken into account more in approval decisions, claiming that there are no calculations of the distribution of the benefits and costs of biotech applications. Above all, such assessments needed to establish the costs that would be incurred by those who do not use biotechnology.

In its response, the BMBF had pointed out that the 9-point paper presented by the environmental groups "deals primarily with issues of risk assessment and the approval procedure", whereas the BMBF’s funding focus was on fundamental scientific issues. Biosafety research was, it claimed, not part of the approval procedure, but aimed to expand the body of knowledge about biological safety and about possible environmental impacts of genetically modified crops.

The discussion round on biosafety research marks the end of the plant genetics round table for the time being.

State Secretary Dr Schütte announced that the ministry would be continuing its funding of biological safety research at the end of the year. He assured the participants that their proposals would be taken into account when defining the funding projects.