The GMO that Could Have Killed Nearly All Life on Earth

[eridani]

http://www.nationofchange.org/gmo-could-have-killed-nearly-all-life-earth-1364308786\\

Engineer it they did, the newly invented biotech strain of K. planticola had become the most effective tool for creating alcohol out of decomposing organic matter ever known. As you might expect, the scientists were so excited they were announcing their creation to the world’s scientific community as the answer to our problems, ready to release it as the US EPA had approved it for field testing since there were no environmental toxins present in the resultant pure ethanol and mineral end product. Fortunately for us, we were fortunate to have Dr. Elaine Ingham of Oregon State University get our back and use some critical thinking. She instead chose to hold off the field testing so that she could do a fully controlled and enclosed test herself on wheat growing in containers.

She had one control with no Klebsiella planticola present at all, one with the natural strain, and one with the genetically engineered strain of the bacteria. And alas, the experiment only took a week before it was quite clear that the GE bacteria killed the host plant mercilessly. See, the thing is that alcohol is very poisonous to plants, they can’t take it at all unless diluted a very great deal; this bacteria on the other hand had been designed to produce the purest and strongest alcohol possible as quickly as possible. So, as the good doctor had suspected, the GE strain of K. planticola quickly killed all of the exposed wheat of alcohol poisoning very quickly. If she had only tested the toxicity of the alcohol on plants as the EPA had, she would clearly come up with the results that alcohol kills plants but we don’t have to put it on them. She was smart enough to think a bit further, practicing the scientific principle of precaution, and recognize that they were modifying one of the most common bacteria in the world and that if any at all escaped it would quickly multiply as bacteria tend to do (the genetically altered DNA can also spread to bacteria through horizontal transfer, as if it were a bacterial flu of sorts) and could travel very quickly as it could also survive in the digestive systems of many animals, potentially going completely worldwide in a very short period of time.

One lone scientist potentially saved the world by speaking up and saying,”Maybe we shouldn’t do that,” something thatwould be nice to hear from a great deal more scientists on occasion. Especially after all the disturbing things we’re continuing to uncover about the damages that genetically engineered foods such as most corn, soy, canola, and more. Think first, act second, and thank you Dr. Ingham.

[In_The_Wind]

1. Indeed! Many thanks Dr. Ingham.

[love_katz]

2. This is good illustration of why we should Just Say No to Frankenfood.

It is not the only reason to oppose Monsanto, and the other greedy poison merchants, but it is a powerful argument for doing that.

When you add in the factors that genetically engineered crops are created to allow the poison merchants to continue to spread their toxic swill on our food, and in our soil, water, and air, and that it provides legal grounds for these horrid companies to patent and control our food supply...I could go on and on about why we need to oppose them.

Buy seed from companies that sell seed that is open pollinated, and/or heirloom, and whenever possible, raised organically. We need diversity in our food supply, and we do NOT want to hand ownership and control over our food to death merchants like Monsanto, et al.

Monsanto has already sued farmers when their GMO crops have cross pollinated with the farmers crop, based on Monsanto's GMO crop being patented by the company. So, the farmer winds up with their crop being degraded and polluted by the GMO crop, and the poor farmer gets sued by the greed merchants.

NO TO GMO!

[djean111]

3. Now that HR933 has been passed and signed, I am afraid that her findings would have been suppressed

or ignored today - http://rt.com/usa/monsanto-congress-silently-slips-830/
"The US House of Representatives quietly passed a last-minute addition to the Agricultural Appropriations Bill for 2013 last week - including a provision protecting genetically modified seeds from litigation in the face of health risks.

The rider, which is officially known as the Farmer Assurance Provision, has been derided by opponents of biotech lobbying as the “Monsanto Protection Act,” as it would strip federal courts of the authority to immediately halt the planting and sale of genetically modified (GMO) seed crop regardless of any consumer health concerns.

The provision, also decried as a “biotech rider,” should have gone through the Agricultural or Judiciary Committees for review. Instead, no hearings were held, and the piece was evidently unknown to most Democrats (who hold the majority in the Senate) prior to its approval as part of HR 993, the short-term funding bill that was approved to avoid a federal government shutdown.
........."

I think our petitions go right to the Koch brothers for use as toilet paper.

[Fantastic Anarchist]

4. Whoa, that woulda and could have been a, wait for it ...

... a buzzkill.

Yes, I went there.

Seriously, thank you, Dr. Ingham.

[loudsue]

5. That is extremely scary.

WTF are these EPA "scientists" thinking? That corporations know what in the hell they're doing in their frantic greed to make a buck????

[WinkyDink]

6. We encourage kids to study science and get a job. We don't encourage them to become humanists.

[chervilant]

7. We'd better start... n/t

[muriel_volestrangler]

12. The episode was controversial; it's claimed the EPA never approved any field tests

This was all about evidence given to a New Zealand Royal Commission on Genetic Engineering in 2001 (the experiment Holmes, Ingham's graduate student, did was published in 1999).

Claim that Klebsiella approved for field trials by FDA incorrect

19. In her witness presentation to the Royal Commission, Dr Ingham claimed that the genetically engineered Klebsiella strain had been cleared by the authorities for a field trial experiment. "field tests have already been approved by the USEPA by the time we did our research. So, this microorganism was going to be released. What is the logical outcome of releasing this engineered organism out into the real world? We have never been able to bring back from a release like this, an organism once it's released. The time we have to control is before it's released out into the real world, and yet that organism has passed all the different TSCA and USDA tests required to let it loose" (RCGM Transcript Page 3250 35-46)

20. Further, Dr Ingham claimed that all risk analysis studies to satisfy the authorities were conducted before the application for field trial was made.

21. It appears, however, that the research referenced by Dr Ingham has never been in front of the relevant authorities in the United States. The USDA (United States Department of Agriculture) database and the ISB database (Information Systems for Biotechnology) have no mention of any field trial application or granted approval relating to any Klebsiella planticola research. No specific citations of docket numbers or other proof of assertion have been offered by Dr Ingham.

22. Moreover, correspondence from Dr Janet Anderson (EPA, Environment Protection Agency), and Dr Sally McCammon, Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) (emails attached) indicates no record of an approval for field trials of K. planticola as submitted by Dr Ingham (Witness Brief, Exec Summ, para 2).

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/SC0102/S00070.htm

Ingham replied to the criticism of her here: http://www.gmwatch.org/latest-listing/1-news-items/8951-full-story-of-the-dr-elaine-ingham-controversy-over-klebsiella-p

This is all she has to say about what stage the EPA had got to: "This bacterium was being considered for release, and my understanding was that release was mere weeks away when the results of Dr. Holmes' work was given to the EPA. "

It's worth reading all that last link, I think - there were some mistakes in what Ingham originally said to the Royal Commission, and a journalist also sensationalised it; unfortunately, that journalist's account seems to have become the basis for what has been repeated about this on the web in the subsequent years.

[greytdemocrat]

8. Wait...

No booze???? Damn!!!




Excellent work Dr.

[Victor_c3]

9. scary scary

I read something a while back about what some scientist thought might happen when they detonated the first nuclear bomb. A handful of scientists thought that it could set the atmosphere on fire and kill all life on our planet. Did it stop them from detonating the bomb? Nope, not at all.

Never let a little bit of apprehension or fear of a potential doomsday slow down "progress"!

[FarCenter]

10. Humbug

Rebuttal of written and verbal evidence presented by Dr Elaine R Ingham (written brief and
presentation to the Royal Commission on Genetic Engineering, 1 February 2001).

46. The amount of alcohol produced in soil microcosms by SDF20 was 20 micrograms per
milliliter (as measured by Holmes et al 1999). This concentration is several hundred times
lower than that required to affect plant growth (10 milligrams per milliliter), as indicated in a
review by Jones, RP, Enzyme Microbio. Technol. 11: 130-153, 1989. No data are presented
to support any assertion that the wilting and chlorotic effects noted on plants at 8 weeks are
due to over production of alcohol rather than any of the numerous possible alternative
explanations.

47. At AgResearch in Dunedin, Jarvis et al. have isolated a Klebsiella planticola strain from red
deer (Jarvis GN, Moore ER, Thiele JH (1997): Formate and alcohol are the major products
of glycerol fermentation produced by a Klebsiella planticola strain isolated from red deer.
This is a non-engineered naturally occurring bacterial strain. It has the natural capacity to
produce alcohol. The authors state that fermentation of glycerol to formate and alcohol
supported the growth of the bacterial culture. Glycerol can be used by the bacterium as sole
carbon source. This is scientific evidence for the existence of a Klebsiella planticola
bacterium in nature, and which is capable of producing alcohol. Further evidence of alcohol
formation is given in Feldmann et al, 1989 (Appl. Microbiol. Biotechnol 31: 152-157, who
show that wild type Klebsiella planticola readily ferments the sugar xylose to alcohol.

http://www.biotech-info.net/ingham_rebuttal.pdf

[caraher]

11. Apparently there are major factual problems with this article

The New Zealand Greens used her work to try to slow/stop GMO work and had to backtrack a bit when it turned out that the dire conclusions they were drawing outstripped the evidence and that Ingham had some facts wrong (such as the publication record of her work and the false claim that EPA had approved this for field testing).

I'm in favor of more caution with GMOs and find most of the practices of Monsanto et al abhorrent. But this kind of lurid extrapolation does more to undermine the credibility of groups fighting the biotech industry than it does to raise well-founded doubts about the rush to turn life forms into profit centers at the expense of health and the environment.

[AnotherDreamWeaver]

13. I did a search before posting this myself, and found your post

and am sure sorry to hear the president signed the monsanto Protection Act last night...

Who Protects Us???