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[SANET-MG] comment to Hamdallah Zedan
The Independent Science Panel
Promotion of Science for the Public Good http://www.indsp.org
General Enquiries info@indsp.org Website/Mailing List info@indsp.org
September 9, 2005
Prof. Joe Cummins
The Independent Science Panel
The Independent Science Panel (ISP) is a panel of scientists from many
disciplines, committed to the Promotion of Science for the Public Good.
The panel's home is London UK
http://www.indsp.org/i ndex.php
Ref: SCBD/STTM/DCO/va/48601 “Advice on the report of the Ad Hoc
Technical Expert Group on Genetic Use Restriction Technologies
Hamdallah Zedan
Executive Secretary
Convention on Biological Diversity
United Nations Environment Programme
World Trade Centre
413 Saint-Jacques Street
Suite 800
Montreal, Quebec
Canada H2Y 1N9
E-Mail: scretariat@biodiv.org
“Genetic Use Restriction Technologies Should be Eliminated and Use of
Public Funds to Develop Use Restriction Technologies Should be Prevented”
Dear. Dr. Zedan:
I am providing advice on Genetic Use Restriction Technologies on behalf
the Independent Science Panel. I am appending a copy of my speech “
Terminator Corporations' Suicide Seeds” a lecture presented at
Sustainable World International Conference, 14- 15 July 2005, London.
That speech report includes references to numerous articles dealing with
genetic use restriction technologies. Genetic Use Restriction
Technologies are commonly referred to as “terminators”.
Terminator technologies serve little benefit to anyone other than
corporations who profit from the seed use restriction. Corporations such
as Monsanto have backed away from the deployment of terminators for the
time being while there has been an explosion in the development of novel
use restriction technologies based on startling new discoveries in plant
molecular genetics that led to the identification of homeotic genes that
govern the pathways leading to cell differentiation. Homeotic genes
produce proteins that recognize regulatory genes called MADS-boxes that
control genes for formation of reproductive tissue, leaves, branches,
etc. That discovery has led to a flood of inventions that use MADS-box
factors to control flowering or gamete production to create terminators
in trees and in crops. Such techniques frequently use cell suicide
toxins to abort formation of gametes or flowers and those toxins provide
tangible hazards to those consuming food or feed. From the plethora of
patents and patent applications for terminator technologies it seems
likely that regulatory agencies will soon be swamped with applications
for commercial release of such technologies. Many such technologies may
be presented to the public as obfuscations, difficult for the layman or
farmer to grasp, they will be, in effect, hidden terminators. It is
essential that a clear principle should be established. That principle
is that terminators have no place in human agriculture. Their use should
be outlawed.
It is worth pointing out that the fundamental research and development
of terminator was done by the United States Department of Agriculture
(USDA) in a collaboration with Delta and Pineland Corporation. The
financial support for the MADS-box family of terminators came from
government granting agencies and from the USDA-US forest service.
Government research granting agencies and departments fund extensive
research on terminator technologies that serve the interests of
corporations and not the taxpayers. Government funding of terminator
research should be stopped.
Family farmers and the public will both lose from the widespread use of
terminator technology. Indigenous farmers will suffer from an inability
to tap into crop improvements. In Canada there was a government-funded
study promoting the distressing notion that essentially all seeds
production be placed in the hands of corporate seed producers. Saving
seed, when seeds are not terminated, would be outlawed. Canada may be
the first country to impose a draconian system of corporate food
production. Unfortunately, Canada may not be the last country to impose
the corporate agenda on the public. The World should demand of the
United Nations that they at last stand up for the good of the people of
the world.
Appended Report
Terminator Corporations' Suicide Seeds
Joe Cummins Department of Biology, University of Western Ontario,
London, Ontario, Canada
Lecture presented at Sustainable World International Conference, 14-15
July 2005, London.
Canada has become the world's leader in doing the wrong thing in the
area of genetically modified (GM) food and feed. For example, Canada is
the largest exporter of canola in the World. The Canadian government has
promoted distribution and sale of GM canola and has encouraged open
field testing of canola modified with pharmaceuticals such as the
anticoagulant hirudin. There has been little effort to limit pollution
of non-GM canola, and there is clear evidence that the canola of western
Canada is extensively polluted with transgenes from GM crops [1]. The
Canadian government has, in a sense, provided a welcome to GM pollution
in order to promote the growth and distribution of GM crops.
Nevertheless, corporations and their lackeys in the Canadian bureaucracy
crave complete control of the seed and thus food and feed production.
The government set up the Seed Sector Review advisory committee, which
issued a report calling for changes to legislation to (a) collect
royalties on farm- saved seeds, (b) compel farmers to buy officially
certified seed, and (c) terminate the right of farmers to sell common seed.
The report was financed by the Agriculture Ministry at a cost of nearly
a million dollars to the Canadian taxpayers that essentially
rubber-stamped the demands of multinational agricultural corporations
[2]. In this way, the onerous licensing requirements of the
biotechnology industry are to be extended to all seeds, imposing a form
of serfdom on any remaining independent farmers.
The development of “terminator” technology goes hand in hand with the
corporate move to control use and production of seeds. Terminator
technology is the use of genetic modification to produce seed that
produce a crop with seed that is infertile (produces seeds that commit
suicide when planted). In other words, terminator blocks viable seed
production, production of pollen or ovule or production of flowers. The
corporate gains complete control over production of seeds needed to
produce food and feed.
The first terminators were developed by the United Sates Department of
Agriculture (USDA) and corporate interests, and that technology was
patented jointly by the corporation and USDA. As in Canada, the
regulator of GM crops also acts as an advocate and commercial developer
of such crops (a clear conflict of interest). The first terminator
patent was granted to USDA and The Delta and Pineland Corporation (later
joined to Monsanto Corporation) in 1999. That patent provoked a flurry
of opposition both on the basis of the fundamental right of farmers to
save seed, and on the scientific ground that the genetic changes might
harm those consuming the crops. In response to those concerns, Monsanto
Corporation backed off from immediate production of terminator seeds.
But in spite of that action a great deal of government sponsored
research In US has focused on development of terminator technology to
provide financial benefits for corporations. The government research
granting agencies have been lavishly providing taxpayer funds to
prestigious universities to develop new and more effective means of
producing terminator crops that primarily benefit corporations and
reduce independent farmers to serfdom.
Beginning in 1999, The Institute of Science in Society in London,
England has distributed a number of reports by Dr. Mae-Wan Ho and
myself. In those reports we described the genetic technology of the
original and later biotechnology inventions [3-7]. The basic design of
the constructions has been to prevent reproductive tissue from
developing in a way that allows the seed-producer to maintain fertile
lines in order to produce commercial seeds that fails to produce pollen,
or produce seeds that will not germinate. The genes used to produce such
lines usually involve aborting reproductive cells with cell-suicide
genes producing toxins such as barnase, a ribonuclease that digests
cellular RNA, diptheria toxin or excess phytohormone production in the
reproductive tissue. In some cases, anti- sense genes have been used to
block reproductive cells from maturing. Anti-sense genes are
complementary copies of the RNA gene messages governing reproductive
cell maturation forming double stranded RNA that is recognized as an
invading virus by the plant cell and destroyed.
During the 1990s, a startling new discovery in plant molecular genetics
led to the identification of homeotic genes that govern the pathways
leading to cell differentiation. The homeotic genes produce proteins
that recognize short stretches of DNA called MADS-boxes, regions
controlling transcription of the genes involved in formation of
reproductive tissue, leaves, roots branches, etc. that govern plant
development [9]. That discovery has led to a flood of inventions
employing the MADS-boxes transcription factors to control flowering and
gamete production as terminators in trees and in crops. Steven Strauss
of the US Forest Service in Oregon has been field-testing poplar trees
modified with cell suicide genes to eliminate flowering and plans to
extend that system to shade trees. Finish researchers at Sopanen
University are developing sterile silver birch [10]. Along with the cell
suicide toxins and their impact on animal life, the sterile trees must
be propagated asexually and thus lack genetic diversity rendering them
sensitive to attack by emerging pathogens and without a reservoir of
diversity to mitigate the attack of the novel pathogen. A flood of
patent applications has begun to appear for control of flowering or
sexual development in both evergreen trees and crop plants [11].
I have described an armamentarium of evolving ways to produce terminator
trees and crops. The current array of genetic tools has been added to a
large array of genetic tools for sterilizing or castrating crops and
trees to protect corporate control and profits. When the first proposals
to develop terminator plants were put forward, response from independent
farmers and the public was strong and vocal. There was a resounding
negative response. For the time being corporations publicly moved back
from the project. But behind the scenes academic, corporate and
government laboratories connived to produce terminators with new and
more potent capability. It seems clear that copious government funding
is being squandered to promote the interests of rich corporations
against the expressed will of the majority of people. The manner in
which academe willingly and unquestioningly promotes research which acts
against the rights of individual farmers should be brought to the
attention of the public. The people must find a way to insure that that
their governments act in their interests, not the interests of
corporations. As we proposed four years ago Terminators must be terminated!
References
1. Cummins J. Transgenic contamination of seed certified seed stock
Science in Society 2003, 19, 48. http://www.i- sis.org.uk/isisnews.php
2. Agriculture andAgri-Food Canada The report of the seed sector
advisory committee 2004 www.seedsectorreview .com
3. Ho MW and Cummins J. Chronicle of an Ecological Disaster Foretold .
ISIS Report, 20 February 2003 ; also Science in Society 2003, Spring, 18
, 26-27.
4. Ho MW. Terminator technologies in new guises. ISIS News 3 , December
1999, ISSN: 1474-1547 (print), ISSN: 1474-1814 (online)
5. Cummins J. Terminator gene product alert. ISIS News 6 , September
2000, ISSN: 1474-1547 (print), ISSN: 1474-1814 (online)
6. Ho MW, Cummins J and Bartlett J. Killing fields near you. Terminator
crops at large. ISIS News 7/8 , February 2001, ISSN: 1474-1547 (print),
ISSN: 1474- 1814 (online)
7. Ho MW and Cummins J. Terminator patents decoded. ISIS News 11/12 ,
October 2001, ISSN: 1474-1547 (print), ISSN: 1474-1814 (online)
8. Cummins J and Ho MW. New terminator crops coming Science in Society
2003, 19, 48. http://www.i- sis.org.uk/isisnews.php
9. Cummins J. View from MADS house. Science in Society 2005, 26, 22.
http://www.i- sis.org.uk/isisnews.php
10. Cummins J and Ho MW. Terminator Trees Science in Society 2005, 26,
16-18. http://www.i- sis.org.uk/isisnews.php
11. Cummins J. Lurking terminators 2005 in preparation
This article can be found on the ISP website at http://
www.indsp.org/letterHamdallahZedan.php/
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