• Professor Richard Lacey, microbiologist, medical doctor, and Professor of Food Safety at Leeds University has become one of the best-known figures of food science since his prediction of the BSE (mad cow disease) crisis made more than seven years ago. Recently Professor Lacey has spoken out strongly against the introduction of genetically engineered foods, because of 'the essentially unlimited health risks' -- "The fact is, it is virtually impossible to even conceive of a testing procedure to assess the health effects of genetically engineered foods when introduced into the food chain, nor is there any valid nutritional or public interest reason for their introduction."
• Professor Mae Wan-Ho, of the UK Open University Department of Biology says: "Genetic engineering bypasses conventional breeding by using artificially constructed parasitic genetic elements, including viruses, as vectors to carry and smuggle genes into cells. Once inside cells, these vectors slot themselves into the host genome. The insertion of foreign genes into the host genome has long been known to have many harmful and fatal effects including cancer of the organism."
• Professor Dennis Parke of University of Surrey School of Biological Sciences, a former chief advisor on food safety to Unilever Corporation and British advisor to the US FDA on safety aspects of biotechnology writes: "In 1983, hundreds of people in Spain died after consuming adulterated rapeseed oil. This adulterated rapeseed oil was not toxic to rats". Dr Parke warns that current testing procedures for genetically altered foods including rodent tests are not proving safety for humans. He has suggested a moratorium on the release of genetically engineered organisms, foods, and medicines.
• Dr Peter Wills, theoretical biologist at Auckland University writes: "Genes encode proteins involved in the control of virtually all biological processes. By transferring genes across species barriers which have existed for aeons between species like humans and sheep we risk breaching natural thresholds against unexpected biological processes. For example, an incorrectly folded form of an ordinary cellular protein can under certain circumstances be replicative and give rise to infectious neurological disease".
• Dr Joseph Cummins, Professor Emeritus of Genetics at the University of Western Ontario warns: "Probably the greatest threat from genetically altered crops is the insertion of modified virus and insect virus genes into crops. It has been shown in the laboratory that genetic recombination will create highly virulent new viruses from such constructions. Certainly the widely used cauliflower mosaic virus is a potentially dangerous gene. It is a pararetrovirus meaning that it multiplies by making DNA from RNA messages. It is very similar to the Hepatitis B virus and related to HIV. Modified viruses could cause famine by destroying crops or cause human and animal diseases of tremendous power."
• Dr John Fagan, an award winning molecular biologist and cancer researcher, Professor of Microbiology at Maharishi University of Management, has renounced $3 million in US government research grants to publicise the dangers of misuse of biotechnology. He advocates a science-based precautionary approach requiring the labelling of all novel foods. He says "without labelling it will be very difficult for scientists to trace the source of new illness caused by genetically engineered food".
• Dr Norman Ellstrand, Professor of Genetics at the University of California, is one of the world's leading authorities in genetic engineering. He comments on the economic implications for farmers of gene exchange between crops and weedy relatives. "We see this as a multi-million dollar problem. In Europe, there is already a big problem with gene flow between wild beet and cultivated beet. Oil-seed rape also has close relatives and is going to cause problems in the future. One would expect that the kind of genes that are now being engineered are going to be the ones that have a higher potentiality for causing trouble".
• Dr Erwin Chargoff, eminent biochemist who is often referred to as the father of molecular biology, warned that all innovation does not result in "progress." He once referred to genetic engineering as "a molecular Auschwitz" and warned that the technology of genetic engineering poses a greater threat to the world than the advent of nuclear technology. "I have the feeling that science has transgressed a barrier that should have remained inviolate," he wrote in his autobiography, Heraclitean Fire. "Noting the 'awesome irreversibility' of genetic engineering experiments being planned, Chargoff warned that, "...you cannot recall a new form of life...It will survive you and your children and your children's children. An irreversible attack on the biosphere is something so unheard of, so unthinkable to previous generations, that I could only wish that mine had not been guilty of it."

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London Times 9 September 2000

AN APPLE a day may soon keep the dentist away: British scientists are genetically engineering fruit to protect against tooth decay.

A gene for a peptide protein discovered by immunologists at Guy's Hospital in London is to be added to strawberries and apples by biotechnologists at the International Institute of Horticultural Research in Kent. That would create a food that prevents dental caries, it was announced yesterday at the British Association for the Advancement of Science festival in London.

The peptide works by controlling the growth of streptococcus mutans, the bacteria that cause tooth decay. It stops the microbes from binding to the tooth, preventing dental caries for up to 80 days at a time without using antibiotics which also kill 200 other species of mouth bacteria that cause no harm, and which promote the development of resistant "superbugs".

David James, professor of plant biotechnology at the institute, said genetically modified fruit would be an ideal method of delivering the peptide, particularly to children.

The apple orchards of the Garden of England will die out within the next two decades if British farmers are not allowed to use genetically modified trees, the association was told.

Apple farmers in Kent and Herefordshire will be driven out of business by foreign competitors who already produce cheaper fruit, unless they are free to take advantage of the benefits of GM technology, Professor James told the association.