Category: Blog post (Page 4 of 5)

The standard for voluntary food labeling in the US is that it must be “truthful and not misleading”. I wish that was true for all speech. In this era of alternative facts and disdain for expertise, there are many politicized topics where objective facts and inconvenient truths are ignored if they don’t match up with preexisting beliefs.

Although many on the left like to point fingers at the right as science denialists when it comes to climate change, there are also some topics such as vaccines and GMOs that are sacred cows, facts be damned for some left of center folks.

I am a faculty member at UC Davis, and I happen to work in animal agriculture. Our sector, in particular, has been the target of many misinformation campaigns. Think of the “pink slime” lawsuit that was just settled between a producer of lean finely textured beef and ABC News. Meanwhile,  people routinely reach for milk labelled free of antibiotics, despite the fact that all milk is free of antibiotics This flows from the oft-repeated myth that dairy cows are “pumped full” of antibiotics. They are not, despite what this misleading labeling might have you believe, and every single tanker of milk in the state is tested prior to sale to ensure it contains no antibiotic residues.

Perhaps nowhere is food fear-mongering more prevalent than in the toxic debate around genetic engineering and “GMOs”. The 51% gap in perception between the public’s feelings on the safety of GMOs and the understanding of the scientific community (37% of the public think GE products are safe versus 88% of scientists) is greater than the gap for any other topic, including anthropogenic climate change.

For 20 years, thousands of studies, eleven National Academies reports, and indeed every major scientific society in the world have  attempted to interject objective evidence of GMO safety into the debate without making much progress. The fear-mongering, however, has been relentless – and often – disingenuous, as evidenced by the “non-GMO” labeled rock salt that has popped up in the grocery story (spoiler alert – salt doesn’t contain DNA so salt cannot be genetically engineered – all salt is “non-GMO” salt). But, it is much easier to sell fear than science.

As frustrating as it is to logic-driven scientists, people often don’t make decisions on facts alone. Rather they base them on a mixture of gut instinct, world view, and trust. And in this age of widespread suspicion and distrust, it seems many marketers stand willing and ready to monetize distrust by providing “natural” food and “absence” labels for attributes that were never present in that product in the first place. “Gluten free” water comes to mind.

The GMO safety narrative is seemingly chock full of villains (corporations), victims (public health), and heroes (activists) – the necessities of a great story. And although this narrative has been  accurate in the past – think tobacco or PCBs – and may be again on for some new product – , in this case the data do not square  with the frightening health claims that have been associated with genetic engineering. Betting against the overwhelming weight of scientific evidence on any topic, be it GMOs, vaccines or climate change, on the basis of a single study or a conspiracy theory is a very high stakes wager.

Scientific societies are encouraging scientists stop shying away from engagement with the public, even on the most polarizing science. And they are advocating for effective science communication. That is easier said than done, but I am engaging – as I am passionate about science, the scientific method, and the need for science-based policy as a key basis for an informed democracy. That is the future I want to leave to my children.

To address this call for increased public engagement, I recently agreed to participate in a feature documentary movie, Food Evolution. Narrated by the esteemed science-communicator Neil deGrasse Tyson, this film uses the GMO debate as an illustrative proxy for broader questions around how we make decisions, and which sources of information we put our trust in.

It has been an interesting experience to interact with audiences at the various screening venues I’ve attended, ranging from New York to Cleveland to Berkeley. Some in the audience have been open to considering new information about how GMO breeding methods might be used in certain situations to produce disease-resistant crops. Some have changed their mind. Others have resorted to motivated reasoning in order to summarily disregard facts that did not agree with their world view. Post-screening questions from those individuals tended to be monologues cataloging points of disagreement, rather than a conversation about possible areas of agreement or solutions to problems.

And then there has been a loud outcry from some members of academia following a June 16 evening screening of Food Evolution at UC Berkeley that I helped organize. A letter signed by 45 individuals entitled “Response to UC Berkeley Early Screening of “Food Evolution”” was posted on the foodfirst.org website on June 16. I happened to see a draft of that letter from a UC Berkeley listserve dated June 15, one day before the screening, that read

“This particular film — Food Evolution — deserves to be called out for what it is: a piece of propaganda. Full disclosure: most of us have yet to see the film in full, but many of us have seen clips, and a few of us were interviewed during film production.”

That clause was removed from the version posted on the web the next day, but the rest of the wording remain unchanged. In other words, most of the people that willingly signed onto the letter criticizing the movie had not even seen it. That is the actual definition of confirmation bias. As academics, shouldn’t you see/analyze something before you offer a detailed critique? I have not yet seen your movie but I offer the following criticisms…..

This group wrote that the movie “manufactures scientific consensus where no such agreement exists”, and cites one paper entitled, “No scientific consensus on GMO safety” that was also a document signed by like-minded individuals including several of the 45 signatories of the Food Evolution critique. This “No Consensus” paper was coordinated by the European Network of Scientists for Social and Environmental Responsibility (ENSSER). It should be noted that this group, formed in summer 2008 to challenge the consensus on GMO safety, holds a position on GMO safety that runs counter to that of every other major scientific society in the entire world including the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine which was formed by Abraham Lincoln in 1863. Food Evolution argues for evaluation of the entirety of the scientific literature, and to avoid cherry picking single studies just because they agree with your perspective. The movie did not manufacture scientific consensus on GMO safety, it reported the conclusions of the world’s scientific societies, sans one outlier.

As expected, activists have also gone after the movie. Zen Honeycutt, from Moms Across America, first went for a full sexism attack, with an article originally headlined, “Why Have the ‘Food Evolution’ Filmmakers Mistreated Women?” The salvo opened by calling the film “misogynistic and patronizing.” A misogynist is a person who dislikes, despises, or is strongly prejudiced against women. Her evidence of that was pretty slim, especially given the prominent role played by a number of female scientists, farmers, and journalists in the movie. She has since toned it down to now just ask the question, “Have the Food Evolution filmmakers mistreated Moms?” (although the URL still is called “why-have-food-evolution-filmmakers-mistreated-women?”).  So I guess the accusation now is that the film makers only mistreated those women who have given birth, not the entire female population.

The original posting has a heading that stated Food Evolution had mistreated women

As a mother, and a woman, and someone who has dealt with my fair share of sexism in my career, I take the charge of misogyny pretty seriously. I feel I have a pretty good sense of spotting misogynists, as I have seen the damaging impact of their behavior in numerous professional situations. Calling someone a misogynist is a damning allegation. And when it is thrown around baselessly with the malicious intent of slandering the filmmakers of Food Evolution, director Scott Hamilton Kennedy and producer Trace Sheehan, two men whom I respect and admire and who are absolutely NOT misogynists, I call out of bounds. If anything, the scaremongering around GMOs mistreats moms and their families by creating fear and mistrust of the conventional food supply in the absence of any scientific evidence. This can scare mothers on tight budgets to pay money they can’t afford for expensively labeled foods and to avoid fresh produce due to a misplaced fear of pesticides. Praying on a mother’s fears for the safety of her children is the most disingenuous use of marketing that I can imagine. May there be a special place in hell reserved for people who profit from exploiting moms’ protective instincts.

Food Evolution weaves science into a narrative story.  It advances the discourse around GMOs from a stale false dichotomy to a more nuanced discussion about how replicable science might be used to develop “Yes/And” solutions to problems. It does not address every issue associated with food production. No movie could. But it clearly puts a stake in the ground around the safety of GMOs, to try to dispel the pervasive myths that are blocking the deployment of this breeding method to address real problems. Some are trying to label Food Evolution as propaganda. That label is again false and misleading.

At the end of the day, Food Evolution is really a movie about how people make decisions in the face of uncertainty. It’s also about the importance, and difficulty, of changing your mind based on new evidence and objective truths. At this juncture in history, it is an opportune time to consider one of the key questions posed in the movie – when considering a matter of substance: When was the last time you changed your mind, or perhaps as importantly when is the last time you opened your mind?

Many agricultural scientists research ways to make agriculture more sustainable. As a geneticist, I see genetics as a solution to many of the problems that farmers face, be that disease resistant plants and animals, or species that are optimally suited to their place in agricultural production systems. Plant and animal breeders have perhaps the most compelling sustainability story of all time . Genetic improvements in our food species have dramatically increased the yield per plant, animal, or acre – and unlike other inputs – genetic improvements are cumulative and permanent . The following graphic illustrates the additional land and/or animals we would need to deliver 2014 levels of production using 1950s genetics and farming methods.

Since I am an animal scientist I am going to focus on that last row containing the broilers. If not for the genetic and management improvements in broiler production since the 1950s, we would need to grow an additional 8 billion animals annually to equal the production achieved in 2014.  Think about that number.  8 billion more.  Every year.

It’s obvious that staggering advances have been made in plant and animal production since the 1950s. How did breeding companies achieve such improvements? They did it largely through conventional selection which includes sophisticated techniques such as genomic selection, large pedigrees, and very comprehensive performance recording for a number of traits. For example, Cobb (Cobb-Vantress Inc., Siloam Springs, AR) records 56 individual observations on each pedigree selection candidate in their broiler breeding program. More than 50% of these 56 individual traits are some measure of health and fitness of an individual. This underscores the importance of combined selection for many traits, including robustness, specific and general disease resistance, absence of feet and leg problems and metabolic defects in the breeding objectives.

Current breeding programs are improving the efficiency of meat production in the broiler industry by 2–3% per year. In the United States, growth rates and breast meat yields continue to improve by 0.74 days and 0.5% per year for a broiler grown to 5 lbs, respectively, whereas the feed-conversion ratio (FCR, lb of feed required to obtain one lb of growth) is decreasing by 0.025 per year. At the same time, the livability (survival expectancy) of broilers is improving 0.22% per year, and condemnation rates have decreased 0.7% per year.

So by using balanced selection objectives that consider not only efficiency but also the health and fitness of birds, breeders have been able to improve the feed conversion ratio, decrease condemnation rates and increase the survival expectancy of broilers. This would seem to align with most people’s values of decreasing the environmental footprint of food production by improving efficiency, and also improving the livability (decreasing mortality) of the birds. Is this a rare example of a win:win situation?

Entering the “alternative fact” zone

Not according to Whole Foods, who have committed “to replace fast-growing chicken breeds with slower-growing breeds.” Although this change is not expected to be completed until 2024, Whole Foods is the first major food company to make this change. And why? Well according to Theo Weening, the global meat buyer for Whole Foods Market, the slow-growing bird “is a much better, healthier chicken, and at the same time it’s a much [more] flavorful chicken as well”. Unfortunately, he does not present any data to back up those wishful claims. Why would slow growth equate to a more flavorful chicken if none of the other production parameters changed? And what is the basis for suggesting they are healthier, which seems to contradict the evidence-based literature suggesting that the livability (survival expectancy) of broilers is improving 0.22% per year due to selection?

According to the Global Animal Partnership (GAP),  an organization that Whole Foods set up to create welfare standards for its suppliers, seems to have arbitrarily decided that “slower growing,” is equal to or less than 50 grams of weight gained per chicken per day averaged over the growth cycle, compared to current industry average for all birds of approximately 61 grams per day. This means that in order to reach the same market weight, the birds would need to stay on the farm significantly longer, 58 days rather than 44 days.

It does not take a rocket scientist to figure out that slower growing birds require more feed per pound of gain (the feed conversion ratio (FCR) is 2.2 for the slow growing birds, versus 1.9 for the industry average). In all, the impact of adopting slow growing birds is a 34% increase in feed per lb prime meat, a 40% increase in gallons of water and a 53% increase in the manure per bird marketed, and a 49% increase in costs per bird marketed. So in one fell swoop this decision dramatically increased the environmental footprint of broiler production by intentionally switching to a “Hummer” type of chicken rather than a “Prius”.

And to what end is this big step backwards in terms of sustainability being undertaken? Theoretically for animal welfare. But what is absent in this discussion is why slower growing = better welfare. Why is growing at less than 50 grams of weight gained per chicken per day for 58 days better for welfare than growing at 61 grams per day for 44 days? Where is the objective, evidence-base to support this assertion? Nothing else about how the chickens are being raised is changing, they are just around for 14 more days before slaughter.

Upon receiving an award “recognizing the commitment that Whole Foods Market and GAP have made to offering only slower-growing chicken breeds by 2024”,  Anne Malleau, executive director for GAP stated “By addressing fast growth in chickens, we will be getting to the root of the welfare problem facing chickens today.” That may be her opinion, but I would like to see the data supporting this contention – where is it shown that growing at less than 50 grams of weight gained per chicken per day is associated with improved welfare? What metrics were used? And does that mean even better welfare is associated with growing even slower? The evidence base for this determination is important given this decision has real negative impacts on the environmental and economic components of sustainability. There are almost always goal conflicts and tradeoffs between the environmental, social, and economic goals of sustainability, and as a result of these goal conflicts we have all sorts of marketers profiting off this to suggest THEIRS is the ONLY truly sustainable system!

At the current time the evaluation and ranking of sustainability goals is subjective and open to interpretation by marketing groups. While marketers are free to make decisions that appeal to their target customer, it is important to consider the actual implications of these decisions. In this case the unproven claim that chickens have to gain less than 50 grams of weight per day to have “good welfare” must be balanced against the very real increase in the environmental footprint and cost of broiler production associated with the adoption of “slow growing” genetics.

And perhaps as concerning to me, these arbitrary marketing decisions made in the absence of any data are working in direct opposition to the efforts of agricultural scientists to improve efficiency and decrease the environmental footprint of food production, a goal that I believe is also an important component of sustainability.

The email was simple enough. It was a request from a member of the press asking “I would appreciate your reaction/comments to the recently published study on GMO corn for an article I am putting together on it. Deadline: Wednesday 4 January.”

Just when I thought I was going to get a day off to myself to write up my own research results, in comes the dreaded time-sensitive press request for comments on a recently published paper. Dreaded because to respond properly means I need to sit down and read the whole paper and ensure I have understood the materials and methods, results, and discussion. For me that is a commitment of a couple of hours. And to top things off – it was a paper by Mesnage from France’s infamous Séralini group whose previous works have had numerous flaws. But I made a New Year’s Resolution to be more active in critiquing agricultural science and can’t in good faith renege on that resolution on January 2^nd.

The paper’s title “An integrated multi-omics analysis of the NK603 Roundup-tolerant GM maize reveals metabolism disturbances caused by the transformation process” suggested the researchers had uncovered some altered metabolic processes caused by the transformation process used to create the NK603 Roundup-tolerant genetically modified (GM) maize line. This event was achieved by direct DNA transformation by microparticle bombardment of plant cells with DNA-coated gold particles and regeneration of plants by tissue culture on selective medium. This transformation process presumably happened last century as the feed/food approval for this line in the United States occurred in 2000. However, upon reading the abstract the paper was nothing to do with disturbances caused by the transformation process, but rather it was about whether the product of this transformation event was “substantially equivalent” based on proteomics and metabolomics evaluation. Strangely, the “conclusiony”-sounding title of the paper therefore had nothing to do with the experimental design or findings discussed in the paper.

According to the results section, the actual “objective of this investigation was to obtain a deeper understanding of the biology of the NK603 GM maize by molecular profiling (proteomics and metabolomics) in order to obtain insights into its substantial equivalence classification.” In plain English – the intent of the paper was to examine both proteins and metabolites found in NK603 Roundup-tolerant GM maize (both treated and untreated with Roundup), and non-GM isogenic lines to determine if the three groups were substantially equivalent using sensitive “-omics” assays.

To perform such an evaluation requires a common agreement as to what substantial equivalence means, and what constitutes an appropriate comparator(s).  Unfortunately, not such common understanding exists. According to an OECD publication in 1993, substantial equivalence is a concept which stresses than an assessment of a novel food, in particular one that is genetically modified, should demonstrate that the food is as safe as its traditional counterpart. This has been interpreted to mean that the levels and variation for characteristics in the genetically modified organism must be within the natural range of variation for those characteristics considered in the comparator.

And this brings up the issue of an appropriate comparator. Typically this involves the comparison of key compositional data collected from both the recombinant-DNA crop plant and the isogenic non-GM counterpart, grown under near identical conditions. Ideally, conventional non-GM corn hybrids are also included in analyses to determine the level of natural variation for compositional data in conventional varieties that are considered to be safe for consumption based on a history of safe use.

According to the original studies of the NK603 GM maize variety compositional analyses were conducted on the key corn tissues, grain and forage, produced in multiple locations (Kansas, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio in 1998 and in trials in Italy and France in 1999). Grain and forage samples were taken from plants of the corn event NK603 and the non-modified control both years. In the E.U. field trials, reference grain and forage samples also included 19 conventional, commercial hybrids. The NK603 plants were treated with Roundup Ultra herbicide. Fifty-one different compositional components were evaluated.

Not surprisingly there are protocols on how to best carry out experiments on GM crops  that are accepted by regulatory agencies world-wide (OECD 2006; Codex 2009). According to EFSA, for compositional analysis risk assessment, field trials will include: the GM plant under assessment, its conventional counterpart (isogenic non-GM counterpart), and non-GM reference-varieties, representative of those that would be normally grown in the areas where the field trials are performed. The later puts some figures and context to the natural biological variation in the different plant varieties we commonly consume.

So what did the Mesnage  paper in question do? The researchers planted a single replicate of the GM plant under assessment (DKC 2678 Roundup-tolerant NK603) and its conventional counterpart (DKC 2575 – although the exact genetic makeup of this line and whether it is a true isogenic counterpart is not well elaborated in the paper) at a single location on two different years. Half of the GM plants each year were treated with Roundup. Then the corn kernels were harvested and the proteins and metabolites from the three groups were assayed using proteome and metabolome profiling, the data from the two years were merged and analyzed. The three groups (isogenic non-GM counterpart), GM plant without roundup treatment, and GM plant with roundup treatment separated into three distinct groups based on a principal component analysis (PCA).

Integration of metabolome and proteome profiles of the NK603 maize and its near-isogenic counterpart into a multiple co-inertia analysis projection plot.

I draw your attention to a very similar graph (below) in a paper I recently published which shows a PCA analysis of the transcriptome (genes expressed) from cattle that have been exposed to different viruses and bacteria. Basically PCA can pull apart patterns of gene expression in different groups of cattle in response to the specific environmental challenges they are facing. The controls can clearly be seen to be clustering down in the bottom right corner, and the bacterial infections tend to cluster to the right and differently than those infected with viruses which cluster to the left.

Multidimensional scaling plot of samples based on all genes

That is – if you expose plants or animals to different environmental or disease challenge conditions – they express different genes in response. That is typically why researchers do “–omics” studies, to try to identify which genes/proteins/metabolites respond to different environmental conditions. What they do not show is whether any of beef that might be derived from these animals would be unsafe to eat – every animal and plant ever eaten is likely unique in terms of their exact protein and metabolite profile depending upon their unique environmental conditions and stressors.

Unfortunately there are a number of experimental design problems with the Mesnage et al. (2016) paper that complicate the interpretation of the results, and as concerning there appear to be confounders that further complicate the analyses.

These include:

• Only a single replicate of each treatment (n=1) at a single location (over two years) is analyzed with no biological replication or randomization of locations to remove site variability.
• The data from the two cultivations in different years were inexplicably merged prior to analysis which made it impossible to determine if results or trends were consistent or reproducible between years
• No inclusion of non-GM reference-varieties (conventional commercial hybrids) representative of those that would be normally grown in the areas where the field trials are performed to put some figures and context to the natural biological variation in the composition of non-GM corn comparators
• No discussion of correction for multiple comparisons (by chance one in every 20 comparisons would be expected to be significant at the p<0.05) of so. If doing multiple comparisons it is necessary to do a multiple-comparison correction
• There appears to be evidence of different levels of fungal (Gibberella moniliformis Maize ear and stalk rot fungus) protein contamination between the three groups.  See Supplemental Dataset 5  where Tubulin alpha chain OS=Gibberella moniliformis (strain M3125 / FGSC 7600) appears as the  protein that had the biggest fold change between control and GM lines. If there were differing levels of fungal infestation among the groups this would also confound the data.

Others have commented on some of their concerns with this paper including a comprehensive analysis from a number of scientists with expertise in this area. There were also comments from European experts from the science media center. And another discussed the definition and importance of true isogenic lines.

Based on significant differences between proteins and metabolites, including the rather alarmingly named “putrescine and cadaverine” which were markedly increased in the GM NK603 corn (N-acetyl-cadaverine (2.9-fold), N-acetylputrescine (1.8-fold), putrescine (2.7-fold) and cadaverine (28-fold), Mesnage et al. (2016) concluded that NK603 and its isogenic control line are not substantially equivalent, meaning that there were statistical differences between the proteins and metabolites found in the three groups. However what is not clear is whether the levels and variation for characteristics in the genetically modified organism or the control were within the natural range of variation for those characteristics in corn, and the biological significance of the statistical differences in terms of posing a food safety concern.  Differences between the GM variety in the presence and absence of Roundup would presumably be similar to the differences that occur every time a crop is treated with an herbicide, be the plant GM or not.

I could not resist looking up these two metabolites putrescine and cadaverine which seem like they should more appropriately be associated with a decaying animal corpse.  According to Wikipedia, “Putrescine, or tetramethylenediamine, is a foul-smelling organic chemical compound that is related to cadaverine; both are produced by the breakdown of amino acids in living and dead organisms and both are toxic in large doses. The two compounds are largely responsible for the foul odor of putrefying flesh, but also contribute to the odor of such processes as bad breath and bacterial vaginosis. More specifically, cadaverine is a foul-smelling diamine compound produced by the putrefaction of animal tissue.”

So what are these two horrifying compounds doing in corn samples? Enquiring minds needed to know. So being a good scientist I googled “Cadaverine in corn”, and lo and behold a peer-reviewed study. Check out Table 1. Mean levels of free bioactive amines in fresh, canned and dried sweet corn (Zea mays).

According to this study on “Bioactive amines in fresh, canned and dried sweet corn, embryo and endosperm and germinated corn”, “Different levels of amines in corn products were reported in the literature. Okamoto et al. (1997) found higher concentrations of putrescine and spermidine in fresh corn. Zoumas-Morse et al. (2007) reported lower spermidine and putrescine levels in fresh and canned corn. The differences observed on the profile and levels of amines may be related to several factors such as cultivars, cultivation practices, water stress, harvest time, grain maturity, types of processing and storage time.” In other words, there is a lot of natural biological variation in the different plant varieties we commonly consume with regard to the amount of amines in corn products, and yet we commonly and safely consume fresh, canned and dried sweet corn. If you really want to get nerdy, there are databases of polyamines in food.

As the multi-omics analysis of the NK603 Roundup-tolerant GM maize paper by Mesnage correctly states “the vagueness of the term substantial equivalence generates conflict amount stakeholders to determine which compositional differences are sufficient to declare a GMO as non-substantially equivalent.” In the absence of knowledge of the natural variation in proteins and metabolites in the common foods we eat, the level of different proteins and metabolites that trigger a  safe/unsafe determination, and a testable hypothesis at the outset of an experiment, undisciplined “-omics” studies risk becoming statistical fishing trips.

As someone who works in genomics and knows the tens or even hundreds of thousands of statistical comparisons that are part of genomic analyses, there is a real need to understand the statistical methods required for multiple comparisons. If 10,000 comparisons are made at the p<0.05 rate, 500 would be expected to be statistically significant by chance alone. The biological relevance of statistical differences is also not always clear as discussed here. According to the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) Scientific Committee,  good experimental design requires that “the nature and size of biological changes or differences seen in studies that would be considered relevant should be defined before studies are initiated. The size of such changes should be used to design studies with sufficient statistical power to be able to detect effects of such size if they truly occurred.”

In the first line of the discussion Mesnage et al. state “In this report we present the first multi-omics analysis of GM NK603 maize compared to a near isogenic non-GM counterpart”. There are actually two relevant  papers on the NK603 line here and here that were published in 2016 but which were inexplicably not even cited in the Mesnage publication. The later paper is entitled “Evaluation of metabolomics profiles of grain from maize hybrids derived from near-isogenic GM positive and negative segregant inbreds demonstrates that observed differences cannot be attributed unequivocally to the GM trait” which compared differences in grain from corn hybrids derived from a series of GM (NK603, herbicide tolerance) inbreds and corresponding negative segregants. The authors concluded “Results demonstrated that the largest effects on metabolomic variation were associated with different growing locations and the female tester. They further demonstrated that differences observed between GM and non-GM comparators, even in stringent tests utilizing near-isogenic positive and negative segregants, can simply reflect minor genomic differences associated with conventional back-crossing practices.”

Moreover, a 2013 meta-analysis by Ricroch examined data from 60 high-throughput ‘-omics’ comparisons between GE and non-GE crop lines. There are several papers on compositional data in GE versus non-GM corn varieties (here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here). The overwhelming conclusion that is common to these papers is that natural variation due to varying genetic backgrounds and environmental conditions  explained most of the variability among the samples. And yet this nuance is missing in the 2016 Mesnage paper – the conflation of any factors other than the genetic modification and treatment with Roundup that could influence the results given the poor experimental design is ignored.  This tends to be a common feature of this research group – to ignore standard experimental design protocols such as randomization and biological replication, cherry pick cited literature and ignore contradictory or preceeding studies with dissimilar results, rather than discussing their results in the context of what is known based on the entire weight-of-evidence in the scientific literature.

Ricroch in her meta-analysis summarized that “The ‘-omics’ comparisons revealed that the genetic modification has less impact on plant gene expression and composition than that of conventional plant breeding. Moreover, environmental factors (such as field location, sampling time, or agricultural practices) have a greater impact than transgenesis. None of these ‘-omics’ profiling studies has raised new safety concerns about GE varieties”

Interestingly, one study showed that transcriptome alteration was greater in mutagenized plants than in transgenic plants. Of course the random mutations associated with mutation breeding undergo no regulatory evaluation or substantial equivalence assessment prior to commercialization. Variation is the driver of breeding programs, and the reason that varieties  like red delicious and golden delicious apples differ from each other in the first place.

Finally Mesnage et al. acknowledge funding from “The Sustainable Food Alliance” for their paper. There is no link as to which groups or interests provide funding for this Alliance. This is not reassuring and runs counter to the absolute transparency of all funding sources that is being demanded of public sector researchers working in this field.

At the end of the day if I have concerns about a paper by a group that has a track record of publishing highly controversial studies, I like to go back to the Nature graphic shown above to see how many red flags are raised. In this case there were a few, most particularly around experimental design and omitting references and discussion of the finding of other “-omics” studies which have consistently shown the high levels of natural variation that is seen in the composition of food due to the differing environments experienced by the plants (and animals) we consume.

I know that this is more of a response than any journalist could ever use, but as with most everything in agriculture, there are no simple sound-bite answers . Having said that I appreciate the press reaching out to seek comment from scientists and hope that is increasingly common in 2017. Although taking the time to respond kinda took the rest of my day. I may have to rethink my New Year’s Resolutions if I plan to get any of my own research done this year, I will worry about that tomorrow when I return to work for the year.

A recent article by Danny Hakim on the so-called “agrochemical academic complex” includes a quote, “If you are funded by industry, people are suspicious of your research. If you are not funded by industry, you’re accused of being a tree-hugging greenie activist. There is no scientist who comes out of this unscathed.”

I beg to differ. My research is not funded by industry, and yet to my knowledge I have never been called a “tree-hugging greenie activist.” Quite the opposite – I have been demonized by groups opposed to genetically modified organisms (GMOs) because my publicly-funded research on animal biotechnology and genomics has occasionally published results in line with the weight-of-evidence around the safety of genetically engineered organisms.

After reading the article, I was left with the conclusion that industry (and by this it appears to be any industry associated with the “agrochemical academic complex”, not the activist or NGO industries – the influence of whose funding is noticeably absent from the article) dictates the outcome of the research and public academics are just hapless puppets to be played to produce favorable outcomes for industry.

That is not how my laboratory works. Nor is it how my department operates. Nor my university. Nor in my experience are the public scientists I know willing to trade their hard-won scientific integrity for research funding. Such a move would be career suicide. Publishing incorrect or false data in science sets off a ticking time bomb for retraction when others are unable to repeat these results.

More generally, the article does not seem to understand how academic funding works. And I have found this misunderstanding to be true in interactions with my friends and neighbors too. My university has little control over what I research – it is called “academic freedom”.

As a researcher at UC Davis, I am provided with my salary and a laboratory. The rest is up to me. What I mean by that is if I want to do original research, I need to obtain research funding to conduct that research. Typically this involves writing research grants.

My university has absolutely no say over the topics I chose to research or where I apply for funding. They have absolute direct control over how I spend the funding I do receive in terms of ensuring I abide by all university policies, and that the grant monies are spent appropriately.

By FAR the biggest expense I have in my research program are graduate students. At the current time the annual cost of a UC Davis graduate student is around $26,734 for a 50% time stipend for 12 months, and $17,581 for fees and health insurance for a total of $44,315 annually. So for a 2 year Masters student that is $88,630 and a 5 year Ph.D. student $221,575 – let’s just call that an even quarter of a million.

And that does not include the University’s “indirect rates” which currently adds an additional 57% on top of the stipend, so the amount that needs to be in a research grant for that PhD stipend is an additional $76,192 for a grand total of around $297,767 for a 5-year student, close to an even $300,000 assuming no tuition hikes– and that only gets you 50% time of that student, the other 50% time they are doing their course work!

Each laboratory is effectively a small business within a much larger entity. Their business is to obtain funding to pay student salaries, conduct research, and publish peer-reviewed articles. The University provides the location and facilities to perform that research. And for that the University taxes a 57% “overhead” rate off the top of the grant award.

If I did not write successful grants to fund graduate students, pay for research supplies, travel to field plots and perform my extension activities then I would not have a research program or anything to publish in the peer-reviewed literature. And that is how I am evaluated – by my peer-reviewed publications and research productivity, not by the amount or source of the research funding I am able to secure. It is the researcher, the so-called “principal investigator”, that drives this enterprise and makes the decisions on what to research and where to obtain grant funding, not the university.

If the university as an entity happens to obtain money from a donor to build a building, for example the UC Davis Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts built with a gift from the wine industry, that in no way affects my research funding or what I chose to research, or means that researchers have to perform research that is favorable to the wine industry.

If a researcher chooses to seek industry funding, as many do especially in the information technology, transportation and energy sectors, there are strict guidelines around managing potential conflicts of interest and ability to publish the results of the research. According to UC Davis university policy: “Freedom to publish is a major criterion when determining the appropriateness of a research sponsorship; a contract or grant is normally not acceptable if it limits this freedom. The campus cannot accept grants or contracts that give the sponsoring agency the right to prevent for an unreasonable or unlimited time, the release of the results of work performed.”

It is perhaps not well publicized that an inordinate amount of a University professor’s time is spent writing grants to public agencies, which often have a funding success rate of one grant in 10. As such 9 out of every 10 grants are only ever read by one or two reviewers, and then never see the light of day again. This is not an efficient system, but it is the system we have. If a researcher has public funding, their research has already survived pre-project peer-review by the grant panel. Ironically some have even suggested that public funding is also tainted. If funding from both private and pubic sources is suspect, where does that leave academic laboratories, and who will pay to train the next generation of scientists?

Writing grants is perhaps (actually for sure) the least favorite part of my job, and it is time-consuming. But it is a necessary evil if I am to perform research and fund my graduate students. I have been fortunate to be able to secure public funding for my research mostly from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) (thanks NIFA!), but many other researchers quite appropriately work with industry sponsorship in the development and evaluation of new technologies. Industries of all types seek such partnerships with public universities to obtain an impartial evaluation of their technology.

Demonizing industry funding as unilaterally suspect in the absence of wrongdoing fails to take into consideration the checks and balances that are in place at public universities and the importance of public:private partnerships in the development of new technologies, and the unfortunate reality that there is a paucity of public research funding.

I was updating a chapter I am writing about the regulations around genetically engineered  (GE) animals, and both supporters and detractors of GE animals have criticisms of the US regulatory approach.

Criticisms from the biotech industry include:

• the approach is process-triggered rather than being based on the actual, relative risks (if any) associated with the novel phenotype or product as compared to those associated with conventional comparators.
• the process is prohibitively time consuming and expensive to complete all of the mandatory testing. AquaBounty has expended over $60 million in attempting to bring the AquAdvantage® salmon through the regulatory approval process thus far (David Frank, AquaBounty, pers. comm.), and still does not have authorization to market in the US.
• some tests are not based on unique risks (e.g. endogenous allergens), and the absence of a known tolerance level or natural levels of variability means regulatory studies are problematic to design and the results are ambiguous to interpret.
• unpredictable timeline.
• focus is only on risks, no consideration is given to potential benefits of the novel phenotype or product, nor are the risks associated with existing alternative approaches to genetic modification and breeding, or regulatory inaction, considered.

The following table outlines the key events in the timeline of the regulatory process for the AquAdvantage^® salmon since its genesis over a quarter of a century ago in 1989. No other GE food animal has been approved anywhere else in the world.

Criticisms from the activist industry include:

• lack of public participation and transparency – although the entire AquAdvantage data package was made publicly available.
• no consideration of socio-economic issues including ethics and moral concerns.
• concern about impartiality of the data because the regulatory review studies are being conducted by the company seeking approval of the GE animal.
• environmental risk is not given appropriate consideration as the National Environmental Policy Act is procedural in nature and does not give the FDA the authority to deny an application on environmental grounds.
• lack of mandatory process-based labels on food derived from GE animals, although the passage of the 2016 National Bioengineering Food Disclosure Law may pre-empt that concern.

The AquAdvantage^® Atlantic salmon carries an “all fish” growth hormone chimeric gene. The rDNA construct consists of  an antifreeze protein gene promoter from ocean pout linked to a chinook salmon growth hormone cDNA. It was envisioned that this construct would raise less public concern because of the “all-fish” nature of the rDNA construct and the fact that does not include any viral or selection marker sequences. Given the founder of this transgenic line was generated in 1989 and that the commercial product was first approved in December 2015, it is hard to argue that the mandatory process-based regulatory process encountered by the GE AquAdvantage^® salmon  created “an environment of certainty and confidence for researchers, industry and consumers” . It may even have convinced consumers that, since mandatory regulation is required, it must mean that this fast growing fish is somehow more intrinsically risky than conventionally bred fast growing salmon.

One thing is for certain – no small company or university can afford to try to get a GE animal application through regulatory given the unpredictability of the timeline and costs. The protracted regulatory evaluation of this fast-growing Atlantic salmon and uncertainty associated with the process and the timeline has had a chilling effect on investment and development of GE animals for food applications in the US.