BLOGGER HIGHLIGHT: GM Crops: Health and Food Safety: The Benefits of Bt-Corn
Corny City in Cape Town
January 31, 2007
Summary of article that promotes safety of Bt-Corn
For my adviser here at UCT, I wrote a summary of the article "Health and Food Safety: the Benefits of Bt-Corn,” by Drew Kershen. I found the article to be quite interesting, and thought I would share my summary with you.
Drew Kershen, 2006, Food and Drug Law Journal, 61:197-236
Kershen’s discussion starts innocently with the health risks that fumonisin contaminated corn pose to mothers and their unborn children, especially among Mexican Americans living in rural area, but then takes a turn certain to vex anti-GM constituents, as he focuses on how the FDA could reduce health risks by promoting Bt-corn as a safer alternative to conventionally and organically grown corn.
Unlike most of the anti-GM rhetoric, the science behind Kershen’s claims is sound. Heavy corn borer damage opens the ear to fungi that produce some of the most potent carcinogens known, called mycotoxins. For example, corn contaminated with fumonisin B1 produced by the Fusarium fungus has been linked to lethal diseases in animals and humans. In particular, an unusually high rate of birth defects was observed from 1995 to 2000 among Mexican American women living in the Southwest US. Their diet mainly consists of local corn that is often contaminated with high levels fumonisin. A linkage between fumonisin levels and birth defects is supported by the mycotoxin’s cellular activity—it interferes with the uptake of folic acid, which is a necessary metabolite early in pregnancy. Folic acid uptake from women’s diets ensures proper spinal cord development in the embryo. The FDA acted to ensure that women realized the importance of folic acid during pregnancies, by allowing health claims about folic acid to be put on certain foods and requiring that “enriched” foods be fortified with folic acid. If the FDA was quick to act on the folic acid issue, then Kershen figures that there should also be quick action to deal with the fumonisin in corn, which is definitely affecting folate uptake.
The EU and FDA have both established safe levels of fumonisins in corn, corn by products, and animals’ feeds. In 2001, the FDA even concluded that the levels of fumonisin in current foods do not pose any threat to our health. In light of new scientific evidence, and more importantly a safer alternative, Kershen does not think that FDA’s statement is correct anymore. Instead, he believes the FDA should jump into action and inform the public about the health consequences of consuming fumonisin contaminated corn or foods containing by products from such corn. The FDA should also go one step further by promoting the safer alternative Bt-corn, and encouraging farmers and processors to swap conventional and organic corn with the better alternative.
Legally, Kershen points out that the FDA has many avenues available to implement such policies. Although he never discuses the chances of FDA acting on the matter, which are quite slim, the tools the FDA could use promote such health policy are interesting to think about and briefly summarized below. Actions that the FDA could take include: (1) implementing an educational campaign; (2) monitoring fumonisin levels in food or feed, (3) labeling Bt-products with health claims; (4) setting the identity for corn food products; (5) initiating a management program of critical control points for hazard along the processing chain; (6) labeling non-Bt corn products with health warnings.
1. Educational Campaigns
Put on by the FDA and the Public Health Service and specifically targeted populations where corn is a large part of the diet. The objective being to inform women of the linkage between fumonisin in corn and birth defects and encourage women to eat Bt-corn and corn products made from Bt-corn.
2. Monitoring Fumonisin levels in food or feed
Allows the FDA to perform any voluntary recalls if necessary, declare a food as adulterated as necessary, and gather data about the prevalence of excessive fumonisins in corn products, the kinds of food products that have the greater risk of fumonisin contamination, and the population groups most frequently exposed to excessive fumonisins. Unfortunately, monitoring levels of the mycotoxin in foods is an after the fact activity, as corn products and foods containing corn by products have already been released to the public. Additionally, homegrown corn cannot be monitored, so populations like the Mexican American women would still remain at risk.
3. Health Claim Labels
Because of scientific evidence about the reduction of fumonisin levels in Bt-corn, fumonisin interference of folate uptake, and the relationship between folate and birth defects, food manufacturers using Bt-corn may be entitled to use a health claim on food labels. There are three different types of health claim labels: unqualified health claim (all public scientific evidence supports claim); qualified claim (if there is credible evidence to support claim); authoritative claim (if a science organization or governmental organization makes an authoritative statement). Labeling foods falls short of helping those most afflicted by fumonisin contaminated corn, like the Mexican American women, so Kershen suggests that seed companies should label Bt seed bags with a similar health claim that would help educate farmers and consumers in more remote areas.
4. Food Product Identity
If FDA were to decide that exposure to fumonisin levels was too high and needed to be reduced, the agency could use the rarely invoked statutory authority under 21 U.S.C. § 341 to define and set standards for particular corn food products. As previously noted, they used this statute to require enriched foods to be fortified with folate. Kershen mentions that the FDA could define enriched grain products or dry-milled corn food products to require Bt-corn as the basic corn ingredient. Though such a method seems quite drastic, such measures would protect Mexican American women, regardless of where they purchased corn tortillas or corn ingredients.
5. Hazard Management Program
HACCP is a management system approach to food safety that focuses on creating a process that addresses every point of the food chain, from farmer to processor, functioning as a preventive plan for ensuring food safety. HACCP programs have become more popular for dealing with food safety issues. Developing a program for corn processing would ensure that each actor on the chain would be aware of fumonisin hazards and would be therefore, be likely to choose to work with Bt-corn. The FDA could designate Bt-corn as the default agricultural input to chain for properly controlling fumonisin; however, this designation does not bind processors and farmers to use Bt-corn. They are free to use other lines of corn as long as they can reduce fumonisin levels to those observed in Bt-corn. Kershen also notes that an HACCP program would only be beneficial to Mexican American women if it encompassed to whole chain of corn production, targeting farmers at the start point and educating them about the benefits of Bt-corn.
6. Labeling non-Bt-corn Products
The FDA put warning labels on juices about possible pathogens in unpasteurized juice to educate a public that automatically thinks of juices as being healthy and non-harmful for them. The FDA could move to put health labels on non-Bt-corn products because organic foods have a similar wrong perception about their harmfulness.
Kershen does not speculate on the likelihood of the FDA taking action. However, I infer his choice to conclude with a short discussion about product food liability to suggest he expects women affected by fumonisin levels in corn are likely to be left on their own due to FDA inactivity. To hold a company, processor, or farmer accountable, a women and child affected by fumonisin levels in corn can claim manufacturing, design, or warning defects, with manufacturing and design defects likely being easier to pursue against contaminated conventional or organic corn.
Kershen wraps up the piece stating, “The health benefits of Bt-corn have ramifications for policy and law both domestic and international on multiple fronts—maternal and child health, food safety, animal productivity, and international trade,” which is certainly true. But we must not forget that any policy showing slight favoritism to GM crops will have serious social ramifications throughout the world.
