Oregon attempts moratorium on "biopharming"

Note from SLO GE Free: Not the bolded statement below from Terry Witt. "... the bill proposed by the physicians group is overly broad and would bar Oregon from research opportunities". The same rhetoric used in the Measure Q campaign is used anytime somebody tries to oppose this experimental technology. The language of the proposed legislation does not matter.

The Oregonian, Friday, December 10, 2004

Should farmers be able to grow crops genetically altered to help stop the spread of human diseases and cure afflictions ranging from herpes to heart disease to HIV?

Not in Oregon, say a group of doctors and others who want the Legislature to impose a four-year moratorium on so-called biopharming.

The state chapter of Physicians for Social Responsibility worries that such crops would infiltrate the environment, exposing residents to drugs they don't need.

Rick North, project director of the nonprofit group's Campaign for Safe Food, said a bill seeking the moratorium would be introduced after the Legislature convenes in January.

Biopharming represents the latest twist on genetic modification in agriculture: splicing pharmaceuticals into the genes of staple crops.

Biotechnology companies already have produced corn varieties containing a protein found in HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. Their goal is to manufacture food products, such as breakfast cereals, to orally deliver an AIDS vaccine.

Various transgenic seed projects under development and expected to be available commercially in the next few years include producing a topical gel that prevents the spread of herpes simplex virus and oral vaccines against hepatitis B and E. coli.

North, who has worked more than a year on the physician group's opposition to all genetically modified foods, said biopharming threatens to expose the public to microscopic levels of medicines drifting through the air.

"I want to take a drug when I have a need for it," he said. "I don't want to be exposed to it without knowledge of what it does and what its side effects are."

Oregon currently has no biopharmaceutical crops permitted for cultivation. But North said the physicians group, which numbers about 850 and includes nondoctors, wants to ensure that state residents don't risk allergic reaction from pharmaceuticals if conventional crops become contaminated by modified genes in the future.

The bill will be opposed by a coalition of farming, forest and chemical-company interests that is closely tied to Oregon agriculture. Salem-based Oregonians for Food and Shelter helped raise $5.5 million in 2002 to defeat a state measure that would have required labeling of genetically modified food products.

Terry Witt, Oregonians for Food and Shelter's executive director, said the bill proposed by the physicians group is overly broad and would bar Oregon from research opportunities.

"I don't think the biopharming arena will ever amount to a real windfall for Oregon farmers, but the major concern I have here is banning the technology without ever considering the details of what might be proposed," he said.

Witt said he also worries that the bill might open the door to restricting all types of genetically modified plant cultivation in Oregon. One significant project, which is awaiting federal review before its harvest can be marketed, involves a modified grass seed grown in Madras that resists the herbicide Roundup.

Many of the new biopharming crops have been tested by scientists and farmers in Corn Belt states.

A note of caution

The National Research Council has concluded, however, that uses appearing beneficial in the greenhouse or lab could endanger humans once nature takes over.

In a 2002 report, the council described how avidin, a glycoprotein grown commercially in corn since 1997, could potentially act as a poison.

Avidin is used for a number of purposes, including medical diagnostic procedures. The avidin molecule binds to biotin, a coenzyme, inactivating it. Because biotin is involved in the basic metabolism of all organisms, the report states, avidin can act as a toxin. Low doses have been shown to kill or chronically impair more than 20 insect species.

The report also describes how genetically modified corn containing avidin falls outside the jurisdiction of the Environmental Protection Agency, because it is not a pesticide. Instead, it is overseen by the U.S. Agriculture Department's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service.

In the past year, the service has said it would increase oversight of biopharming products. The service authorized more than 1,000 field tests during 2002, but fewer than 20 were for field tests of plants engineered to produce pharmaceutical compounds. In 2002, about 130 acres of pharmaceutical-producing plants were planted in experimental field tests at 34 sites.

Disasters strike

ProdiGene Inc., a privately held biotech company based in College Station, Texas, has pioneered plant cultivation of recombinant proteins for pharmaceutical use. One of its goals is production of children's vaccines that can be delivered in a snack rather than through a syringe.

But the company's cultivation of crops for medicinal purposes proved disastrous in 2002. In September that year, 155 acres of Iowa corn were destroyed in light of fears that a neighboring ProdiGene test plot tainted them. The following month, 500,000 bushels of soybeans in a Nebraska grain elevator were ordered destroyed after inspectors found traces of an experimental ProdiGene corn containing vaccine against traveler's diarrhea.

John Reiher, ProdiGene's chief executive, said this week that he would not comment on the company's record or the potential for a statewide moratorium on biopharming in Oregon.

In April, California refused to approve an application by Ventria BioScience of Sacramento to grow rice containing human proteins that work as antibiotics. The refusal came after rice growers complained that they would lose their international customers if conventional crops were accidentally contaminated.

North said the outcry from the ProdiGene and Ventria experiences might cause companies to begin searching for alternative growing areas, and his group wants to ensure that Oregon is not among them.

Dan Hilburn, administrator of the state Agricultural Department's plant division, said Monsanto representatives contacted the state a few years ago to ask how the state regulates biopharmaceutical crops. But he said the company never followed up with an application.

Alex Pulaski: alexpulaski@news.oregonian.com; 503-221-8516