The truth about Iowa corn?

This snippet was put out by the Union of Concerned Scientists as noted from the New York Times. 

A dangerous strain of bacteria resistant to the antibiotic methicillin now kills more people in the United States than AIDS, emphysema, or homicide, according to a government study.

The bacteria, methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), has long been known to thrive in hospitals, but has now spread into the general community, where it is spread by contact with clothing or skin. New studies from Europe and Canada suggest that some MRSA may originate in swine operations and spread via pig farmers and their families into the general community.

This document explains how bacteria and bacterial resistance are transferred.

Here are some of the studies:
Here's one study from the UK: Executive Summary from the Soil Association

From Environ Health Perspect. 2007 February; 115(2): 313–316.
Published online 2006 November 14. doi: 10.1289/ehp.8837.

Several recent studies clearly demonstrate the transmission of multidrug-resistant pathogens from swine to humans. A French group studied 44 nasal Staphylococcus aureus isolates from healthy pig farmers and 21 healthy controls. Five isolates were found in pig farmers that were methicillin resistant. Other isolates were resistant to penicillin, lincomycin, erythromycin, pristinamycin, kanamycin, pefloxacin (Armand-Lefevre et al. 2005) . By comparing these findings with analyses of isolates from swine infections, the authors concluded that transmission of these resistant organisms from swine to pig farmers may be frequent. Voss and co-workers (2005) in the Netherlands studied methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA) among 26 Dutch farmers living nearby a sentinel case of MRSA. Their study demonstrated transmission of three strains of MRSA from swine to pig farmers, from pig farmers to their family members, and from a hospitalized patient (the sentinel case) to a nurse. Investigators in the United States collected air samples via liquid impingers in a swine CAFO and analyzed the samples for viable isolates of antibiotic resistant bacteria (Chapin et al. 2005) . Enterococci, staphylococci, and streptococci were analyzed for resistance to erythromycin, clindamycin, virginiamycin, tetracycline, and vancomycin. None of the isolates were resistant to vancomycin, which has never been approved for use in livestock in the United States. In contrast, 98% of the isolates displayed resistance to two or more of the other four antibiotics that are commonly used as growth promotants in swine. It is important to note that 37 of 124 isolates were resistant to all four of these antibiotics (Chapin et al. 2005) .

The U.S. government does not know whether use of antibiotics in livestock in the United States is contributing to community-associated MRSA, because it is not testing U.S. livestock for the presence of bacteria.

Do the effects of feeding corn to cattle have any relation to what would appear to be overuse of antibiotics, or are these uses simply broad-spectrum prophylactic measures?

Given the cost-consciousness of today's farms, especially the mega-farmers, where along the spectrum of proper feeding do you expect most cattle to exist?

What are the cumulative differences between common cattle feeding methods and just cutting them loose in a corn field to do as they please?

(The following is, no doubt, basic knowledge for Shelley, it is written so that all readers have an idea where the question is coming from). The human immune system, and probably that of just about any animal, is a function of the digestive system. If this seems odd, just think about where the vast majority of foreign material is processed in your body: all food you consume, all fluid you consume, and some of the air you breathe go straight to your digestive system. Particles trapped early by the respiratory system's various defense mechanisms are generally expelled through the mouth or swallowed. For this reason, assaults on the digestive system often result in allergies and sickness. For humans, corn is somewhat tough to digest, especially at a young age. Do the digestive systems of cattle handle it significantly better?

Because of the effects of corn, wheat, cow's milk, and soy on young digestive systems, I have noticed how tough it is to find commonly available foods that are truly suitable for my daughter. Almost everything has corn or wheat in it, even the foods from big names who should know better, like Gerber. Rice is generally an easy-to-digest food, but if you just buy the nearest rice cereal for infants without closely inspecting the label, you might still be pumping corn and sugars into them. Foods more appropriate for infants, such as avocados, bananas, and sweet potatoes, don't come cheaply even if you're willing to possibly expose your child to pesticides (jarred food is also very not good, but since I'm unaware of any jarring of cattle food, it's too much of a tangent to expand upon this in this thread). Once again displaying my ignorance of the difference between human and cattle digestive systems, does the predominance of corn in the diet of cattle over more expensive food sources have a negative long-term impact on the animal itself, therefore an indirect negative impact on the human that consumes it?

The issue of age and diet in humans is very important. My mother thinks that you can just wheel a shopping cart into a community college and pick up the title of "doctor" for a few bucks. As a result, when she took me to our family doctor because I wanted to eat several times at night, she ignored all the terms like "cluster feeding" and "too young" and started straining rice cereal into my formula... when I was less than three months of age. She'll still tell you that it was because I wasn't getting enough to eat from the formula so she had to do it. Any evidence you present to the contrary will just result in her telling you "doctors don't know everything". I never met any doctor who claimed to know everything, but the only ones I met that I'd say didn't know much of anything were not in the medical field or any other hard science. As a result, I suffer from irritable bowel system and a horrible food allergy that I haven't been able to identify. My daughter exhibited exactly the same habits as a newborn that I did: she'd nurse four times between 8 PM and midnight, then sleep for 7-8 hours. This is perfectly normal and perfectly healthy behavior. Even though most mothers don't take the extreme stance my mother does, many are conned into thinking that because their baby is eating a lot in a short time span that they aren't eating enough. Instead of explaining this behavior, infants are allowed to be given foods their bodies cannot handle by moms who do not know better. If rice and avocados aren't supposed to be given to babies under six months of age, and corn is far tougher than either, then how can giving rice with sugar and corn oils to a three-month-old to "help him/her sleep" be good? It makes no difference how much that food is strained. Because corn and other tough grains are in just about all infant foods, these babies' digestive systems, thus their immune systems, are under assault practically from birth. It wouldn't take any great leap of research to correlate the earlier feeding of infants of a wider variety of foods, primarily corn, to the rapid increase of allergies and conditions such as IBS in the American population. In addition, a similar correlation can be made to the habits these feeding activities engender as well as the compromised status of young digestive systems that will last a lifetime to the rising issue of obesity in America. Ever wonder why some people can eat anything and not gain weight? You might find out how their parent's fed them in that critical first year of life. I have two questions from this line of thought: the first is, if such widespread ignorance is not only maintained, but encouraged, in the feeding of people, what correlations can be drawn to the cattle? Secondly, as a concerned parent who has been clued in to these things, I can tell you that trying to maintain a diet for an infant with the awareness of what to avoid can lead to some very high grocery bills. This is also why obesity and poverty have a link: fattening, unhealthy foods are the cheap (parse as: affordable) ones. So, for my second question, if cheap, corn-based foods make people fat and sick, is it really that much of a stretch to say that it does the same to cattle? I will grant that it wasn't presented well in the article, and that the answer to that question could very well be "yes", since I just don't know much about cattle.

I agree 100% that no article in Scientific American has an excuse to not be fact-checked prior to publication.

Tom West, vice president in biotech affairs with Pioneer Hi-Bred International, contends that "There's not a single documented case of an illness or allergic reaction to a biotech food," he said.

That's easy enough to say... and it's true enough, but how would you feel if you knew that it was only true because these illnesses and allergies have not been studied so that they can be documented???

The government concedes: They measure food safety by the nutrients and potential toxicants of foods already out there.  Many foods contain components that at larger concentrations would present a safety concern. In addition, some individuals in the population are allergic or intolerant to certain foods. Thus, a level of absolute safety for a food cannot be achieved or expected.

Because it's estimated that only 1 - 2% of the US population suffers from food allergies - the FDA doesn't not rank the priority of addressing this issue as very high on the list. 

Indeed safety testing is also difficult because there's no widely accepted way to predict a new food's potential to cause an allergy. The FDA is now five years behind in its promise to develop guidelines for doing so.  With no formal guidelines in place, it's largely up to the industry to decide whether and how to test for the allergy potential of new food not already on the FDA's "must test" list.

That means there is a small chance that someone will suffer an allergic reaction, and perhaps a serious one, but science can never assure safety with 100 percent certainty, said University of Wisconsin professor Robert Bush, chief of allergies at the Veterans Affairs Hospital in Madison.

Their risk assessment of the situation is telling you that it is more cost effective for them to let people with allergies (the minority) "fend for themselves" despite the fact that they can't defend themselves with the tools to identify whether or not the GM food they are eating is the culprit of their symptoms.  Because it is not studied, it cannot be "proven" - and the companies distributing these foods are not held responsible.

The general attitude of the government as spoken by our president: And when deciding how much effort and expense should be rallied to minimize that risk, Bush said, people should remember that new foods are introduced all the time from other parts of the world without regulators demanding studies on their allergy potential.

"I don't think there was a hue and cry about introducing kiwis onto the U.S. market," Bush said, even though many Americans have proven allergic to them.

But  is the allergy problem as small as biotech would like us to believe - and will it stay that way if biotech foods are predominant?

A key task in genetic engineering is the identification and selection of cells into which a new gene has been introduced. Antibiotic resistance genes have the ability to selectively inactivate certain antibiotics and consequently protect cells against these antibiotics. An antibiotic resistance gene can thus be used to “tag” a gene carrying a trait or characteristic of interest.

Antibiotic resistance markers only confer resistance against specific antibiotics.
Antibiotic resistance markers do not result in antibiotic production. There are therefore no antibiotics present in food produced from
plants produced using biotechnology.

It is not possible to remove marker genes once they are integrated into a plant genome unless a particular mechanism for removal is
incorporated along with the marker gene and the gene of interest at the time of the transformation.

The identification of the “transgenic cells” would be extremely tedious, and even impossible, without this selection procedure since only a very small fraction of the cell population incorporates the introduced genes (one out of several thousands of cells). A selection procedure is a necessity in genetic engineering, and this is the reason why antibiotic resistance genes have been so widely use in many different areas of biotechnology for a number of years. (1)

This is what I know from experience on my job, this article, and through my personal investigation:  Biotech companies are required to assess the risk of introducing a specific marker gene and attempt to use only those genes that do not resist antibiotics used in treating human ailments.  But because we are talking about a scale that is too small to measure - too small to indicate where a specific antibiotic resistance may be coming from - biotech companies cannot guarantee that this marker gene has no effect on the human resistance to antibiotics.  The numbers and scenarios given to the public are estimates only that serve their corporate purpose. 

If you know anything about government regulations on risk assesment - the bottom line in this is covering yourself for the given possibility that something bad does happen.   One famous risk assesment case in history was the story of the Ford Pinto - where the company assessed the risk and determined it was more cost effective to let people die and pay out in lawsuits than it was to recall their product and ensure their customer's safety. 

The GM food industry is an industry where only "voluntary reporting" is required.  In an arena where you have to have thousands of dollars of equipment to even test for these marker genes to know they are there - let alone be researched... there have been no large scale health studies done by an unbiased market interest.  Anyone possibly suffering any kind of effect from this technology would be hard pressed to prove their case not because it itsn't a problem but because we're not given the tools to uncover the truth.  Not only that, but it's in the best interest of these companies to cover their own tracks in the instances where problems have occurred.  It's about money... marketing and spin.  Companies are good at it.

Generally speaking - Man’s use of antibiotics has drastically increased their global distribution and consequently promoted the spread of resistant microbes. Increased use of antibiotics in clinical and also veterinary medicine is the major cause of the increasing incidence of antibiotic resistance in bacteria. In addition, antibiotics have been and still are used extensively as animal feed additives which has brought about the selection of resistant bacteria in healthy animals. Antibiotics are also widely sprayed on crop plants, orchards, vines, etc to protect against pathogens.

Today resistance to antibiotics is so widespread that some of the first generation of antibiotics are of no use anymore. (1) 

My opinion is that we shouldn't try to lay the blame squarely on the shoulders of GM corn or feed - though the potential has to be considered and we as the public should be able to decide what kind of educated risks we want to take with this kind of stuff.

Quoting again from this paper:  It is rather politically and technically easier to ban the use of these antibiotics resistance markers in transgenic (genetically modified) plants on the basis of the precautionary principle than to regulate the feed market and to control its upstream agricultural practices”.  Even if antibiotic resistance markers or other markers are not proven to be harmful, as is the case in general, it would be preferable in the long run if trangenic crops carried only those genes necessary for the crop’s performance and not the selectable markers. (1)

Today, the use of antibiotic-resistance genes is slowly (and at the urging of the FDA) being phased out.  My opinion is that there is some pressure from the global market regarding this specifically that may be spurring this on.

(1)  Antibiotic Resistance Markers in Genetically Modified (GM) Crops
EUROPEAN FEDERATION of BIOTECHNOLOGY
TASK GROUP ON PUBLIC PERCEPTIONS OF BIOTECHNOLOGY
© Copyright EFB Task Group on Public
Perceptions of Biotechnology, 2001.
Briefing paper 10 September 2001

It was not to instill fear, but to broach the facts of an uncomfortable topic.  Shell, you have argued that it's fiscally not in the best interest of companies to not follow the FDA standards.    I understand what you are saying about profit and loss - but I have a marketing degree and specialized in market research - which is actually where this case first came to my attention years ago.  I know just how easy it can be to sell something to the general public.  It's not that there aren't altruistic people in the field of marketing, mind you... but you can make a sick creation out of a lot of good and wholesome parts - it's all in how you put it together and why.  It's also implied that these FDA standards are what ensures that the products these corporations sell are safe.  My point is that FDA standards don't necessarily make what companies do "safe" even when they are in FDA compliance.

It's my opinion that America needs to realize that in the corporate structure, corporate motivation is not about accountability, it's about profit.  
I mention that Ford found it more profitable to let a few people die - not to instill fear and disgust for their decision or for corporations, but to point out the bottom line of the risk assessment Ford used to justify selling that product.  (That's all a risk assessment is supposed to do - to show that you thought about the hazards involved and depending on the risk level how you possibly mitigated that risk.)  There was a corporate belief, attributed to Lee Iacocca himself, of "safety doesn't sell."  Point #1 Selling and profitability is a corporation's #1 priority.  It has to be - a business won't survive if it doesn't have money.  It does not mean that every corporation doesn't attempt to make public safety equally important.  Some companies will allow themselves to fold up before they allow public harm to come to pass.
 
I think it's significant to note that the method Ford used to address the risk assessment for the Pinto was fully legal within FDA guidelines at the time.

I'm going to point out 2 articles here - one from each side of the fence... both make some very good points to consider.  Points that I think go back to the "cost of technology" posts going on elsewhere in the forum earlier.  It's my opinion that Americans aren't used to thinking about the sort of things that go on in a risk assessment behind corporate doors.
Some people claim Ford got burned by this -and that they did "all that could be reasonably asked of them."  It's true that every company has to take risks.
In this case, however, I think it's clear there were other things going on politically that indicate some not so good ways that companies can get around federal regulations and even morality if they desire to.  In this case, people died.  That's dramatic... they got caught.  But you have to consider ... what else is going on under the radar ... about things that are a little bit harder to prove than who is liable for the dead body?  Some companies profit off of the ignorance of the people they are selling their products to.

My opinion is that the corporate farming structure lends to supporting corporate finances more than it is set up to support the health of humans or animals involved.  I don't think health and profitability necessarily go hand in hand.

I'm going to start with making my opinion clear that I agree the method Ford used was the best and proper one to be applied.  I also agree that any criticism of this method should be done on a case by case basis. Here are the reasons that I do not think Ford applied the standards in earnest or honestly and thus should have been held liable in this case.

(This is a link to this article in its entirety.)

When a federal regulatory agency like the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) decides to issue a new standard, the law usually requires it to invite all interested parties to respond before the standard is enforced--a reasonable enough custom on the surface. However, the auto industry has taken advantage of this process and has used it to delay life saving emission and safety standards for years. In the case of the standard that would have corrected that fragile Pinto fuel tank, the delay was for an incredible eight years. The particular regulation involved here was Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard 301. Ford picked portions of Standard 301 for strong opposition back in 1968 when the Pinto was still in the blueprint stage. The intent of 301, and the 300 series that followed it, was to protect drivers and passengers after a crash occurs. Without question the worst postcrash hazard is fire. So Standard 301 originally proposed that all cars should be able to withstand a fixed-barrier impact of 20 mph (that is, running into a wall at that speed) without losing fuel. When the standard was proposed, Ford engineers pulled their crash-test results out of their files. The front ends of most cars were no problem-- with minor alterations they could stand the impact without losing fuel. "We were already working on the front end," Ford engineer Dick Kimble admitted. "We knew we could meet the test on the front end." But with the Pinto particularly, a 20- mph rear-end standard meant redesigning the entire rear end of the car. With the Pinto scheduled for production in August of 1970, and with $200 million worth of tools in place, adoption of this standard would have created a minor financial disaster. So Standard 301 was targeted for delay, and, with some assistance from its industry associates, Ford succeeded beyond its wildest expectations: the standard was not adopted until the 1977 model year. Here is how it happened: There are several main techniques in the art of combating a government safety standard: a) make your arguments in succession, so the feds can be working on disproving only one at a time; b) claim that the real problem is not X but Y (we already saw one instance of this in "the problem is not cars but people"); c) no matter how ridiculous each argument is, accompany it with thousands of pages of highly technical assertions it will take the government months or, preferably, years to test. Ford's large and active Washington office brought these techniques to new heights and became the envy of the lobbyists' trade. The Ford people started arguing against Standard 301 way back in 1968 with a strong attack of technique b). Fire, they said, was not the real problem. Sure, cars catch fire and people burn occasionally. But statistically auto fires are such a minor problem that NHTSA should really concern itself with other matters. Strange as it may seem, the Department of Transportation (NHTSA's parent agency) didn't know whether or not this was true. So it contracted with several independent research groups to study auto fires. The studies took months, often years, which was just what Ford wanted. The completed studies, however, showed auto fires to be more of a problem than Transportation officials ever dreamed of. A Washington research firm found that 400,000 cars were burning up every year, burning more than 3,000 people to death. Furthermore, auto fires were increasing five times as fast as building fires. Another study showed that 35 per cent of all fire deaths in the U.S. occurred in automobiles. Forty per cent of all fire department calls in the 1960s were to vehicle fires--a public cost of $350 million a year, a figure that, incidentally, never shows up in cost-benefit analyses. Another study was done by the Highway Traffic Research Institute in Ann Arbor, Michigan, a safety think-tank funded primarily by the auto industry (the giveaway there is the words "highway traffic" rather than "automobile" in the group's name). It concluded that 40 per cent of the lives lost in fuel-fed fires could be saved if the manufacturers complied with proposed Standard 301. Finally, a third report was prepared for NHTSA. This report indicated that the Ford Motor Company makes 24 per cent of the cars on the American road, yet these cars account for 42 per cent of the collision-ruptured fuel tanks. Ford lobbyists then used technique a) bringing up a new argument. Their line then became: yes, perhaps burn accidents do happen, but rear-end collisions are relatively rare (note the echo of technique b) here as well). Thus Standard 301 was not needed. This set the NHTSA off on a new round of analyzing accident reports. The government's findings finally were that rear-end collisions were seven and a half times more likely to result in fuel spills than were front-end collisions. So much for that argument. By now it was 1972; NHTSA had been researching and analyzing for four years to answer Ford's objections. During that time, nearly 9,000 people burned to death in flaming wrecks. Tens of thousands more were badly burned and scarred for life. And the four-year delay meant that well over 10 million new unsafe vehicles went on the road, vehicles that will be crashing, leaking fuel and incinerating people well into the 1980s. Ford now had to enter its third round of battling the new regulations. On the "the problem is not X but Y" principle, the company had to look around for something new to get itself off the hook. One might have thought that, faced with all the latest statistics on the horrifying number of deaths in flaming accidents, Ford would find the task difficult. But the company's rhetoric was brilliant. The problem was not burns, but . . . impact! Most of the people killed in these fiery accidents, claimed Ford, would have died whether the car burned or not. They were killed by the kinetic force of the impact, not the fire. And so once again, the ball bounced into the government's court and the absurdly pro-industry NHTSA began another slow-motion response. Once again it began a time-consuming round of test crashes and embarked on a study of accidents. The latter, however, revealed that a large and growing number of corpses taken from burned cars involved in rear-end crashes contained no cuts, bruises or broken bones. They clearly would have survived the accident unharmed if the cars had not caught fire. This pattern was confirmed in careful rear-end crash tests performed by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. A University of Miami study found an inordinate number of Pintos burning on rear-end impact and concluded that this demonstrated "a clear and present hazard to all Pinto owners." Pressure on NHTSA from Ralph Nader and consumer groups began mounting. The industry-agency collusion was so obvious that Senator Joseph Montoya (D--N.M.) introduced legislation about Standard 301. NHTSA waffled some more and again announced its intentions to promulgate a rear-end collision standard. Waiting, as it normally does, until the last day allowed for response, Ford filed with NHTSA a gargantuan batch of letters, studies and charts now arguing that the federal testing criteria were unfair. Ford also argued that design changes required to meet the standard would take 43 months, which seemed like a rather long time in light of the fact that the entire Pinto was designed in about two years. Specifically new complaints about the standard involved the weight of the test vehicle, whether or not the brakes should be engaged at the moment of impact and the claim that the standard should only apply to cars, not trucks or buses. Perhaps the most amusing argument was that the engine should not be idling during crash tests, the rationale being that an idling engine meant that the gas tank had to contain gasoline and that the hot lights needed to film the crash might ignite the gasoline and cause a fire. Some of these complaints were accepted, others rejected. But they all required examination and testing by a weak-kneed NHTSA, meaning more of those 18-month studies the industry loves so much. So the complaints served their real purpose-- delay; all told, an eight-year delay, while Ford manufactured more than three million profitable, dangerously incendiary Pintos. To justify this delay, Henry Ford II called more press conferences to predict the demise of American civilization. "If we can't meet the standards when they are published," he warned, "we will have to close down. And if we have to close down some production because we don't meet standards we're in for real trouble in this country. " 

This is a snippet of some interesting points in a legal paper on the Ford Pinto case (found in its entirety here.)

Ford was not in violation of the law in any way and had to make the decision whether to incur a cost to fix the obvious problem internally.

Decisions involving gradation of risks are made every day, just not under such strict scrutiny. Obviously, highways would be safer if the speed were restricted to 25 miles per hour on all roads. However, this must be balanced with the "price" of slower traffic. in choosing 55 or 65 as the speed limit, we are sacrificing lives to make travel quicker and less costly. Therefore, the Ford Motor Company is not morally void for choosing between levels of safety. Auto manufacturers do this every day.   ... there was a corporate belief, attributed to Lee Iacocca himself, of "safety doesn't sell."

Although Ford had access to a new design which would decrease the possibility of the Ford Pinto from exploding, the company chose not to implement the design, which would have cost $11 per car, even though it had done an analysis showing that the new design would result in 180 less deaths.  The company defended itself on the grounds that it used the accepted risk/benefit analysis to determine if the monetary costs of making the change were greater than the societal benefit.  Based on the numbers Ford used, the cost would have been $137 million versus the $49.5 million price tag put on the deaths, injuries, and car damages, and thus Ford felt justified not implementing the design change.  This risk/benefit analysis was created out of the development of product liability, culminating at Judge Learned Hand's BPL formula, where if the expected harm exceeded the cost to take the precaution, then the company must take the precaution, whereas if the cost was liable, then it did not have to.  However, the BPL formula focuses on a specific accident, while the risk/benefit analysis requires an examination of the costs, risks, and benefits through use of the product as a whole.  Based on this analysis, Ford legally chose not to make the design changes which would have made the Pinto safer.  However, just because it was legal doesn't necessarily mean that it was ethical.  It is difficult to understand how a price can be put on saving a human life.

While not absolutely perfect, the risk/benefit standard for negligence advances overall economic value and welfare, is economically efficient, and therefore is the correct standard to apply (or at least the best option). Criticism of the standard almost always occurs when looking at the standard on an individual case-by-case basis.

...this framework is economically efficient and the proper one to apply. However, companies beware. The result of the Ford Pinto case indicate there is a belief held by most of the public that it is wrong for a corporation to make decisions which may sacrifice the lives of its customers in order to reduce the company's cost or increase its profits.

 THIRD WORLD NETWORK BIOSAFETY INFORMATION SERVICE

5 April 2005

Dear Friends and colleagues,

RE: UNAPPROVED GM CORN HAS ANTIBIOTIC-RESISTANCE GENE

Further to our mail-out of 28 March 2005, on the inadvertent release of an experimental and unapproved GM corn, we wish to update you further on the issue.

Between 2001 and 2004, Syngenta inadvertently produced and distributed an unapproved corn (Bt10). Countries that import corn from the US may have received Bt10. The unapproved Bt10 was mistaken for Bt11, which is approved in some countries. When the news first became public, Jeff Stein, head of regulatory affairs at Syngenta claimed that, "What makes this somewhat unique is that Bt10 and Bt11 are physically identical and the proteins are identical".

However, Syngenta now admits that a marker gene that confers resistance to ampicillin, a commonly used antibiotic for treating human and animal infections, is present in Bt10. Bt 11 does not contain an antibiotic-resistance marker gene.

The presence of antibiotic-resistance genes raise serious biosafety concerns, as there is a risk that the resistance gene could transfer horizontally to pathogenic microorganisms, potentially compromising the use of the antibiotic in disease treatment.

So much so that the EU's 2001/18 Directive on the deliberate release into the environment of genetically modified organisms requires a mandatory phasing out of antibiotic resistance marker genes in GMOs which may have adverse effects on human health and the environment, within specified time frames (31 December 2004 for GMOs placed on the market; 31 December 2008 for deliberate release of GMOs for any other purpose than placing on the market, e.g. field trials).

In 2004, the Scientific Panel on Genetically Modified Organisms of the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) issued an Opinion on the use of antibiotic resistance marker genes in GM plants. It recommended that the gene conferring ampicillin resistance should be restricted to field trial purposes and "should not be present in GM plants to be placed on the market".

The European Commission on 31 March met with Syngenta representatives, afterwhich it confirmed that up to 10 kg of Bt10 seed may have been exported inadvertently as Bt11 for research purposes to Spain and France, which have since been destroyed. More worryingly, an estimated 1000 metric tonnes of Bt10 food and feed products may have entered the EU through the Bt11 export channels since 2001.

The Commission said that it "deplores the fact that a GMO which has not been authorised through the EU's comprehensive legislative framework for GMOs, nor by any other country, has been imported into the EU."

It has written to the US authorities, demanding a guarantee that present and future GM corn exports to the EU do not contain GMOs which are not authorised for the EU market, including Bt10. While the US authorities informed the Commission on 22 March about the inadvertent release of Bt10, they neglected to mention that Bt10 contains the gene conferring resistance against the antibiotic ampicillin. It was only on 31 March that this information was given officially to the Commission by Syngenta.

The Commission has asked EU Member States to carry out appropriate control measures to stop Bt10 entering their territory and to implement the necessary monitoring and surveillance measures in the surrounding areas where experimental releases of Bt11 have taken place. It has asked Syngenta to release the full molecular characterisation of Bt10, as well as the specific detection method and adequate reference materials to trace Bt10.

As Bt10 is unapproved, countries that have potentially received the GMO would not have conducted the appropriate risk assessments nor would they possess the necessary reference materials to facilitate detection and identification. We urge countries to seek further clarification from Syngenta and the US authorities so that appropriate action can be taken.

It is of concern that 4 years have passed before the inadvertent release of experimental and unapproved Bt10 has come to public knowledge; moreover Bt10 contains an antibiotic-resistance gene. This incident highlights the difficulties involved in controlling and monitoring GMOs.

Hi Esi. Unfortunately, I will have limited internet access over the next few weeks so I am just going to briefly answer some of your questions. These are pretty big questions, likely each a separate topic. But these are important conversations. So maybe we can go little by little.

Do the effects of feeding corn to cattle have any relation to what would appear to be overuse of antibiotics, or are these uses simply broad-spectrum prophylactic measures? Briefly, the answer is no. Antibiotic use in food animal, in particular cattle, is highly regulated by the FDA. This is the sort of stuff that veterinarians go to jail for if misusing antibiotics. You would never use broad-spectrum antibiotics prophylactically in cattle. The major use of antibiotics in feed lot cattle is in relation to respiratory disease and is highly regulated and there are a certain number of days that must pass prior to slaughter if used. The type of "sickness" cattle could get from corn would be if it is fed too fast and it changes the pH of their rumen too quickly and they get significant metabolic issues that can make them pretty sick. That can be a pretty bad deal and usually the animal is culled rather than treated. That is why it is imperative to PREVENT the problems by proper husbandry which the feedlots are quite in tune with.

Given the cost-consciousness of today's farms, especially the mega-farmers, where along the spectrum of proper feeding do you expect most cattle to exist? Very high. Again, sick animals are not profitable. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure....especially when you are limited with the drugs used for cure due to FDA regulations.

What are the cumulative differences between common cattle feeding methods and just cutting them loose in a corn field to do as they please? Grass fed beef will taste differently than feed lot raised beef. Fat content of the muscle (the marbling) will be different. Health wise for the animal, there is not that much difference. A rancher would not cut cattle loose on a corn field as you could not control the intake of the corn and the cattle LOVE corn and may end up with the same situation of feeding corn too quickly in the above same. Plus, cattle need grass and minerals, etc. to be healthy.

I'll address the rest of your post soon, as the internet cafe is closing but you bring up alot of good points I would like to discuss as well as some possible misunderstandings that I would like to help clear up.

Great discussion though!

Shelley

This isn't about corn, but antibiotic use in animal feed as related to human antibiotic resistance.

The government has addressed drug residue issues with laws that require drug withdrawal periods before animals go to slaughter, and by setting maximum allowable levels for residues. Although monitoring programs are limited in scope, most of the samples that are tested do not exceed the existing residue limits (there are occasional exceptions).

Even if residue standards were never exceeded, however, agricultural use of antibiotics would still be a concern. Resistant bacteria arise on the farm when antibiotics are fed to animals in food and water. The bacteria, which usually reside within the guts of the pigs, chickens, or beef, may contaminate meat during slaughter and processing, be released into the environment, or be transmitted by workers.

Unlike drug residues, the generation of antibiotic-resistant bacteria in animal agriculture is receiving relatively little attention from the government.

Are antibiotics used in animal agriculture only when animals are sick?  No...

The Food and Drug Administration approved the antibiotic drug monensin for increased milk production efficiency in dairy cows in total mixed ration systems in October 2004, and in component feeding systems (including top dress) in December 2005.

Monensin is reported to be used extensively in beef and dairy cattle to improve growth rates. (1)
(1) Appl Environ Microbiol. 2004 September; 70(9): 5336–5342. doi: 10.1128/AEM.70.9.5336-5342.2004. , Effect of Forage or Grain Diets with or without Monensin on Ruminal Persistence and Fecal Escherichia coli O157:H7 in Cattle, M. J. Van Baale,1 J. M. Sargeant,1 D. P. Gnad,2 B. M. DeBey,3 K. F. Lechtenberg,4 and T. G. Nagaraja3*

This is only one of many different antibiotics with such a purpose.

"Guidance for Industry # 78", spells out the FDA s intent to take the indirect human health effects of antibiotic resistance into account in the drug-approval process.

The Framework focuses almost exclusively on the evaluation and approval of new antibiotics, giving scant attention to the review of previously registered drugs. The only reference toward addressing resistance development in existing drugs is a footnote stating that the framework, if finalized and implemented, would also be used for reviewing these antibiotics as resources permit.

Does the use of antibiotics in agriculture have any connection to infections that are resistant to antibiotics in people?

Yes. While agricultural use of antibiotics may not be the greatest contributor to antibiotic-resistant infections in people, it is significant. The American Medical Association has adopted a formal resolution opposing the nontherapeutic use of antibiotics (i.e., their use in healthy animals). Other expert groups, including the American Public Health Association, the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists, and the American College of Preventive Medicine, have taken similar stances. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) considers animal use of antibiotics, for example, to be the major cause of foodborne illnesses that resist treatment with antibiotics. The World Health Organization has called for an end to the growth promoting uses of animal antibiotics important to human medicine.

The use of enormous quantities of agricultural antibiotics generates a pool of resistance genes in animal wastes spread throughout the environment -- in surface water, in groundwater, and in soils. These genes can transfer from the bacteria in which they originally exist (which may be harmless) to unrelated bacteria -- including types that cause human disease. This environmental dimension of antibiotic use in agriculture is also significant.

Even if agricultural uses were not the greatest contributor to antibiotic-resistant human disease, agricultural use is still important -- particularly when there are alternatives, and especially when the populations most at risks are children, the elderly and the immune-compromised.

It's true... The kind of industrialized animal agriculture which predominates in the U.S. typically relies on crowded, unsanitary, and stressful growing conditions conducive to the emergence of disease. Much disease could be avoided through better animal husbandry, including better animal housing and more attention to animal hygiene.

DL, I wish you would not muddy and confuse discussions with misleading information and incomplete facts. I don't have time to provide a complete veterinary and animal husbandry discussion but a quick comment or two......

Monenscin is an ionophore fed to beef cattle for more than 20 years to decrease ruminal fermentation losses (e.g methane and ammonia) and increase feed efficiency. Ionophores are not used to treat human disease so please not confuse the issue of antibiotic resistance and the fear those words strike in the medical profession. We also use this inophore to help prevents the rumen acidosis which can occur when switching feedlot cattle to a grain diet. In addition, the long-term effects of feeding monensin on milk fatty acid (FA) profile in lactating dairy cows. monensin was at least partly effective in inhibiting the biohydrogenation of unsaturated FA in the rumen and consequently increased the percentage of n-6 and n-3 PUFA and CLA in milk, thus enhancing the nutritional properties of milk with regard to human health.

The kind of industrialized animal agriculture which predominates in the U.S. typically relies on crowded, unsanitary, and stressful growing conditions

You don't really understand animal husbandry and feedlot management to make statements like this. It wouldn't make good business sense to have this situation. Unhealthy animals are nonproductive animals. These sort of statements really turn me off to you "cause"

We really don't do things haphazardly in food production. The FDA and AMDUCA take food safety in america VERY seriously. It is an intregral part of our biosecurity.

As much as you (and I) dislike corporate farming. In fact, the attention and expertise to animal husbandry and preventive medicine that can occurs at that level of efficiency is hard to match by the 'family farm' and still produce enough product to feed our population. Now, having said that, my own parents raise grass fed, pasture raised beef but we have a very select market that most cannot afford and we must ship it to that high end clientle. I personally don't like the taste of grass fed beef as much but I recognize the health benefits from eating less fatty meat.

I also wish you would delineate when your opinion is being stated and when you are quoting another source. It would help with the confusing nature of your posts.

Shelley

I truly am sorry if you genuinely do not understand my posts.  I'm sure part of your misunderstanding may be because you were not able to take the time to access the links that I provided...  links that in fact already explained some of the facts that you felt the need to address in your post. However, I get the impression that further delineation of the facts I'm quoting won't help you understand me any better.  It seems clear that the topics I bring up make you uncomfortable - despite that I'm quoting quite factual information from sources that you find reputable yourself.  I can only guess that you have had some past experience with someone else that you are bringing into this situation because my intention is not to stir up anyone's emotions in this.  Your strong desire to have everybody fear me and any information I may bring to the table does not address the points at hand, and really lends to looking like that you are the one with not only a personal bias against me, but an agenda to discredit me (for whatever good reason you think you have).  I really think that's unfortunate because all I'm interested in is the unbiased truth and I agree that you have very valuable information and experience that I am genuinely interested in understanding. 

I'll say it again... I respect you and your expertise... and it's clear to me that somehow you don't get that.  I'm sure that's at least a little bit my fault as I'm not sure I've felt I had the opportunity to say it out loud. The fact of the matter is that the reason I let your rants bother me so much is that I admire you - not because I have some agenda that you're thwarting or a war to start.  What I haven't shared about me pertaining to this is that growing up I aspired to do the things that you are doing now with your life.  I took 5 and a half years of Latin in school (among other things) to prep myself for a career in the medical field.  I mention this not to claim expertise but to point out how seriously I considered this path in my life.  My first job was working in an animal clinic and I left this field of study with a still strong admiration for doctors who practice it.  I left on friendly terms - not with any agendas or malcontent.  I'm not claiming this lends to any veterinary expertise either - I've only witnessed surgeries being done, I didn't perform them.  I'm just explaining why I've been letting you get to me.  The fact is I suppose I've misplaced my affections a bit, perhaps.  Just because I can see how I could be friends with you (and like it), does not mean that you would ever return that sentiment despite my experience with people in that profession in the past.

I'll admit I've been afraid to open up to you because of the way our interactions have been going, but I've come to realize that you not knowing who I am or what I do leaves you at a disadvantage.  Again, this hasn't been intentional to deceive you... I was hoping to discuss who I am on more friendly terms, but because my reputation has been called into account here... I'm going to lay out as much as I feel comfortable doing in a public forum, in the hopes that it helps you get to know me better.  I hope this clears up any misinformation for the people reading this thread as well.  I'm not sure you'll ever respect anything I have to say, but at this point I guess that's immaterial since you've brought everybody into this discussion of "who is DL to say anything".

I'll post this as I have time to - hopefully today.

I work for a biotechnology company in a department of quality assurance.  My expertise that lends to this discussion is in the area of federal documentation guidelines for FDA compliance.  I write the risk assessments for my department and assist other members in the QA department with the Failure Modes and Effects Analysis (FMEA) for the company as a whole - among other things.  Reading and understanding FDA documentation is part of my job responsibilities. 

I do not claim to be an expert on animal husbandry or feedlot management - I hope I didn't say anything that lead anyone on this forum to believe that this is what I'm claiming.  I did not abandon my love of veterinary science because I disagree with how the industry operates.  I truly believe that the FDA and the AMDUCA take their jobs and responsibilities seriously. 

I've taken certified auditing classes for ISO standards - though I am not an auditor by profession.  I have audited an unrelated biotech company as a part of my education.  I uncovered a major non compliance my first time out.  This firm had been audited on a regular yearly schedule for over 12 years with no prior problems passing certification... the problem I uncovered had been around that entire time.  I've learned I'm good at auditing and also - that nobody loves the auditor.

Let's be strictly clear about something else.  Most "non-compliances" auditors find are all about paperwork not being in order - only some are more hazardous and relate to product safety.  Even a good auditor won't catch every non-compliance.  My only point is that FDA audits are not a failsafe - and are definitely not as "all encompassing" as I assumed they were prior to my training and experience.  There's only so much the government can do, no matter how many rules there may be.

Part of my job is finding trends in data.  I read the studies by the AMA, the CDC or any other scientific/accredited source that documents the trends that tell us "The kind of industrialized animal agriculture which predominates in the U.S. typically relies on crowded, unsanitary, and stressful growing conditions".  This topic is not the focus of my job, however so my interest is mainly personal.  The bigger picture has been highly publicized as of late and it's not difficult to find the studies - especially when you know where to look.  I do my best to verify and check my sources because it's important to me.  As someone with an experience in auditing might say though - no one is infallible.

I'm mostly seconding what kat said below. I appreciate all the information that both DL and Shell have posted. And DL, I also wanted to say how much I like the way you were up front about where you were coming from personally. I think that's a great way to deescalate when a debate starts taking on personal overtones.

I think it's probably wise to aim for as objective a presentation as possible--but none of us really can be completely objective. So it's actually sometimes even more helpful to hear about the subjective lens the other person is seeing through.

I also try to avoid unilaterally saying things like "I dislike corporate farming". I really do try to stay objective and not form specific stereotypes.  I would have to take each farm on an individual level before I pass judgment - and agree that there may be corporate farms that have healthier animals than even perhaps organic farms... Horizon may be a good example of an "organic failure".  When I talk about corporate farms vs. organic farms I am not quoting facts to evoke any kind of emotional response or to provoke malice against one or the other.  There are facts that are uncomfortable to see and questions that still need to be asked no matter how uncomfortable they are... and in these cases I agree it's best to try and leave emotions out of it - while still leaving the facts in.  Intellectually speaking I have however, seen enough in the data trends for me to develop a strong personal opinion about which farming method I feel is superior.

My current opinion is that even if both methods of process control (conventional farm vs. organic) are done correctly, I would support organic methods as promoting a more healthful environment and product over factory farming methods.  Avoiding the topic of what happens on any specific farm... A lot of people perhaps agree that the organic method in general is superior (though perhaps not necessarily the tastiest), but that it's not a feasible option on the large scale because of the economics involved. 

There would be an overwhelming amount of politics and history to consider in order to fully address that issue.  On this forum page perhaps feel like this would be a little too much of a tangent to go into with any depth.  I can see where Shell is coming from and there are a lot of good and valid points with that perspective that I agree with.  Fiscally at this point it would be a difficult transition to switch from the corporate farm structure to an organic farm structure. 

The question I ask is would it be worth it to change it?  And my opinion is, that it really would be.  I agree that changing something this collosally big is going to take time and a lot of people caring and a lot more attention paid to agriculture and the agricultural market than most Americans generally tend to invest.  Perhaps some people think it can't be done.  However, I believe that I see it already happening in a lot of ways.  5 years ago people didn't think organic produce was going to have much of a demand or grow much bigger in the long run - and now go to any news blog and you'll see snippets like this:

Demand for Organic Food Outstrips Supply 
America's appetite for organic food is so strong that supply just can't keep up with demand. Organic products still have only a tiny slice, about 2.5 percent, of the nation's food market. But the slice is expanding at a feverish pace.

Growth in sales of organic food has been 15 percent to 21 percent each year, compared with 2 percent to 4 percent for total food sales.

There are a lot of ways to tackle the economics.  As the GC pointed out there are a lot of good reasons to support local farms whether they be organic or not.  Again - I'm not going to digress too much here.  My point is that a little bit of change here, a little bit of change there will chip away the mountain.

This still leaves the question of - Would the benefit outweigh the costs? 
 
The studies are mounting on the feasibility of switching to organics.  My belief is that supply and demand, were it allowed to function in this market, would help counter the issue of affordability in the long run - just like anything else.

Here is a summary of a study that investigates the physical possibility of organics feeding the world. And a link to the source:

Jaz and Kat thank you for your kind remarks and input... and Shell for pointing out that my approach was missing something.  I have been forgetting how significant my tone may be in relation to anyone understanding my points.  Speaking as if I'm talking with friends is just not going to fit in all instances.  As I read over my last few posts I'm seeing that it's definitely more clear for me to start at the beginning and describe a little bit of the reason how I got here before I express my opinion.  I hope it's perhaps a little easier to see that I'm not just out there copying and pasting snippets from activist blogs that I haven't personally investigated or have no knowledge of.  I know there are a lot of people out there who do that.  I understand how frustrating that can be.   What's more frustrating for me personally, however, is when people do not listen to reason or start speaking past each other. 

In the light of being objective I tend question the status quo as much as I find things I value in it.  I support responsible science.  It's how I can comfortably work for a biotech company and still have the opinion that genetically modified foods are not something I'd personally like to eat.  The company I work for may have ties to this industry, but I am 100% convinced that they have the utmost respect for the science and its social and moral implications.  Any part they contribute is specifically "for research purposes only" - and I support research in this field.  I have also seen that they take steps (without being coerced by laws) to ensure public safety in every way possible in relation to their process and products.

Well, obviously, that could have been addressed in a more civil way, indeed. 

Everyone has their bad days... we all make mistakes.  I say if willing, wipe off that slate and start anew.  

DL, I'm impressed how much concern you have, instead of the alternative.  All the respect in the world to you.

Anyhow, I'm thankful for BOTH of you for posting such credible information.  It's awesome reading stuff I otherwise didn't know.

So, for that, thank you and I love you guys. (TM)

Esi,

Please take DL's agenda with a grain of salt and realize that there is alot more to the story. I know you are a "fact" finding sort of guy and will be able to sort out the real story. I'm sorry I don't have more time to go through each of her misleading points. Needless to say, note the amount of fearmongering which predominates her posts and how that might "color" her information.

Dairy producing cows are even more limited by the drugs we can use when treating lactating cows. They are HIGHLY regulated by FDA and AMDUCA. So they really aren't the source of antibiotics in mainstream consumer foods. I don't know that much about the poultry industry so I won't comment on that for now. But everything that goes into a chicken doesn't necessary end up in the egg. It has to do with pharmacodyamics of drugs. Just like all drugs don't end up in the milk. There is something like a milk/blood barrier similar to the blood/brain barrier.

Antibiotics don't kill indiscriminately all bacteria. Different antibitoics kill different bacteria. But you are right, you could get the balance of bacteria in your gut "off" and create some diarrhea, etc. Milk cows don't "live"on antibiotics like you think they do.

again, apologize for short, incomplete responses....I have limited internet access temporarily.

Shelley

I really resent the name calling and mud slinging that you use to make your points Shell.  I don't have any "agenda" - I'm having a conversation... and I'm quoting reputable sources... the FDA directly in fact - check the link. 

I'm not fearmongering or manipulative... and I'll try to take your opinion on me with a grain of salt.  I have an open mind and an open ear for anyone kind enough to treat me with a simple amount of courtesy.

Further - You don't know what my credentials are or what my experience is - so you're not in the position to state what I "know" about "the industry". 

Cripes.  If you want to help me out then just talk to me - don't freakin attack me.  If you have a question about me or my sources JUST ASK.  You don't need to pull anything out of the air.  Give me a break.

Thanks for the answers! They are already helping me see a larger picture.

I suppose for some clarity for both of us, I should do a little explaining of my own. It makes perfect sense that a truly sick animal is not profitable. I'm not as certain that it makes as much sense that an animal intended for slaughter subjected to treatment that would have long-term ill effects with few short-term ill effects is so unprofitable. To draw an example in human terms, let's just say little Billy is given all the Twinkies he wants for his whole life. He's on a fast-track to having a heart attack in his thirties, but he gets hit by a bus in his mid-twenties. It could then be said that his fatness had no real negative impacts in his life, because he didn't spend any more time at the doctor's than any other kid. But then, nobody is going to eat little Billy either. If (and that is a big "if") livestock are treated in a similar fashion, then do we fully understand the effects of what happens to humans who eat that livestock?

I have to applaud the organic-growing community as a whole for their intents and efforts, but I'm wary of some of the claims. They proudly tell you that their animals had no antibiotics, but after reading what you said, I don't see why that matters so much. I don't think I ever really had any idea why that mattered so much. About the only pre-slaughter reason I choose organic meats is because of the lack of growth hormone usage.

Also, my DOG has food allergies. My DOG! Dogs are scavengers! She should be able to eat raw meat that's been sitting in a mud puddle for four days in the hot sun with no negative impacts! But she has food allergies!!! I guess there's any number of explanations, but the most probable is that she was weaned too early to get her out the door faster to make a quicker buck. I know that pet-breeding and livestock-breeding are sort of an apples and oranges comparison, but I wouldn't be overly surprised if livestock got similar treatment. I mean, if you ignore good breeding protocols, the sooner a cow stops nursing the sooner she can get pregnant again.

Anyway, looking forward to hearing what else you know on the subject!

an animal intended for slaughter subjected to treatment that would have long-term ill effects with few short-term ill effects is so unprofitable
subclinical illness would decrease growth rates which would be unprofitable. Not sure if that helps.

I also applaud the organic-growing community mainly for raising awareness of agriculture and the effort and commiment it takes to raise food. I think as america transitioned from producers (rural america) to consumers(urban/suburban) we've really lost touch with what it takes to meet our basic needs.

I deal with animal food allergies alot. (However she somehow finds raw meat that has been sitting in the sun for 4 days incredibly delicious, it can make her pretty sick as well.) I have had animals allergic to beef, chicken, wheat, etc. It does seem to have a genetic component and unscrupulous purebred breeders and people's need for purebred dogshave increased the incidence.

Just so you know, cows and horses do not have to stop nursing to get pregnant. They are often freshly nursing during breeding season. For example, a mare will come into heat 7 days after foaling and can easily get pregnant.

Shelley

Considering this stuff isn't even required to be labelled, and the effects on the population not directly studied... I always find myself wondering about the disease trends in the last 10 + years this has been in the supermarket.

Here's another article about corn specifically, which I coincidentally opened in an email this morning.

Transgenic Corn Found to Damage Stream Ecosystems