Dispatches from BIO 2001

Biotechies defend genetically modified food, stem cells, and cloning at their annual meeting.

Ronald Bailey | June 29, 2001

• "The Rhetoric Was Very, Very Anti-Biotech" (6/27)
• "Those Who Protest Biotechnology Do So with a Full Belly" (6/26)
• Biotech Gets Personal (6/25)
• Biofizzle (6/24)

Biofizzle

San Diego, Calif. June 24. Cops. Lots of cops. That’s the first impression when registering for the annual convention of the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO) at the harborside San Diego Convention Center. The cops are here to protect the convention from disruption threatened by anti-biotech activists, who are holding a counter demonstration that they dubbed "Beyond Biodevastation."

Today, the Alliance for Better Foods (ABF), a pro-biotech coalition of industry and farmer groups, held a morning press conference in advance of the formal sessions (which begin on Monday) to address some of the claims about the alleged risks posed by biotech-enhanced crops. Nutritionist Karen Kafer insists that foods made using biotech crops are "as safe and as nutritious as conventional foods and organic foods." She adds, with regard to food safety, that she is a lot more concerned about how people who handle food wash their hands. Mike Phillips from BIO pointed out that biotech food products "are the most scrutinized food products in our history. They are all looked at by the FDA (Food and Drug Administration), EPA (Environmental Protection Agency), and the USDA. (U.S. Department of Agriculture)" before they are put on the market.

The ABF speakers addressed the biggest public controversy so far over biotech food: the StarLink hysteria whipped up last fall by the anti-biotechies. StarLink is the corn approved only for animal feed that an anti-biotech lab found in some Taco Bell taco shells. The Centers for Disease Control tested some 20 people who claimed they had had adverse reactions after eating products like the tacos, but found no evidence that anyone had been harmed. A StarLink-type problem should not arise again because both the relevant government agencies and industry have agreed that in the future all biotech crops will be approved for both human and animal consumption before being marketed.

Gene Grabowski, communications director of the Grocery Manufacturers of America, pointed out that despite posturing by European governments over banning imports of American genetically enhanced corn and soybeans, Europeans are not even testing shipments because Europe’s beef producers need the corn and soy to feed their herds.

In the afternoon, the anti-biotech activists marched through the largely deserted streets of downtown San Diego. Protest organizers had predicted a crowd of 8,000, but there were no more than 750. The marchers dressed in the usual cliche street theater costumes such as ears of GE corn, killer tomatoes, and monarch butterflies. A rather bedraggled giant Gaia Earth Mother street puppet led the parade. Besides placards demanding biotech food labeling and opposing biotech crops, a curiously large contingent of marchers carried "Free Mumia" placards. The hapless marchers were completely surrounded by phalanxes of police on motorcycles and horses. San Diego’s city mothers and fathers were clearly determined to avoid a debacle like the one Seattle suffered during the anti-World Trade Organization protests in November 1999.

The anti-biotech marchers eventually arrived at the fenced-in protest area in front of the convention center, where they were met by a small contingent from the anti-abortion group, Operation Rescue, who were there protesting human embryonic stem cell research. The ideological incompatibility of the strange protesting bedfellows was highlighted when one of the more conventional left-wing protesters started bellowing through a bullhorn, "Born-again bigots go away!" The anti-biotech rally at the convention center petered out by mid-afternoon.

Biotech Gets Personal

San Diego, Calif. June 25. Some 14,000 or so BIO 2001 participants milled through the halls attending seminars and symposia with titles like "Challenges in Public-Private Partnerships," "Developing AIDS Drugs for the New Millennium," "Biocatalysis," and "Glycosylation in the Era of Proteomics."

The first session I attended was "Golden Rice: Public/Private Cooperation to Battle Malnutrition," which featured University of Freiburg biotechnologist Peter Beyer, who collaborated with Swiss biotechnologist Ingo Potrykus to create golden rice. They added two genes taken from daffodils and one from a bacterium to rice so that the crop produces beta-carotene, the precursor to vitamin A, which colors the rice yellow--hence "golden rice."

According to the World Health Organization, some 124 million poor children in developing countries suffer from vitamin A deficiency. Nearly half a million go blind from lack of the vitamin annually. In addition, nearly 2 million children whose immune systems are weakened by vitamin A deficiency die annually from infectious diseases they would otherwise survive. Anti-biotech groups like Greenpeace have charged that golden rice won’t help eliminate vitamin A deficiency because people would have to eat a couple of pounds of golden rice per day to get the recommended daily allowance (RDA) of the nutrient. Beyer responds that RDAs are relatively luxurious standards, and that research is needed to identify the minimum amount of vitamin A needed to avoid disease. He and Potrykus are also working to boost the beta-carotene content of golden rice by a factor of three to five.

If Greenpeace and other anti-biotechies are not enthusiastic about the prospects of golden rice, Ronald Cantrell, the head of the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) in the Philippines, is. This past January, IRRI began working on cross-breeding golden rice with other varieties that it will make available to poor farmers in the next five years. Cantrell describes rice cultivation as the single most important economic activity on the planet, and points out that half the world’s people get more than half their daily calories from eating rice. He reminded the audience of the tremendous success of the Green Revolution in boosting rice production in Asia from 199 million tons a year in 1961 to 540 million tons a year in 2000. Cantrell also cited the creation of golden rice as the first major cooperative effort between the public and private sectors in agricultural biotechnology. "Poor farmers and consumers need and deserve the best technologies available," said Cantrell.

Next up was the session on "Getting Personal: The Development and Practice of Personalized Medicine." Today pharmaceutical companies develop drugs that they believe will benefit large numbers of people, but in the future drugs will be tailored to your specific genetic makeup. This will improve drug efficacy and avoid side effects.

Elma Hawkins of Antigenics Inc. told the audience about her company’s success with autologous cancer vaccines. "There are as many different cancers as there are people with cancer," explained Hawkins. Genetic differences influence individual responses to medicines and most current cancer drugs are effective in only 30 to 50 percent of patients. Antigenics treats cancer by taking malignant cells from the patient and producing certain proteins that are made into a vaccine based directly on the patient’s particular cancer. Hawkins showed us MRI scans of a melanoma patient whose cancer had metastasized throughout his viscera. Since being vaccinated with Antigenics’ Oncophage vaccine, his cancer has disappeared. He has been disease-free for two years. Another patient had melanoma lesions covering most of one leg. After vaccination, the lesions disappeared. He also has been disease-free for two years. Although the vaccines are still in clinical trials, some 250 patients have been treated with Antigenics’ autologous cancer vaccines and the company is developing vaccines for renal cell carcinoma, colorectal and pancreatic cancer, and sarcoma.