on Barry Commoner

[Rick Roush <rick.roush@adelaide.edu.au>]

Date: 16 Jan 2002 14:35:02 -0000
From: "AgBioView from AgBioWorld.org" <AgBioView@lb.bcentral.com>
Subject: AGBIOVIEW SPECIAL: Barry Commoner Attacks GM Crops Based on
Dubious Arguments


Today in 'AgBioView Special' on Barry Commoner

* Dubious Arguments and Bad Science
* New Report Challenges Fundamentals of Genetic Engineering;
   Study Questions Safety of Genetically Engineered Foods
* Rebuttal from Wayne Parrott
* Comments from Malcolm Livingtstone, Henry Miller, Bob Goldberg, Cindy
Richards,
   Val Giddings and Andrew Apel
* Barry Commoner Bio
* Beating Up On Agribusiness At Biodevastation 2000
* On The Menu: Modified Genes
* Genetic Engineering: Are The Risks Worth Taking?



Bary Commoner Attacks Genetically Modified Crops: Questions the Safety
Based on Dubious Arguments and Bad Science

Barry Commoner (b.1917), an elder of the environmental movement and an
academic,  is publishing an attack on agricultural biotechnology in the
Harper's Magazine  February 2002 issue.

AgBioView readers may recall that I posted a commentary by Barry Commoner a
few months ago and asked others including Wayne Parrott to examine it.  See
their earlier comments reproduced below.  See also comments of Issac
Assimov on Commoner forwarded earlier by Henry Miller who says -  "Commoner
was widely ridiculed throughout American science in the 1960s for his
continued insistence that protein, not DNA was the genetic material".  See
some wonderful arguments further on that by Bob Goldberg below.


Commoner has done no new RESEARCH here, only reviewed the work of others.
So, to claim he's done something scientific or revealing is misleading at
best. Commoner has not offered his opinions and "reviews" of others
research to any peer review group or scientific journal, rather he's chosen
the least credible way of presenting his information.


And most of what he says he can be simply dismissed as "So What?" and "Is
it unique to transgenic crops?".  Any question on the fidelity of the gene
transcription and nature of proteins in transgenic crops is moot because
the developers and regulators ensure that there are no surprises.  And it
is in the commercial and legal interest to do so.  An occasional variant
line that does not express the required protein (perhaps one in a million
plant) is of no consequence, biotech or not. Our wise friend Klaus Ammann
has rightly proposed a marraige between Commoner and Mae Wan Ho.


He keeps harping back to 'Central Dogma' of molecular biology questioning
the role of DNA in heredity and then goes on to questioning the safety of
biotech crops and says that results could be catastrophic.  This is so
irresponsible.  Why not stop cross breeding until we understand the
molecular basis of chromosome recombination completely?  Andrew Kimbrell
joins the chorus chipping in that biotech crops are not safe because we
have incomplete knowledge.  Aspirin has been in use for a century and only
recently we figured out how it works.  Should we have stopped taking this
medicine all along because we did not know how it worked?


Commoner's fight throughout the 1960's demanding that protein, not DNA, was
the genetic material and Commoner's participation in events like
Biodevastation protests as suggestive evidence that he's a) got a history
of wrong science, and b) an activist and not a scientist when it comes to
this issue. (See below).


It's hard to take Barry Commoner seriously given his past history of bad
scientific judgment and active participation in the Biodevastation protests
where direct action against scientific research groups is plotted, planned
and executed.  His sitting side by side with presenters offering the best
way to assault elected officials and scientists with pies and training
seminars on how to avoid arrest while destroying research laboratories and
field trials unfortunately leaves Mr. Commoner lacking in the credibility
field.


Some recent protest events he's participated in include:


* Genetic Engineering, Are The Risks Worth Taking (New York); Organized by
the Genetic Engineering Action Network (GEAN); With support from
Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, GEFA, IATP and various organic industry
associations. October 2000


* Beyond Pesticides: Solving A Public Health Crisis (New York) April 2000;
Organized by PANNA and Environmental Defense


* Biodevastation (Boston); February 2000; Organized by Brian Tokar and the
Northeast RAGE (resistance against genetic engineering)

More on Commoner:  www.geocities.com/combusem/BS-COMM.HTM


- Prakash


+++++++++++++++



+++++++++++++++++


Response  From: Wayne Parrott <wparrott@arches.uga.edu>
Re: Dr. Commoner's attack the science of biotech (To an earlier posting.
Aug 22, 2001. Agbioview. www.agbioworld.org/listarchive/view.php?id=1238

Overall, a lot of distortions, half-truths, non-sequiturs,

1. The number of genes in the human genome is still an open question. The
only issue which is clear right now is that the software which is used to
count genes still is not where it needs to be.  Nevertheless, it does
appear that the human genome may resort to alternate splice sites.  This
does not negate that there is still one DNA sequence for each gene.  Based
on limited data, the use of alternate splice sites may be more a feature of
virus and vertebrates than of plants.

2. There are several genes that can result from shuffling of DNA,
particularly for immune related genes.  Nevertheless, after the shuffling,
there is still one DNA sequence per protein.

3. I am not sure what the issue with protein folding is.  There are more
than enough transgenics available now to suggest that folding is not a
universal problem-- if at all.  If transgenic proteins folded incorrectly,
they would not be active in their new hosts.  Overall, many if not most of
the most basic cell biochemical processes are highly conserved throughout
evolution.

4. "a given gene is not in exclusive control of an inherited trait." This
statement generalizes way too much.  Genes differ in what traditionally has
been called "expressivity"-- the extent to which an individual with the
gene expresses its trait.  Some genes have extremely high expressivity.
Other genes do not, and instead contribute to quantitative traits.
Obviously, genetic engineers work with the former type.

5.  Prions do not replicate directly.  One prion can change the
conformation of another protein to convert it into a prion, but a gene is
still necessary for the formation of the target protein in first place.

6.  Given that the arguments against the Central Dogma are themselves
flawed, the author has done nothing to disprove the Central Dogma.

7.  The existing data base of existing transgenic plants makes it clear
that lack of co-evolution of transproteins and protein folding machinery.
The "numerous experimental failures"  have more to do with gene copy number
and gene silencing--thus for every transgenes, there are successfully
expressed events along with events which are not successful.  I am not
aware of any genes which have never been successful.

8.  "by genetic defects that occur even when the gene is successfully
transferred"  The author is going to have to come up with some examples, as
I am not aware of any genetic defects.  Interestingly enough, the cellular
machinery that translates genes into proteins is not universal, and genes
may have to be codon-optimized prior to transformation.  No insurmountable
problem here.

9.  "Thus, a recent study has shown that in transgenic bacteria the new
host's code-repair system fails to correct the faulty replication of the
alien  gene, a necessary repair process that does occur in the original
host.  This  means that in the new transgenic host, random uncorrected
errors in gene  replication can persist, giving rise to unforeseeable
genetic changes." I have no idea which study he was talking about.  Perhaps
a DNA repair-deficient mutant?  In the end, DNA is DNA-- it doesn't matter
where the enzymes come from.  DNA repair does not discriminate between DNA
of different species.

10.  Lack of GFP statement in monkeys.  The author is mixing up statement
with genetic defects.  In the case of plants, multiple transgenics are
screened for to identify those with stable statement.   Multiple field
trials are conducted between the time the original transgenic plant is
recovered, all the intervening breeding process, and the final variety
release.

 11.  "The degree to which such disruptions do occur in genetically
modified crops is not known at present, for the biotechnology industry is
not required to  provide even the most basic information about the actual
composition of the transgenic plants to the regulatory agencies."
Outright false.

12.  "in the case of corn plants that carry a bacterial gene for a specific
insecticidal protein, no tests are required to show that the plant actually
produces a protein with the same amino acid sequence as the original
bacterial protein"   So this guy feels a company would market a protein
that may or not work?  The ultimate parameter is that the protein must be
safe, and it must be functional.

13.  "Moreover, there are no reported studies to investigate the long-term,
multi-generational consequences of the  gene transfer. This would require,
for example, detailed analysis of the molecular structure and biochemical
activity of the alien gene's protein product not only in laboratory test
plants, but in the transgenic commercial crop as well."   There are many
examples where wide gene transfer has been used in plant breeding over the
decades, and thus far, there is no indication such tranfers lead to
problems.  I cannot see what can possibly be gained by "analysis of the
molecular structure and biochemical activity of the alien gene's protein"

14.  "Since some unexpected effects may appear in only a fraction of the
commercial crop plants" These unexpected effects are equally, if not more,
likely to arise from traditional breeding.  Yet, the probability has been
so low that society has not considered it worth its while.

15. "The genetically engineered crops now being grown represent a huge
uncontrolled experiment; its outcome is inherently unpredictable. Our
project is designed to help develop effective public understanding of the
dangerous implications of this critical predicament."  When conventional
breeding is done, new toxin pathways may be activated; transposons may be
unleashed, etc.  In essence, each of the varieties bred over the past
century represents "a huge uncontrolled experiment" but its outcome is
inherently *predictable*.


++++++++++++++++++


Date: 23 Aug 2001 00:05:09 -0000
From: Malcolm Livingstone <Malcolm.Livingstone@pi.csiro.au>

Wayne Parrott's comments about Barry Commoner's article are absolutely
correct. However Commoner also claims that;

"The likelihood, in genetically engineered crops, of some instances of even
exceedingly rare, disruptive effects of gene transfer is greatly amplified
by the billions of individual transgenic plants that are already being
grown in the United States."

Barry Commoner makes the fairly important mistake here of thinking that all
the transgenic crops grown are individual transformation events. It is true
that somaclonal variation is a common consequence of extended periods of
tissue culture and that many transformants will have lethal or detrimental
mutations. However the final transformed LINE is one that is free of
silencing etc. From this line all the billions are derived. In other words
they are CLONES. So if there is a very slim chance of creating a mutant
that is harmful in some way (and I don't know what this could be) it is in
no way enhanced by the huge numbers of crops being grown.

Malcolm Livingstone

++++++++++++++++++++++

From: "Henry I. Miller" <miller@hoover.stanford.edu>
RE: Commoner

Before one takes an analysis of any scientific subject by Barry Commoner
too seriously, it might be useful to recall that Commoner was widely
ridiculed throughout American science in the 1960s for his continued
insistence that protein, not DNA, was the material that mediated the
transference of genetic characteristics.  This tenacious wrong-headedness,
bordering on the delusional, led writer and scientist Isaac Asimov to make
this observation in 1961: "If Commoner disapproves of the incoming tide and
wishes to amuse himself by standing on the shore and commanding it to stop,
he may  "He may also quote as many authorities as he likes to impress the
waves. But he will get his feet wet just the same"

Commoner's NOVEMBER 1966 article (four years after Watson, Crick and
Wilkins received the Nobel Prize) "The Elusive Code of Life: Is DNA Really
the Master Key to Heredity"  ranks historically with attacks on Galileo's
view of the movement of the planets, and with Lysenko's version of
evolutionary biology.

Would we care what Lysenko might have to say about gene-spliced plants?

- Henry Miller , The Hoover Institution

++++++++++++++


From: Bob Goldberg <bobg@ucla.edu>
Subject: Re: Barry Commoner:

Barry Commoner is not a serious scientist.  He worked on TMV many, many
years ago but has never been involved in contemporary plant molecular
biology or plant biotechnology research.  He a wrote an article in 1968 for
Nature that challenged the Central Dogma of DNA to RNA to Protein (Commoner
B.,1968 Nature, Oct 26;220(165),334-40, Failure of the Watson-Crick theory
as a chemical explanation of inheritance.)!!!


If you look this article up and think about it you will see that he really
is not much of a critical or serious scientist.  His Harper's article looks
very much like a neocopy of his Nature article of 30-40 years ago; that is,
something "other" than DNA guides the phenotype of a cell -- although he
never specifies what that "other" is -- or did even ONE experiment to test
his hypothesis. It was all words!!


he thesis in the Harper's piece, clearly wrong, is much the same the one
Commoner made 35 years ago -- a specific piece of DNA doesn't lead to the
production of a protein directly!!  That is, Commoner never really believed
in the concept of a gene directly specifying a protein.  And there are now
hundreds of examples -- thousands -- that show that a gene can be inserted
in any organism and give a predicted phenotype!  And even though we have
learned about post-transcriptional and translational controls and
alterations -- the basic fact remains that specific pieces of DNA can be
inserted into cells and give specific phenotypes. How about the production
of human insulin in bacteria cells, for example!  Or the delayed ripening
of a fruit by using specific segments of antisense DNA!  And specifc
segments of DNA can be altered and/or eliminated that give specific
phenotypes. The examples apply to plants, flies, bacteria, and even humans.


Think about the children who were born with Severe Combined
Immunodeficiency (SCID) that underwent gene therapy and had a "good" copy
of the adenine deaminase gene inserted into their bone marrow cells --
these children are alive and well because a specific segment of DNA lead to
the production of a specific enzyme that corrected a genetic disorder.
Genetically engineered humans walk among us and are alive!  Similarly,
single "herbicide resistance" DNA segments lead to herbicide resistance.
And the examples go on and on and on.


Clearly, Commoner's thesis didn't hold up to CRITICAL thinking 35 years ago
and it certainly doesn't today -- that's why it is published in a popular
magazine rather than a serious, peer-reviewed scientific journal.


--
Professor Bob Goldberg, Department of Molecular, Cell, and Developmental
Biology, University of California, www.mcdb.ucla.edu/Research/Goldberg/


+++++++++++++++++


From: "L. Val Giddings" <shiva@pop.net>


Anybody who has ever studied molecular biology seriously should be able to
clarify that Barry has misconstrued the central dogma entirely. Crick's
1958 paper, from which the term was derived, spoke to the fact that
information moves in living systems from nucleic acid to protein, and that
the reverse does not take place. It had nothing to do with the straw man of
strict genetic determinism Barry tries to set up; a type of determinism
scientists have known since at least the 30's was inadequate to explain the
world we observe.

++++++++++++++++


Excerpts From: "Cindy Lynn Richard, CIH" <crichard@cast-science.org>


The media may cover the newswire item about a Harper's Magazine story
(February edition - should be available on the newsstands now) in which
Barry Commoner raises concerns about the safety of biotechnology-derived
foods and challenges the Central Dogma of genetics. The Central Dogma is a
concept describing the interrelations between DNA, RNA and protein; in
essence, DNA serves as the template for the replication of RNA, which in
turn is translated into protein.


When contacted by telephone, the Center for the Biology of Natural Systems
stated that there is not a separate study - only the Harper's Magazine
article.

 As described in F.H.C. Crick's 1958 Society for Experimental Biology
paper, The Central Dogma states that once the precise determination of
sequence, either of bases in the nucleic acid or of amino acid residues in
the protein, has passed into protein it is not changed - i.e. the transfer
of information from nucleic acid to nucleic acid (transcription), or from
nucleic acid to protein (translation) is possible; however, information is
not transferable from protein to protein or from protein to nucleic acid.


++++++++++++++++


From: Andrew Apel <agbionews@earthlink.net>


Barry Commoner has been described as a 'public interest lawyer.' See
www.metroactive.com/papers/metro/10.31.96/cover/st-props-9644.html

He's also been described as an 'environmentalist' and even as a biologist.
He's also known as the founder of the Center for the Biology of Natural
Systems, Queens College, CUNY) See
www.purefood.org/patent/gedanger090401.cfm

But here's something strange--the Center for the Biology of Natural Systems
isnít actually part of Queens College, CUNY. It rents space from the
College instead!

G. Queens College: Lease Extension - The Center For The Biology Of Natural
Systems:
Resolved, That the Board of Trustees of The City University of New York
authorize the Secretary of the Board to execute a two-year lease extension,
on behalf of Queens College, for space at 163-03 Horace Harding Boulevard,
Flushing, until June 30, 1999. The agreement shall be subject to approval
as to form by the University Office of General Counsel.
EXPLANATION: The Collegeís Center for the Biology of Natural Systems
currently occupies approximately 7,200 square feet of space on the Fourth
Floor of this building pursuant to a lease that expired on June 30,1997.
The current annual rent is $180,000 ($25.00/S.F.). Due to continuing
renovation work on campus, the College will need to occupy this space for
another two years. Under a renewal agreement, the lease will be extended to
June 30,1999 at the same base annual rent. The Landlord, at his cost, will
provide all services including normal heat, air-conditioning, cleaning,
electricity and parking facilities, Tenant will continue to reimburse the
Landlord for its share of any increases in real estate taxes over the base
year. (From: www.cuny.edu/abtcuny/trustees/thismnth/cal0198.html )

Where does it/Barry Commoner get the money? From foundations.

See: www.junkscience.com/dec99/jones.htm

W. Alton Jones Foundation: Center for the Biology of Natural Systems,
Queens College of the City University of New York Flushing, NY $90,000 To
apply the atrazine transport model to the task of generating information
about the human and wildlife populations that may be significantly exposed
to major airborne endocrine disruptors.

Center for the Biology of Natural Systems,Queens College of the City
University of New York Flushing, NY $150,000 To analyze the human risk,
especially to children, from long range air transport of toxic chemicals.



+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

27 January 2002

Barry Commoner's Early Science

- Milton Zaitlin, Professor Emeritus, Cornell University;
<mz11@cornell.edu>

The recent comments in AgBioView about the quality of science
espoused by Barry Commoner in his forthcoming Harper's article takes
me back to my days as a graduate student (1950-54) working in the lab
of Sam Wildman at UCLA.   Our principal interest was the biology of
tobacco mosaic virus, a subject also investigated by Commoner, then a
professor at Washington University.   We followed his work in detail.
I think it is not libelous to conclude that he had only a negative
impact on the progress in the field.  The third edition of the
extensively annotated seminal text in plant virology by R.E.F.
Matthews does not refer to any of his TMV work, which should say
something.

Commoner had a serious of incredibly poor TMV papers that tried to
challenge established dogmas, but with little success.  Here are a
few examples:

* In a paper presented in 1958 at the Fourth International Congress
of Biochemistry, he claimed that protein was required in addition to
RNA for viral infectivity.  This was in spite of the paper published
in 1957 by Fraenkel-Conrat and Singer (which he did not cite) who
showed that in mixed reconstitution of TMV coat protein and RNA from
different strains that only the RNA was responsible for the
infection, and it encoded the gene for the coat protein.  Just as
today, he ignores data which do not fit his preconceived notions.

* In a series of papers he claimed that the TMV rod elongated
stepwise by concurrent synthesis of RNA and coat protein.   A bizarre
notion in the light of what was known at the time.   The work was
based on  14C labeling of viral components, taken at various times as
the infection progressed in the leaf.   If you looked at his methods
in the footnotes, it was apparent that the radioactivity measured
gave only a few counts above background, and was multiplied by big
factors to get respectable specific activity numbers.  What trashy
science.

* One paper really was a classic.  I used to use it in my classes in
plant virology, asking the students to find the flaw.   Barry did
some experiments from which he concluded that the coat protein of TMV
was in some way infectious.  He dissociated virions and then
polymerized the isolated protein into rods; they infected tobacco
plants!  He had tested the protein for infectivity beforehand in its
most dissociated form, and found it would not infect plants, and thus
claimed it was RNA free.   What he did not appreciate was that the
low molecular weight forms of the coat protein are a very effective
inhibitor of infectivity. His coat protein had RNA after all.  He
needed a few more controls.

* He has a number of papers examining the "non-virus proteins
associated with TMV".   Without exception, in later studies by him
and others, these all turned out to be various aggregation states of
the coat protein!

How can a man with such a poor record for credibility be believed?
Unfortunately, those who don't like genetically engineered plants
will pick up on his Harpers article to advance their agendas.  He is
well known, and they will cite him as a respectable authority.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++



Environmentalist's Article Re-ignites Debate On Safety

- Tina Hesman , The Post-Dispatch (St. Louis) January 27, 2002 ,
www.stltoday.com

'Barry Commoner, who once led research into the effects of nuclear
fallout, has written an article arguing that bioengineering could
produce crops that are dangerous to humans and the environment.
Commoner says that something other than DNA must be at work in the
cellular production of proteins, and that scientists know less than
they claim about the safety of biotech crops. Mainstream scientists
say Commoner is twisting facts to support an anti-biotech agenda.'

The man who convinced Baby Boomers to forsake the Tooth Fairy and
donate their teeth to science has a new campaign. This time
environmentalist Barry Commoner is contesting the fundamental
principles of genetics and railing against the biotechnology industry.

Commoner says there is evidence that biotechnology is built on a
shaky foundation, and may produce plants and animals that unwittingly
endanger human health and the environment. But mainstream scientists
say it's Commoner who has the weak argument and is twisting
scientific fact and misinforming the public to further his own agenda.

At issue is the very stuff of life -- DNA. Only a year after academic
and industry scientists offered the first look at the complete set of
genetic instructions that make up a human, Commoner is suggesting
that the scientists are ignoring the most important conclusion of the
multibillion-dollar project - that the central dogma of biology is
wrong. Commoner presented his view in an article in the February
issue of Harper's Magazine, bolstered by evidence plucked from
scientific literature about topics as diverse as the Human Genome
Project and mad cow disease.

The central dogma holds that DNA is the genetic material responsible
for passing along inherited traits. Scientists used to say that a
single DNA gene holds the instructions for making a single protein
with a specific function.  In bacteria and other simple organisms
that's mostly true, but in more complex plants and animals it's a
different situation, said Phillips Kuhl, president of Cambridge
Healthtech, a biotechnology information company.

As scientists from the Human Genome Project and Celera Genomics
discovered, human beings carry only 30,000 to 50,000 genes. But, Kuhl
said, those genes may produce five to 10 times as many different
proteins - proteins that are needed to carry out all the necessary
functions of life. No one knows exactly how many genes there are. But
then, no one knows how many proteins are made either. Some proteins
may be made only under very specific conditions, and cells may trim
the protein or tack on chemical groups to alter the ones that are
made. Some scientists estimate that more than 500,000 protein
variants could be built from the basic DNA blueprints in a cell, Kuhl
said.

So many necessary proteins, so few genes leave a cell with only one
choice - it must make the most of what it's got.  What a cell has is
basically a long stretch of DNA with directions for building
proteins. The instructions are arranged in genes, which are further
broken into modular units known as exons. Each exon encodes a piece
of a protein.  Cells can mix and match exons to produce different
proteins, much like snapping together Lego blocks to build castles or
barns.

For Commoner, this molecular tinkering - a process known as
alternative splicing - is evidence that something besides DNA is
directing which proteins are made and what they do. That means, he
says, that the central dogma is wrong. And if that's the case, it
means scientists don't fully understand what happens when a gene from
one organism is spliced into another.

Such practices have become common in agricultural biotechnology.
Scientists have inserted natural pesticide genes from bacteria into
corn and cotton plants, made soybeans and other crops resistant to
herbicides, and built defense mechanisms against fungus and virus
diseases into plants using genetic engineering.

Educating or advocating. Commoner first put forward his view that DNA
is not the only genetic material in the 1960s, in articles published
in the British journal Nature - the same journal that carried the
first report of the structure of DNA and last year published a
publicly funded project's version of the human genome.

Commoner's view was widely decried in the scientific community in the
1960s and led scientist and writer Isaac Asimov to observe, "If
Commoner disapproves of the incoming tide and wishes to amuse himself
by standing on the shore and commanding it to stop, he may. He may
also quote as many authorities as he likes to impress the waves. But
he will get his feet wet just the same."

For decades Commoner turned his attention to other environmental
issues, but he says he never converted to the faith of those who
follow the central dogma.  "I have never run into any reasons to
change my views," Commoner said. "The argument hasn't changed, it's
just gotten a lot stronger."

But scientists involved in molecular biology and biotechnology
dispute that assertion. They say Commoner has distorted and
misinterpreted data, packaging it for public consumption.  "I have
never really spoken into the ear of the king. I don't believe in it,"
Commoner said.  Instead, he'll take his case to the people, just as
he's done for other environmental issues. An educated public has the
tools to influence government policy and keep industry in line, he
asserts.

Scientists familiar with Commoner's view say he may be doing a public
disservice.

"He's not educating people about science. He's advocating for a
cause," said Bruce Chassy, Assistant Dean of Biotechnology
Communication and Outreach at the University of Illinois at
Urbana-Champaign. "His view of what science believes is horrifically
over-simplified. He's interpreting the world to vindicate his belief."

Far from ignoring the important discoveries of molecular biology,
scientists have celebrated them, even awarding Nobel prizes for work
that may seem at first glance to counter the central dogma, said
Richard Wilson, a co-director of the Genome Sequencing Center at
Washington University.  "While we've learned a tremendous amount
about mammalian genetics in the last few decades (and the human
genome project is a cornerstone in this), there is still much to
learn about how it's all put together. Yes, we should be careful. No,
we shouldn't write off all that has been learned as a big sham,"
Wilson said in an e-mail.

The argument probably comes down to a matter of semantics, Kuhl said.
It all depends on how you define a gene, he said. Although molecular
biologists have uncovered surprising cellular tricks, the fundamental
principles of the central dogma still hold, he said. DNA is the
inherited genetic material. RNA - a close chemical cousin of DNA - is
used as an intermediate molecule to ultimately produce proteins.
(Because DNA is an important archive of genetic information, cells
make RNA copies of genes. Those copies can be edited, or even
shredded without losing any of the data tucked safely away in the
DNA.) Proteins then drive chemical reactions within cells. No
discrepancies with the central dogma here, scientists say.

And if details are a little murky, well, that's just part of the
miracle of life, not something to be feared, they say.

Plants give pause. Commoner is much less comfortable with the unknown
when it comes to genetically engineered plants (sometimes called
transgenic crops). "Research on transgenic plants is wonderful. It
belongs in the laboratory," Commoner said. "We simply don't know
enough to assert that in putting trillions of these plants out into
the open, nothing untoward is going to happen."

It was easy to get the public and other scientists on board to help
stop nuclear fallout - the danger was clear and easy to understand -
but it will probably be much more difficult to get scientists to let
go of deeply entrenched beliefs about the way genes work, Commoner
said. He says the stakes may be even higher this time.

"Here the dangers are more insidious, and, in the long run, may be
even more powerful because of the changes made in living things,"
Commoner said.  But nature has been making changes in living things
for billions of years, often running random and sometimes cruel DNA
experiments, Chassy said. The results of traditional plant breeding
can be unexpected as well - sometimes creating plants that make
people sick.

When biotech companies such as Monsanto Co. of Creve Coeur invent a
genetically engineered plant that can fend off insects or withstand
herbicides, the plant must be scrutinized by a battery of tests. Eric
S. Sachs, a Monsanto spokesman, says the tests are designed to find
hidden allergens and toxins that could damage human health; ensure
that the new crop is nutritionally equivalent to its parent plant;
determine whether the plant has qualities that could pose
environmental dangers; and prove that the newly created plant doesn't
hold any other nasty surprises.

"At the end of the day, we get what we want," Chassy said. "We end up
with a plant that looks, tastes and feels exactly like the plant we
started with, because that's the only plant we can sell."  And if
Monsanto or other seed companies used conventional cross-breeding
techniques to produce an insect- or herbicide-resistant soybean
plant, what would the company have to do to show the crop is safe?

"The short answer is: nothing," said Sachs.  That could mean that
genetically engineered crops are even safer than their conventionally
bred counterparts, Chassy said. Which is not to say that absolutely
nothing can go awry with genetically engineered plants.  "Can it be
100 percent ruled out?" Kuhl said. "No, because nothing can. Is it
something I would stay up nights worrying about? No."
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Reporter Tina Hesman covers biotechnology and science for the
Post-Dispatch.< hesman@post-dispatch.com>