NIAID Research Could Aid Development of Universal Flu Vaccine

​A vaccine that protects against a wide variety of influenza viruses (a so-called universal flu vaccine) is a critical public health goal given the significant rates of illness and death caused by seasonal influenza and the potentially devastating effects of a pandemic influenza strain. Now, researchers from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health, have devised a way to induce protective immunity in mice against a wide array of influenza viruses.

Instead of trying to predict which influenza virus strains are likely to cause human disease and then make a vaccine to match those specific strains, Jeffery Taubenberger, M.D., Ph.D., and his colleagues created a vaccine cocktail incorporating four of the 16 different subtypes of an influenza virus protein called hemagglutinin (H). Two, H1 and H3, are typically found in human seasonal influenza viruses, and two, H5 and H7, are from avian influenza viruses that can also infect people. The experimental vaccine is made from noninfectious virus-like particles (VLPs) that stimulate an immune response, but that cannot replicate or cause disease. VLP vaccines already approved for use in people include those to protect against hepatitis B and human papillomavirus.

In the new study, the NIAID scientists vaccinated mice with the VLP cocktail, then exposed them to lethal doses of several different influenza viruses. Importantly, in some of the experiments, mice were exposed to viruses from H subtypes not included in the cocktail vaccine. Vaccinated mice showed significant protection following challenge with influenza viruses expressing 1918 H1, 1957 H2, and avian H5, H6, H7, H10, and H11 H subtypes. For example, 30 out of 30 vaccinated mice exposed to the human 1957 H2 virus or avian H10 or H11 viruses survived, and 20 out of 24 vaccinated mice exposed to H6 virus survived and experienced less weight loss than unvaccinated mice, all of which died when exposed to virus. Vaccinated mice also showed significant protection against avian H5N1 and H7N9 viruses, two virus strains that have caused many human cases and deaths in recent years.

The investigators are now testing the VLP cocktail in ferrets. If the results are similar to those seen in mice, they will advance the vaccine into early-stage human clinical trials.

9/22/14 Health News: Is FDA Burying Research About Antibiotics? ♦ Small Number of Drugs Behind Kids' Accidental Poisonings ♦ Search for Toxic Drug Capsules

Is FDA Burying Research About Antibiotics?

In the ongoing efforts against dangerous antibiotic-resistant infections, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has been painted alternately as a help and a hindrance. But according to a bombshell report released today, the agency has been burying important evidence indicating that antibiotic use on farms poses a significant threat to public health. Continue Reading

Small Number of Drugs Behind Kids' Accidental Poisonings

A relatively small number of medications are responsible for sending thousands of young children to the hospital for accidental ingestion, a U.S. government study finds.Each year between 2007 and 2011, about 9,500 U.S. children younger than 6 years were hospitalized after getting a hold of family members' medication, Continue Reading

Chinese Authorities Search for Whereabouts of Toxic Capsules

An investigation is underway to track the whereabouts of 90 million drug capsules contaminated with the heavy metal chromium that were released to the market in China earlier this year, according to officials in the eastern province of Zhejiang. Continue Reading

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African Medical Education is Being Transformed by US Program

Medical education in sub-Saharan Africa is being revitalized and expanded through a U.S.-funded effort that is dramatically increasing enrollment, broadening curricula, upgrading Internet access and providing cutting-edge skills labs and other technologies.

MEPI Principal Investigator, Dr. Nelson Sewankambo, leads a discussion with a group of medical students at Makerere University. Photo by Richard Lord for Fogarty/NIH.

In the first substantial publication by participants of the $130 million Medical Education Partnership Initiative (MEPI), more than 225 authors detailed progress being made at the African institutions. Their reports are in a supplement being published today by the journal Academic Medicine. Begun in 2010, MEPI is funded by the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) and the National Institutes of Health, and is co-administered by NIH’s Fogarty International Center and the Health Resources and Services Administration.

“MEPI is a major venture in international educational innovation that has generated new thinking, energy and optimism in the field of medical education in Africa,” the program partners write in a foreword article to the supplement.

The 32 articles include case studies of national strategies to increase numbers of doctors and health professionals trained; educational innovations such as e-learning and regional training sites; research capacity development, and partnerships that leverage advances across the MEPI network.

MEPI participants provided details of accomplishments made through the program, including:

• In Zimbabwe, medical student and postgraduate enrollment have both nearly doubled, from 260 in 2010 to 513 in 2013, and the Ministry of Higher Education has committed additional financial support to sustain the progress.
• A decentralized training network of 14 regional hospitals has been established in Kenya, and has provided instruction for more than 300 medical, nursing, dental and pharmacy students.
• Internal medicine (IM) physicians were in short supply in Mozambique, so salary supplements, Internet access, and notebook computers were offered to encourage  recruitment, resulting in an increase in IM residents from 10 before MEPI to 75 in 2012.
• Fourteen new master’s level programs were begun in Zambia, including physiological sciences, pharmacology, anatomy, pathology, microbiology and nursing.
• A virtual microscopy system was introduced in Zambia, containing 4,000 electronic images, which increased student access and is more cost-effective than optical microscopy using glass slides.
• A research administration office was created in Ethiopia to assist faculty in grant writing and management, and 18 faculty members were supported to present their research at international conferences.

The supplement on MEPI progress also includes commentaries from global health experts such as former U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator Dr. Eric Goosby, MEPI Coordinating Center principal investigator Dr. Francis G. Omaswa and Fogarty International Center Director Dr. Roger I. Glass.

The critical shortage of physicians, researchers and health care workers across sub-Saharan Africa spurred MEPI’s creation. While the region suffers 25 percent of the global burden of disease, it has only 3 percent of the world’s health care workers, according to the World Health Organization. The impact of HIV/AIDS created an urgent need to increase capacity, wrote Goosby and his co-author Deborah von Zinkernagel, former PEPFAR deputy. “Although concerns arose that resources were being diverted from “services,” it was evident to PEPFAR leadership that the ongoing and expanding needs of the HIV-infected community could not be successfully sustained without increasing the number of trained health professionals,” they added.

By awarding the grants directly to African institutions, MEPI is cultivating sustainable local leadership, Omaswa maintained. “For Africa to accelerate the speed of the ongoing transformation, it is necessary for Africans to step up and take ownership and responsibility for what happens in their own backyards,” he said.

Research is embedded in curricula developed through MEPI, to expand local capacity that will drive innovation. African scientists have already contributed to many “game-changing” HIV-related advances such as development of rapid diagnostics for detecting and monitoring HIV infections, noted Glass and his Fogarty co-authors. “The research perspective provided to students and faculty, the ability to raise and answer questions and the idea that medical knowledge and practice are continually changing are being supported by MEPI sites and will hopefully endure long after the program ends,” they continued.

Initially conceived as a five-year program, MEPI funders and participants are now developing plans for a second phase of investment in Africa’s medical education.

Fogarty, the international component of the NIH, addresses global health challenges through innovative and collaborative research and training programs and supports and advances the NIH mission through international partnerships. For more information, visit: http://www.fic.nih.gov.

Adult Stem Cell Research Shows Promise

Scientists sporting white coats and safety gloves are working in a bright Food and Drug Administration (FDA) lab on an incredible project.

They are part of FDA’s MSC Consortium, a large team of FDA scientists studying adult mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs)—cells that could eventually be used to repair, replace, restore or regenerate cells in the body, including those needed for heart and bone repair.

The scientists’ investigational work is unprecedented: Seven labs at FDA's Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research formed the consortium to fill in gaps in knowledge about how stem cells function.

“This research aims to facilitate development of this important class of innovative medical products,” explains Carolyn A. Wilson, Ph.D., associate director for research at the center. “It’s the first time we’ve done anything like this, and it’s proven to be a very useful approach. It’s worked so well because this is a huge, complicated project that requires expertise in many different technologies and methods.”

The research could ultimately be key to the advancement of personalized medicine, the practice in which medical treatment is tailored to the needs of an individual patient. “It’s not science fiction,” says Steven R. Bauer, Ph.D., chief of the Cellular and Tissue Therapy Branch in FDA’s Office of Cellular Tissue and Gene Therapies. “For me, regenerative medicine is the most exciting part of what we regulate in our office.”

So What Are Stem Cells?

There are two basic kinds of stem cells that are currently useful in the field of regenerative medicine: multipotent and pluripotent stem cells. Multipotent stem cells are generally taken from adults and can divide and develop into many different cell types. Pluripotent stem cells can develop into any type of cell in the body. Both types could divide to replenish cells damaged by injury, illness or normal wear. When stem cells divide, the new cells can either remain stem cells or develop into a new type of cell with a more specific function.

Two types of pluripotent stem cells exist: human embryonic stem cells and induced pluripotent stem cells, which are created by reprogramming adult cells that had already changed into a mature type of cell.

FDA’s MSC Consortium is not studying stem cells taken from embryos. “We’re looking at a particular kind of multipotent adult stem cell—the MSC—which is being used in a lot of regenerative medicine clinical trials,” adds Bauer.

The group is currently studying eight unique cell lines, each acquired from commercial sources and sourced to one of eight distinct, adult donors. (Males and females age 22 to 47 donated stem cells from bone marrow.)

The cells under study are multipotent: “They can differentiate (mature into) at least three cell types: bone, fat and cartilage, primarily,” Bauer explains. “They can also differentiate into nerve cells, liver cells and a kind of cell called ‘stroma’ that is in the bone marrow and supports blood forming cells. Then, for investigational clinical uses, they’ve been used for repairing hearts, repairing bone and repairing cartilage.”

Why Is FDA Studying These Cells?

In addition to differentiating into a variety of replacement cell types, MSCs can limit a patient’s immune response. So they can potentially be taken from one human donor and placed into a different recipient with less possibility of rejection.

But growing stem cells and making sure they are safe and effective is challenging, which is one reason why stem-cell based clinical trials have not yet resulted in a marketed product.

“The major challenge is that cells are much more complex than traditional products that FDA regulates. And they have the ability to respond to their environment,” Bauer explains. “Taking them out of the body and manufacturing them—that is, growing large numbers of them—or isolating them can change their biology. And it can change the way they behave if they are put back into the patient.”

For instance, if cells are manufactured in large quantities outside their natural environment, they may become ineffective or develop harmful characteristics. For example, they can produce tumors, severe immune reactions or growth of unwanted tissue. So FDA is trying to develop methods that would predict with more certainty how manufactured or isolated adult stem cells will behave in patients.

What's Being Done?

In the labs, cells are suspended in a nutrient liquid solution and grown in sterile containers called tissue culture flasks. Cells then multiply and go through three, five or seven generations of growth.

FDA scientists are using a variety of cutting-edge methods to characterize cells and then determine if any of these characteristics can predict the behavior of the cells in biological assays or in animal models. The next step will be to determine if any characteristics they measure will predict the safety or effectiveness of stem-cell based products in patients.

Specifically, scientists will continue studying whether factors such as different methods of growing the cells, donor age or gender affects the cells’ quality and performance. This research will ultimately provide new tools to the community of academic and private industry scientists who are interested in evaluating and developing stem cells into new clinical treatments.

“The consortium has shown that widely accepted ways to identify and characterize MSCs do not reveal some important biological differences between batches of these cells,” Bauer says. So the consortium seeks to demonstrate ways to better characterize MSCs that will be used in clinical trials. That’s important because, if investigators can improve the tools used to characterize MSCs used for clinical trials, the data generated from their studies could also improve because their MSC products will be more predictable, he adds.

And the improved predictability of their products will, in turn, allow FDA scientists to more easily evaluate the safety and effectiveness of new stem cell technologies—a key part of the regulatory science that is the foundation of FDA decisions.

Stem cells, like other medical products intended to treat, cure or prevent disease, require FDA approval before they can be marketed. “It is important for FDA to maintain a sound regulatory science research program to promote the development of safe and effective products in emerging areas that hold great promise,” Bauer says.

“My colleagues and I hope our scientific findings will be helpful in the field of regenerative medicine, including the ability to repair or even replace organs and tissues more safely and effectively than traditional means,” he adds. “Although there are many scientific hurdles to overcome before the use of stem cells reaches its full potential, I think this medicine will eventually have the capacity to do that.”

Tanning Gene Linked to Increased Risk of Testicular Cancer

A gene important in skin tanning has been linked to higher risk for testicular cancer in white men, according to a study led by scientists from the U.S. National Institutes of Health and the University of Oxford in England. Nearly 80 percent of white men carry a variant form of this gene, which increased risk of testicular cancer up to threefold in the study.

The research appeared online October 10, 2013 in the journal Cell, and is the result of an integrated analysis of big data supported by laboratory research. The team suspected that variations in a gene pathway controlled by the tumor suppressor gene p53 could have both positive and negative effects on human health.

The Prevalence of the G allele in African and European Populations:The G allele of the gene KITLG is associated with a greater risk of testicular cancer and is more frequent in whites than Africans or those of African descent. (Courtesy of the KITLG researchers)

“Gene variations occur naturally, and may become common in a population if they convey a health benefit,” said Douglas Bell, Ph.D., author on the paper and researcher at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), part of NIH. “It appears that this particular variant could help protect light-skinned individuals from UV skin damage, like burning or cancer, by promoting the tanning process, but it permits testicular stem cells to grow in the presence of DNA damage, when they are supposed to stop growing.”

Bell explained that p53 stimulates skin tanning when ultraviolet light activates it in the skin. It then must bind a specific sequence of DNA located in a gene called the KIT ligand oncogene (KITLG), which stimulates melanocyte production, causing the skin to tan.

To conduct the analysis, Xuting Wang, Ph.D., of NIEHS, co-author and lead bioinformatics scientist on the paper, led a data mining expedition to sieve through many different data sets. The team selected possible leads from the intersection of more than 20,000 p53 binding sites in the human genome, 10 million inherited genetic variations genotyped in the 1000 Genomes Project, and 62,000 genetic variations associated with human cancers identified in genome-wide association studies (GWAS). These data sets were gathered through joint efforts of thousands of researchers from around the world.

“In the end, one variant in the p53 pathway was strongly associated with testicular cancer, but also, surprisingly, displayed a positive benefit that is probably related to tanning that has occurred as humans evolved. Wang noted.

“White males with a single nucleotide variation in KITLG, called the G allele, have the highest odds of having testicular cancer. In fact, the twofold to threefold increased risk is one of the highest and most significant among all cancer GWAS conducted within the past few years,” said Bond. “The high frequency of this allele in light skin individuals may explain why testicular cancer is so much more frequent in people of European descent than those of African descent.”

Bond said although the G allele increases testicular cancer risk, it may explain why testicular tumors are often easily cured with chemotherapy. “Most other tumors have a mutant p53, but in these testicular cell tumors, the p53 is functioning properly, and the drugs used for testicular cancer appear to work in concert with p53’s tumor suppression function to kill the cancer cells.”

Tufts University: Ethical Violations on Golden Rice Study

University officials have admitted that Tufts-affiliated researchers violated scientific ethics laws after feeding genetically modified rice to children in China without proper consent in a study about “Golden Rice.”

A recent university announcement confirmed accusations from Greenpeace that researchers in the study had tested the rice on children without disclosing the true nature of the experiment.

Golden Rice, which contains beta carotene, was developed as a solution for Vitamin A deficiency in children.The deficiency causes blindness in approximately 250,000 children annually, and about half of those children die within a year as a result of the sight loss.

During the 2008 study, they gave 72 primary school children in China’s Hunan province rations of the modified rice. All children were between the ages of six and eight years old.

On Sept. 17 of this year, Tufts issued an email statement to media outlets standing by the findings of the study, but conceding an ethical violation.“While the study data were validated and no health or safety concerns were identified, the research itself was found not to have been conducted in full compliance with policy or federal regulations,” the university said

According to the announcement, Tang will be barred from conducting research on human subjects for two years, during which time she will be retrained on human subject research regulations and policies.

“The Chinese show great shock and anger on this unbelievable misconduct of golden rice trial,” Jiangli Yu, senior campaigner at Greenpeace East Asia, “Especially for those parents of children who were involved in the trial, they feel hurt since they were not told the details.”

After Greenpeace first questioned the study in August 2012, the CDC began a three-month investigation of the experiment, which resulted in the organization firing two members of its own staff., including principal investigator Shi’an Yin.

Tufts’ has revised its policies and procedures to ensure that in the future, research conducted outside of the United States is reviewed more carefully, according to the email to the media.

Golden Rice, which contains beta carotene, was developed as a solution for Vitamin A deficiency in children, Kritz told the Daily in an email. Such deprivation causes blindness in approximately 250,000 children annually, and about half of those children die within a year as a result of the sight loss.

According to the announcement, Tang will be barred from conducting research on human subjects for two years, during which time she will be retrained on human subject research regulations and policies. As a result, Tang has decided to close her lab next year.

“The general [Chinese] public show great shock and [anger] on this unbelievable misconduct of golden rice trial,” Jiangli Yu, senior campaigner at Greenpeace East Asia, told the Daily in an email. “Especially for those parents of children who were involved in the trial, they feel hurt since they were not told the details which they were supposed to know.”

The study was published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition (AJCN) in August 2012 and concluded that Golden Rice was a promising source of Vitamin A for Chinese children.. After Greenpeace first questioned the study in August 2012, the CDC began a three-month investigation of the experiment, which resulted in the organization firing two members of its own staff, including principal investigator Shi’an Yin.

Kritz said that Tufts, despite the violation, stands by the results of the study.“These multiple reviews found no concerns related to the integrity of the study data, the accuracy of the research results or the safety of the research subjects,” the media statement read. “In fact, the study indicated that a single serving of the test product, Golden Rice, could provide greater than 50 percent of the recommended daily intake of Vitamin A in these children, which could significantly improve health outcomes if adopted as a dietary regimen.”

Coffee Protects Women From Cancer

A study published yesterday by the American Institute for Cancer Research, physical activity and coffee protect against endometrial cancer. This applies to decaffeinated as well as regular coffee. Women who drink more than one cup a day had more protection.

The endometrium is the lining of the uterus. It is subject to a process of cyclical change during the fertile years of a woman’s life. The majority of cancers that occur in the body of the womb are endometrial cancers This cancer is the sixth most common cancer in women worldwide . Around 290,000 new cases were recorded in 2008. Endometrial cancer accounts for 2% of the cancer deaths in women.

The also found evidence that Body fatness increases the chances of getting is endometrial cancer. This was determined by the body mass index (a measure for human body shape based on an individual's mass and height), measures of abdominal girth, and adult weight gain. The evidence that greater body fatness, including abdominal fatness and adult weight gain, is a cause of endometrial cancer is convincing.

The another risk factor was glycaemic load.This is a number that estimates how much the food will raise a person's blood sugar level after eating it. For example a piece of white bread which digests quickly will cause a large larger rise in blood sugar than pasta which digests slower because it does not have any holes in it. Sense it is digesting slower the sugar goes into the blood slower and never reaches the same concentration in the blood..

To find out how fast the sugar goes into your blood you can look up the.Glycemic Index (GI) The higher the GI the quicker the sugar goes into the blood.

In Conclusion Women who drink Coffee, exercise, watch their weight, and eat things with a low GI have less chance of getting endometrial cancers

The Never Ending War on Pathogens

The war on emerging pathogens isn’t like any others. The war on drugs might well end with a new approach. The war on terrorism might eventually wind down. But the war on emerging pathogens is different. It will never end.

Morens and Fauci wrote: “While it has become possible to eradicate certain infectious diseases (smallpox and the veterinary disease rinderpest), and to significantly control many others (dracunculiasis, measles and polio, among others), it seems unlikely that we will eliminate most emerging infectious diseases in the foreseeable future.”

In “Emerging Infectious Diseases: Threats to Human Health and Global Stability,” published by PLOS, the authors from the National Institutes of Health paint a serious, if not scary, picture that the world faces from emerging pathogens: “The inevitable, but unpredictable, appearance of new infectious diseases has been recognized for millennia, well before the discovery of causative infectious agents.

The ease of world travel and increased global interdependence has made it more complex to containing these infectious diseases that affect not only the health but the economic stability of societies.”

Not all emerging pathogens will use food and waterborne transmission sources, but enough do to make emerging pathogens every bit as important a food-safety issue.

Emerging pathogens includes any bacteria, virus or parasite that, through rapid mutation, overwhelms human defenses to cause illness or death. E. coli O157:H7 was an emerging pathogen for the 20 years before it busted out and began causing dozens of outbreaks each year. A new Pathogen E coli Oio 4:H3  hit Europe last year killing 50.

And, just like then, there is now a new list of emerging pathogens being tracked by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. Pathogens that have been newly recognized in the past two decades are: Acanthamebiasis, 
Australian bat lyssavirus, Babesia, atypical, 
Bartonella henselae, 
Ehrlichiosis, Encephalitozoon cuniculi, Encephalitozoon hellem, 
Enterocytozoon bieneusi, Hendra or equine morbillivirus, 
Human herpesvirus 8, 
Human herpesvirus 6 and
Parvovirus B19. And those on the re-emerging list include Enterovirus 71, Clostridium difficile, 
Mumps virus, Streptococcus, Group A 
and staphylococcus aureus.

Acanthamebiasis is found in freshwater and soil, Australian bat lyssavirus is a lot like rabies, and Babesia is a blood parasite. As for the re-emerging pathogens, a vaccine could eliminate mumps, but doctors tell patients they may not ever shake Clostridium difficile, which is often acquired during hospital stays.

Yet for thousands of scientists that work on emerging pathogens, both at the elite institutions and on research campuses across the country, most of the research sounds fairly normal. Take Dr. Anita Wright’s research, for example.

She is an associate professor at the University of Florida’s Emerging Pathogens Institute. Wright is among those in academia working to help the oyster industry in Apalachicola, FL, in the aftermath of hurricane Katrina.

Her research involves the species of Vibrio that makes people sick when they eat raw or undercooked oysters. Wright is looking for a post-harvest treatment for reducing or eliminating Vibrio without killing the oysters. She is also working with oysters in their natural estuarine habitat to find out how Vibrio infects shellfish in the first place.

Some astounding research occurs at these institutions, and it often goes virtually unnoticed. For example, after 9/11, the virus that caused the flu pandemic of 1918 was right up there with smallpox and anthrax as possible biological agents that could be weaponized.

But that’s not been a concern since 2009 because the annual flu vaccine now protects against the virus that killed 675,000 Americans in 1918, thanks to the work of Adolfo Garcia-Sastre, the institute director at Mount Sinai.

'Toxic' Gene Hiding in GM Crops

A virus gene that could be poisonous to humans has been missed when GM food crops have been assessed for safety. GM crops such as corn and soybeans, which are being grown around the world for both human and farm animal consumption, include the gene.

A new study by the EU's official food watchdog, the European Food Safety Authority(EFSA), has revealed that the international approval process for GM crops failed to identify the gene. Standard tests for GM foods may be missing a potentially poisonous gene for humans

As a result, watchdogs have not investigated its impact on human health and the plants themselves when assessing whether they were safe. The findings are particularly powerful because the work was carried out by independent experts, rather than GM critics. It was led by Nancy Podevin, who was employed by EFSA, and Patrick du Jardin, of the Plant Biology Unit at the University of Liege in Belgium. They discovered that 54 of the 86 GM plants approved for commercial growing and food in the US, including corn and soybeans, contain the viral gene, which is known as 'Gene VI'.

When these GM products are used as animal feed the animals may  create proteins that are toxic to humans. They could also trigger changes in the plants themselves, making them more vulnerable to pests. Critics say the revelations make clear that the GM approvals process, which has been in place for 20 years, is fatally flawed.

They feel that all of the crops and food products involved.should be recalled.The discovery of the gene, totally undermines claims that GM technology is safe and predictable.They should be withdrawn from sale until they can be proven safe GM crops are modified in the laboratory to give them resistance to being sprayed with powerful weed killers such as Monsanto's Round-up. This means that, in theory, fields can be doused with the chemical, so wiping out the weeds and allowing the food plants to thrive. The problem is that weeds are mutating and gaining resistance.

It was previously assumed that virus genes are not present in plants once they are grown in the field and reach consumers, however it is now clear that this is not the case. The modification process involves inserting genes into the plants using a technique that allows them to piggyback on viruses that are commonly found in the soil and plants. It has been assumed that virus genes are not present in the plant once it is grown in the field and reaches consumers, however it is now clear that this is not the case.

A review of the EFSA research in Independent Science News said the presence of the viral gene appears to have been missed by biotech companies, universities and government regulators.'This situation represents a complete and catastrophic system failure,' it said. 'There are clear indications that this viral gene might not be safe for human consumption. It also may disturb the normal functioning of crops, including their natural pest resistance.

A  concern is that the protein produced by Gene VI might be a human toxin. This is a question that can only be answered by future experiments.'  Biotech supporters argue that there is no evidence from countries such as the USA that eating GM food causes any harm.However, the reality is that no health monitoring has taken place to establish this.

Policy director at the Soil Association, Peter Melchett said: 'For years, GM companies have made a deliberate and chilling effort to stop independent scientists from looking at their products. 'This is what happens when there is a complete absence of independent scrutiny of their GM crops.' Biotech firms are represented by the Agricultural Biotechnology Council(ABC).Its chairman, Dr Julian Little, said the EFSA study was one small part of a strict and complex scrutiny process.He said: 'Over the past 25 years, the European Commission has funded more than 130 research projects involving 500 independent research groups which have found no higher risks to the environment or food chain from GM crops than from conventional plants and organisms.'Furthermore, nearly three trillion meals containing GM ingredients have been eaten without a single substantiated case of ill-health. The combination of these two facts can give consumers a huge amount of confidence in the safety of GM crops.'

GM critics and EFSA are at odds over the implications of the research paper, EFSA insists that the research highlighting the presence of Gene VI does not represent a new discovery of a viral gene and does not indicate a safety concern about GM crops already approved. It said the viral gene ‘cannot infect animals or humans and therefore presents no threat to human or animal health’. This is challenged by GM critics who say there is no research evidence to justify this statement.

Source Mail newspaper