Guest post by Ken Roseboro

The “con­ver­sion” of for­mer anti-GMO activist Mark Lynas to GMO pro­moter has gar­nered huge media atten­tion, but Thierry Vrain, Ph.D., a for­mer genetic engi­neer who speaks out against the risks of genet­i­cally engi­neered foods, has far more credibility—and a far more impor­tant story to tell the public.

Thierry Vrain’s career has spanned the full range of agriculture—from being a pro­po­nent of “chem­i­cal” agri­cul­ture and genetic engi­neer­ing to being an advo­cate for organic farm­ing and an oppo­nent of GMOs.

A native of France, Vrain earned an under­grad­u­ate degree in plant phys­i­ol­ogy from the Université de Caen and a doc­toral degree from North Carolina State University. After mov­ing to Canada he taught plant phys­i­ol­ogy at Université du Québec in Montréal. Then he worked for 30 years as a research sci­en­tist for the Canadian gov­ern­ment in Québec and British Columbia where he con­ducted research on genet­i­cally mod­i­fied pota­toes, among other projects. He was direc­tor of the biotech­nol­ogy depart­ment at the Pacific Agri-Food Research Centre in Summerland, BC.

After 35 years of research and teach­ing of soil and mol­e­c­u­lar biol­ogy, Vrain retired to a small farm in Courtenay, BC called Innisfree. Today, Thierry Vrain is a gar­dener, a teacher, and a pas­sion­ate speaker about organic gardening—from soil health to GMOs.

Ken Roseboro: Tell me a lit­tle more about your background.

Thierry Vrain: I worked in three research insti­tutes in Montreal, Vancouver, and Summerland. I was the head of a research group using mol­e­c­u­lar biol­ogy tools. We worked on food crops. I was genet­i­cally engi­neer­ing small fruit and pota­toes for nema­tode resis­tance using the snow­drop lectin gene.

The genet­i­cally engi­neered apple (now under reg­u­la­tory review in the US and Canada) orig­i­nated in our group though I wasn’t involved with the research.

KR: Did you speak pub­licly in favor of genetic engi­neer­ing when you were at Agriculture Canada?

Vrain: Yes, I just took it on as my job. I explained the safety of the tech­nol­ogy to the pub­lic and did a good amount of lec­tur­ing, edu­cat­ing small groups.

KR: What led you to change from a sup­porter of genet­i­cally mod­i­fied foods to an opponent?

Vrain: I have some dif­fi­cul­ties with how the con­tro­versy is han­dled. If you aren’t a sci­en­tist you don’t under­stand the sci­ence. If you are a sci­en­tist and dis­cover things that are of con­cern, then you are accused of doing “pseu­do­science” and often viciously attacked by the indus­try and aca­d­e­mics on the pay­roll. This has hap­pened many times, for exam­ple to Arpad Pusztai in England and then Ignacio Chapela, who dis­cov­ered GMO con­t­a­m­i­na­tion in native corn in Mexico. He was attacked and almost fired from his post at the University of California. A year later his find­ings were confirmed.

There are now quite a num­ber of research pub­li­ca­tions, in peer reviewed jour­nals, show­ing con­cerns from feed­ing GM corn and soy to rats. Those stud­ies are ignored and shouldn’t be. Federal agen­cies should repeat the stud­ies and must test these crops for safety.

Research sci­en­tists from the US Food & Drug Administration made it clear in the early 1990s that there could be indi­rect effects from eat­ing GM crops, such as tox­ins, aller­gens, and nutri­tional defi­cien­cies. Those warn­ings were ignored. Now a good num­ber of pub­li­ca­tions are con­firm­ing the pre­dic­tions of the FDA scientists.

It trou­bles me that money and the bot­tom line are at the root of the use of the technology.

KR: You say that the sci­ence behind genetic engi­neer­ing is based on a mis­un­der­stand­ing. Please elab­o­rate on this.

Vrain: When we started with genetic engi­neer­ing in the 1980s, the sci­ence was based on the the­ory that one gene pro­duces one pro­tein. But we now know, since the human genome project, that a gene can cre­ate more than one pro­tein. The inser­tion of genes in the genome through genetic engi­neer­ing inter­rupts the cod­ing sequence of the DNA, cre­at­ing trun­cated, rogue pro­teins, which can cause unin­tended effects. It’s an inva­sive technology.

Biotech com­pa­nies ignore these rogue pro­teins; they say they are back­ground noise. But we should pay atten­tion to them. It must be ver­i­fied that they pro­duce no neg­a­tive effects.

A key point is that the con­cern about genetic engi­neer­ing should be about the pro­teins. Many plants and ani­mals are not edi­ble because their pro­teins are toxic or poi­so­nous. To test for the safety of Bt crops, sci­en­tists have mostly fed the pure pro­tein to rats, and there may be no prob­lem. But it’s dif­fer­ent if you feed rats the whole GM plant because they are get­ting these rogue pro­teins that could cause harm.

How do you explain pub­lished papers describ­ing how rats and mice suf­fer organ dam­age from eat­ing GM corn or soy? It’s too easy to dis­miss those as pseu­do­science. Rats and mice are the canary in the mine, and we should be pay­ing atten­tion to what hap­pens to them.

KR: Why don’t more peo­ple rec­og­nize the mis­un­der­stand­ing behind genetic engineering?

Vrain: The human genome project is only 10 years old. How long did it take for peo­ple to rec­og­nize that the earth is not flat?

KR: And there are many sci­en­tists that pro­mote genetic engi­neer­ing of foods.

Vrain: There are a lot of peo­ple on the pay­roll and a lot of grant money flow­ing from biotech com­pa­nies to acad­e­mia. I used to be employed by Agriculture Canada. I did my job, and didn’t ques­tion things too much.

KR: What are some of the other risks you see with GMOs?

Vrain: When I hear we need genetic engi­neer­ing to feed the world, I cringe. It turns out that there is no increase in yield, no decrease use of pes­ti­cides, and the process is of highly ques­tioned safety.

Even if genetic engi­neer­ing was per­fectly safe, I still ques­tion it because of genetic pol­lu­tion. Organic crops and foods are becom­ing contaminated.

I’m also con­cerned about con­t­a­m­i­na­tion of the envi­ron­ment with antibi­otic resis­tant genes. Every GM crop has these genes. The pre­lim­i­nary evi­dence we have is that bac­te­ria in the soil and in the human gut are capa­ble of pick­ing those genes up. Considering the alarm I hear from med­ical peo­ple about los­ing antibi­otics, I think this should be a seri­ous concern.

KR: What about the GMO apple that may be commercialized?

Vrain: There’s no research or tox­i­c­ity tests to show that it’s not toxic.

I ques­tion whether it’s use­ful. It’s not dif­fer­ent from what other biotech com­pa­nies do, which is to put out a prod­uct and make money.

Apple grow­ers, con­ven­tional and organic, are very con­cerned that peo­ple will reject their prod­ucts if a GM apple is introduced.

The apple is a sym­bol of health. An engi­neered apple does not have the same health appeal, and the indus­try knows that.

KR: What led you to favor organic agriculture?

Vrain: I used to be a soil biol­o­gist and focused on fer­til­iz­ers and pes­ti­cides. When I retired I started to look around and, quite frankly, the organic side of soil biol­ogy made more sense than what I had taught.

Industrial agri­cul­ture relies on inputs that are good for the chem­i­cal indus­try. Unfortunately, we have evi­dence that inputs are degrad­ing soil bio­di­ver­sity. Industrial agri­cul­ture com­pletely ignores the ecol­ogy of the soil.

When I was a soil biol­o­gist I would look at the bio­di­ver­sity of the soil. I would see a big dif­fer­ence between indus­trial farms and organic farms, which had far more species of soil micro­fauna, micro­scopic “ani­mals” and nema­todes, what I call biodiversity.

KR: Tell me about the work you’re doing now with Innisfree Farm.

Vrain: It’s a small farm, a demon­stra­tion gar­den. My wife is an herbal­ist, and we grow med­i­c­i­nal plants. Young stu­dents come and learn about med­i­c­i­nal plants and organic growing.

It’s my retire­ment project. I say I’m aton­ing for my sins.