[譯文] 相信動物對轉基因食物的本能
在全世界科學家和普通人的多數中，對轉基因食品的懷疑論占壓倒性的上風。然而，以美國為首的少數國家卻允許生物公司將轉基因食品推向世界食品市場。就在最近的2005年6月24日，在審查了巨型生物技術公司孟山都的報告后，歐盟環境部長們拒絕了歐盟委員會的請求，投票為了安全支持禁止轉基因玉米。孟山都的報告顯示，以轉基因玉米喂食的大鼠顯現出異常----腎臟受損，血液發生變化。毫無疑問，對轉基因食品的動物安全測試是不充分的，這既是由于監測和觀察的時間跨度過短，也由于在這一全新的未知科學領域使用傳統的方法檢測所帶來的缺陷。轉基因食品不安全的強有力證據來自動物本身----它們更喜歡吃自然食品而不是轉基因食品，而吃了轉基因食品后會受內傷甚至死亡。
具有諷刺意味的是，在過去10年間相對于那些生物技術公司對轉基因食物和產品的強力宣傳運動，同行評議的關于轉基因食品動物測試的論文卻寥寥無幾。美國政府機關和英國政府的咨詢委員會對新食物產品安全性的結論，主要基于生物技術公司提交的動物實驗的數據和結果。顯而易見，生物技術公司提交的動物實驗結果的版本會符合他們自己的利益。而看起來生物技術公司的多數研究論文并不符合科學標準----實驗可重復，并發表在同行評議的期刊上。
動物們有著天生的內在本能，知道什么樣的食物對它們好。遍及全美國的農民報告動物們拒食轉基因作物：當轉基因作物混到飼料中時，牛和豬拒吃；牛寧可跑遠路去吃非轉基因玉米，也不吃近處的抗除草劑轉基因玉米；一群鹿吃掉了一片天然大豆，卻對路對側的抗除草劑轉基因大豆視而不見；渙熊們突襲有機玉米田，但是對路前方引入殺蟲成分的轉基因玉米秋卻毫無犯。如果野生動物和家畜只吃自然食物、回避各種轉基因食物的話，它們肯定敏感地覺察到了自然和非自然之間的區別，但是某些科學家卻聲稱轉基因食物和自然食物沒有差異。
最廣為人知的挑戰轉基因食品安全性的案例是喂食大鼠轉基因土豆的實驗。在1995年，備受尊敬的英國科學家阿爾帕德•普斯茲臺博士著手進行第一個由政府資助的轉基因作物對動物健康影響的實驗。大鼠在食用轉基因土豆（生食或熟食）10天后顯示受到了明顯的損害----免疫系統受損，腦、肝臟、睪丸縮小，另外前癌細胞在腸胃生長。此后，普斯茲臺的同事，阿伯丁大學醫學院的斯坦利•伊文博士證實了這一發現，最終結果于1999年發表在聲望卓著的期刊《柳葉刀》上。
在“環球責任科學家”組織于2002年公布的“查頓LL聽證會報告：轉基因飼料不適用于動物”中，伊娃•諾沃特尼反駁了政府關于雞和大鼠的實驗結論。她指出了查頓LL測試中的三點異常：1）一些以轉基因飼料喂養的動物體重增加不夠快；2）有些以轉基因飼料喂養的動物表現出古怪的進食習慣；3）以轉基因玉米喂養的雞的死亡率是非轉基因玉米喂養時的兩倍。
未發表的關于卡爾基因公司的FLAVR SAVR西紅柿（美國市場上的第一種轉基因食品）的研究表明，一些喂食轉基因作物的實驗室大鼠生出胃受損病灶；而且這些40只大鼠中的7只在兩周內死亡。在德國，12頭奶牛在食用辛間塔公司的轉基因玉米后死亡，導致了這家瑞士生物技術公司向該農民賠償。曾經在北美為數眾多的黑脈金斑王蝶近來從人們視線消失可能和轉基因作物有關。王蝶幼蟲因食用被含殺蟲成分的轉基因玉米的花粉污染的馬利筋草而死亡。
還有其它幾篇關于用轉基因食品喂養動物的論文發表過，但是它們中的絕大多數不是為檢驗對健康的影響而設計，實驗是由生物技術公司的科學家們做的。
為確保轉基因食品全面徹底的安全，在動物實驗中應評估4個重點領域----毒效應，過敏反應，對營養的影響，以及在轉基因過程中發揮作用的耐抗生素基因。除轉基因食物對健康和環境長期的未知影響外，基因重組的DNA本身可能變得不穩定進而增大基因水平移動和重組的機會----這一過程可能穿越物種壁壘釀成新的疾病和散布抗藥性。
2002年食品標準局資助了迄今唯一的一次轉基因食品的人體實驗，志愿者在紐凱索大學的一項研究中進了一餐轉基因大豆制品。被修飾過的DNA并沒有如同科學家聲稱的那樣被分解掉，相反它們轉移到腸細菌體內，證實了基因水平轉移的過程。巧合的是，據美國疾病控制中心的報告，自轉基因食物初次上市的1994年以來，在美國食源性疾病的發病率劇烈增長。雖然那些疾病中的大部分原因不明，和轉基因食品的相關性不能排除。
這個世界的人們對于消費轉基因食品的不安基于一個非常合理的理由，轉基因食品尚未證明其安全性。作為科學上的新進展，轉基因食品技術不同于其他科學技術，它直接影響環境、人類的健康和我們人類的未來。肇因于轉基因食物的未知致命病毒可能引發殺死大量人類的災禍。也許，我們對于轉基因食物的非自然和不安全的感覺，終究也是來自我們的動物本能。
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原文（網址見http://uniorb.com/RCHECK/animalgm.htm)
Trust the Animal Instinct on GM Food
Diana Lee
The skepticisms on the safety of genetically modified (GM) food have been overwhelming, voiced by a majority of scientists and humanity throughout the world. Nevertheless, a handful of governments led by the United States have allowed biotech corporations to push GM food onto the world’s food market. As recent as June 24, 2005, EU Environment Ministers, against the wishes of the European Commission, voted to uphold the safety ban on genetically modified organism (GMO) maize after scrutinizing a report by the biotech giant, Monsanto, that demonstrated rats fed on GMO corn developed abnormalities — damage to the kidneys and changes to their blood. Undoubtedly, animal testing on the safety of GM food is inadequate due to the short period of monitoring and observation and flawed by applying the traditional testing methods to a novel science, which opens up a whole new field of unknowns. The compelling evidence of GM food being unsafe comes from the animals themselves — preferring natural food to GM food and suffering internal injuries or succumbing to death after eating GM food.
Ironically, peer-reviewed papers on animal testing on the safety of GM food are far and few between, considering the aggressive campaigning for GM foods and products by the biotech companies in the last ten years. Both the U. S. government’s agency and U. K. government's advisory committee on novel foods and products based their decisions on safety mainly on animal data results provided by biotechnology companies. Obviously, biotech corporations with self-serving interests provided their versions of the animal test results. It appears that most research papers by biotech corporations couldn’t meet the scientific standards — to have the experiments replicated and published in peer-reviewed journals.
Animals have a natural instinct to know what’s good for them. Throughout the United States, farmers have been reporting animals rejecting GMO crops: cattle and hogs that wouldn’t eat when the GMO crops were mixed in with the ration; cattle would rather trot a longer distance to munch on the non-GMO corn than consume the nearby Round-up Ready (herbicide resistant) corn; a herd of deer mowed down natural tofu beans, ignoring the Round-up Ready variety across the road; and the raccoons raided an organic corn field, leaving Bt (induced insecticide) corn untouched down the road. If wild and domestic animals would only eat natural food and avoid various GM foods, they’re certainly sensitive enough to know the distinction between natural and unnatural — as some scientists had claimed that GM food is no different from natural food.
The most highly publicized case against the safety of GM food was the experiment on rats fed on GM potatoes. In 1995, Dr. Arpad Pusztai, a highly respected British scientist, embarked on the first government-funded research project to study the health effects of genetically modified crops on animals. The rats given GM potatoes (raw and cooked) after 10 days showed significant damages — impairment of the immune system, shrinkages of brain, liver and testicle, as well as pre-cancerous cell growth in the intestines and stomach. Later, Pusztai’s colleague, Dr. Stanley Ewen of Aberdeen University Medical School reconfirmed Pusztai’s findings that were finally published in the prestigious journal, The Lancet, in 1999.
In the ‘Report for the Chardon LL Hearing: Non-suitability of genetically engineered feed for animals’ published by The Scientists for Global Responsibility in May 2002, Eva Novotny contradicted the official conclusions on the chicken and rat experiments. She pointed out three abnormalities as a result from testing Chardon LL: 1) some animals consumed GM feed did not gain weight rapidly enough; 2) some animals given GM feed displayed erratic feeding habits; and 3) mortality rate of chickens fed on GM maize doubled of those fed on non-GM maize.
The unpublished research of Calgene’s FLAVR SAVR tomato (first GM food on the U.S. market) noted some laboratory rats that were given the GM crop developed stomach lesions; and seven of the forty rats died within two weeks. In Germany, twelve cows died after digesting Syngenta's GM maize, prompting the Swiss biotech company to compensate the farmer. The recent disappearance of the once populous Monarch butterflies in North America might be related to GM crops. The Monarch butterfly larvae died from eating milkweed that had been contaminated with Bt corn pollen.
A few more papers on animal feeding studies on GM food were published, but most of them are experiments not designed to identify health effects conducted by biotech industry scientists.
In animal experiments to ensure thorough safety of GM food, four main areas of concern should be addressed for evaluation — toxic effects, allergic reactions, nutritional impacts, and antibiotic-resistant genes that play a role in the GM process. Besides the unknown long-term effects of GM food on health and environment, the restructured genetically modified DNA itself becomes unstable which enhances horizontal gene transfer and recombination — the very process for spawning new diseases and spreading antibiotic resistance that can cross species barriers.
As the only human experiment on GM food, a study at Newcastle University in 2002 sponsored by Food Standard Agency, had volunteers consume a single meal of GM soya. The genetically modified DNA was not dissolved, as scientists had claimed it would be, instead it was transferred into the intestinal bacteria, confirming the process of horizontal gene transfer. Coincidentally, since 1994 when GM food was first introduced, food borne illnesses have been dramatically on the rise in the United States, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control. Although the causes of those diseases remain largely unknown, the possibility that they may be linked to GM food cannot be dismissed.
The world’s unease about GM food for human consumption exists for a very good reason — GM food hasn’t been proven safe. As a novel science, GM food technology is unlike other modern technologies — it directly affects the environment, human health, and the future of our humanity. Any mishap could decimate the human race with an unknown deadly virus created from GM food. Perhaps, our sense of GM food — being unnatural and unsafe — comes from our animal instinct after all.
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