[译文] 相信动物对转基因食物的本能
在全世界科学家和普通人的多数中，对转基因食品的怀疑论占压倒性的上风。然而，以美国为首的少数国家却允许生物公司将转基因食品推向世界食品市场。就在最近的2005年6月24日，在审查了巨型生物技术公司孟山都的报告后，欧盟环境部长们拒绝了欧盟委员会的请求，投票为了安全支持禁止转基因玉米。孟山都的报告显示，以转基因玉米喂食的大鼠显现出异常----肾脏受损，血液发生变化。毫无疑问，对转基因食品的动物安全测试是不充分的，这既是由于监测和观察的时间跨度过短，也由于在这一全新的未知科学领域使用传统的方法检测所带来的缺陷。转基因食品不安全的强有力证据来自动物本身----它们更喜欢吃自然食品而不是转基因食品，而吃了转基因食品后会受内伤甚至死亡。
具有讽刺意味的是，在过去10年间相对于那些生物技术公司对转基因食物和产品的强力宣传运动，同行评议的关于转基因食品动物测试的论文却寥寥无几。美国政府机关和英国政府的咨询委员会对新食物产品安全性的结论，主要基于生物技术公司提交的动物实验的数据和结果。显而易见，生物技术公司提交的动物实验结果的版本会符合他们自己的利益。而看起来生物技术公司的多数研究论文并不符合科学标准----实验可重复，并发表在同行评议的期刊上。
动物们有着天生的内在本能，知道什么样的食物对它们好。遍及全美国的农民报告动物们拒食转基因作物：当转基因作物混到饲料中时，牛和猪拒吃；牛宁可跑远路去吃非转基因玉米，也不吃近处的抗除草剂转基因玉米；一群鹿吃掉了一片天然大豆，却对路对侧的抗除草剂转基因大豆视而不见；涣熊们突袭有机玉米田，但是对路前方引入杀虫成分的转基因玉米秋却毫无犯。如果野生动物和家畜只吃自然食物、回避各种转基因食物的话，它们肯定敏感地觉察到了自然和非自然之间的区别，但是某些科学家却声称转基因食物和自然食物没有差异。
最广为人知的挑战转基因食品安全性的案例是喂食大鼠转基因土豆的实验。在1995年，备受尊敬的英国科学家阿尔帕德•普斯兹台博士着手进行第一个由政府资助的转基因作物对动物健康影响的实验。大鼠在食用转基因土豆（生食或熟食）10天后显示受到了明显的损害----免疫系统受损，脑、肝脏、睾丸缩小，另外前癌细胞在肠胃生长。此后，普斯兹台的同事，阿伯丁大学医学院的斯坦利•伊文博士证实了这一发现，最终结果于1999年发表在声望卓著的期刊《柳叶刀》上。
在“环球责任科学家”组织于2002年公布的“查顿LL听证会报告：转基因饲料不适用于动物”中，伊娃•诺沃特尼反驳了政府关于鸡和大鼠的实验结论。她指出了查顿LL测试中的三点异常：1）一些以转基因饲料喂养的动物体重增加不够快；2）有些以转基因饲料喂养的动物表现出古怪的进食习惯；3）以转基因玉米喂养的鸡的死亡率是非转基因玉米喂养时的两倍。
未发表的关于卡尔基因公司的FLAVR SAVR西红柿（美国市场上的第一种转基因食品）的研究表明，一些喂食转基因作物的实验室大鼠生出胃受损病灶；而且这些40只大鼠中的7只在两周内死亡。在德国，12头奶牛在食用辛间塔公司的转基因玉米后死亡，导致了这家瑞士生物技术公司向该农民赔偿。曾经在北美为数众多的黑脉金斑王蝶近来从人们视线消失可能和转基因作物有关。王蝶幼虫因食用被含杀虫成分的转基因玉米的花粉污染的马利筋草而死亡。
还有其它几篇关于用转基因食品喂养动物的论文发表过，但是它们中的绝大多数不是为检验对健康的影响而设计，实验是由生物技术公司的科学家们做的。
为确保转基因食品全面彻底的安全，在动物实验中应评估4个重点领域----毒效应，过敏反应，对营养的影响，以及在转基因过程中发挥作用的耐抗生素基因。除转基因食物对健康和环境长期的未知影响外，基因重组的DNA本身可能变得不稳定进而增大基因水平移动和重组的机会----这一过程可能穿越物种壁垒酿成新的疾病和散布抗药性。
2002年食品标准局资助了迄今唯一的一次转基因食品的人体实验，志愿者在纽凯索大学的一项研究中进了一餐转基因大豆制品。被修饰过的DNA并没有如同科学家声称的那样被分解掉，相反它们转移到肠细菌体内，证实了基因水平转移的过程。巧合的是，据美国疾病控制中心的报告，自转基因食物初次上市的1994年以来，在美国食源性疾病的发病率剧烈增长。虽然那些疾病中的大部分原因不明，和转基因食品的相关性不能排除。
这个世界的人们对于消费转基因食品的不安基于一个非常合理的理由，转基因食品尚未证明其安全性。作为科学上的新进展，转基因食品技术不同于其他科学技术，它直接影响环境、人类的健康和我们人类的未来。肇因于转基因食物的未知致命病毒可能引发杀死大量人类的灾祸。也许，我们对于转基因食物的非自然和不安全的感觉，终究也是来自我们的动物本能。
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原文（网址见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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