Butterflies, GMOs and the Environment

Don Lee Author

05/11/2018 Added

27 Plays

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Discussion of the impacts of GMOs on butterflies and the environment for the FCGMOs site

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[00:00:00.200]Farmers, consumers and GMOs, social dimensions and consumer acceptance
[00:00:05.880]Part 2.
[00:00:07.200]So we've learned that there were some initial consumer opposition to GMOs and
[00:00:14.844]we're going to see where problems with GMOs emerged that were
[00:00:21.820]magnified in the media and caused some concern in the part of some consumers.
[00:00:31.600]But if this gives us an opportunity to really examine what those problems were.
[00:00:36.320]And so we're going to take a look at 2 situations both in involved the insect
[00:00:43.389]resistant GMOs.
[00:00:44.880]Those GM OS that were developed primarily to battle one insect pest,
[00:00:49.420]the European corn borer.
[00:00:51.440]And so we're going to take a look at an issue that involved the monarch butterfly
[00:00:57.436]larva and an issue that involved taco shells.
[00:01:01.360]And so the regulatory agency that was involved had the responsibility
[00:01:08.925]of testing the safety of these Bt genetically engineered corn products for
[00:01:16.200]the environment and the safety for food.
[00:01:20.080]We'll look be able to look at how the regulatory agencies handled their,
[00:01:24.426]their roles with both of these issues.
[00:01:27.160]So we'll start with the monarch butterfly larvae.
[00:01:30.400]And I want to point out that the European corn borer and the monarch butterfly
[00:01:36.580]larvae are, are distant relatives.
[00:01:39.240]They're both Lepidoptera.
[00:01:41.840]So so while they have different hosts,
[00:01:46.165]they live in the same ecosystem at the same time.
[00:01:51.520]And so it's probably not too surprising that growing Bt corn might have the
[00:01:58.306]possibility of having an environmental effect on the monarch butterfly larvae
[00:02:05.271]because the protein made to harm the European corn bore could possibly also be
[00:02:12.593]toxic to this non target pest, the monarch butterfly larvae.
[00:02:18.280]OK, so that sets us up for the study that was
[00:02:21.806]actually done by a group of scientists at Cornell University.
[00:02:26.560]It was not a very sophisticated experiment.
[00:02:29.840]And you can kind of see what the experiment involved here with this
[00:02:34.380]picture, Monarch butterfly larvae, corn pollen and milkweed leaves.
[00:02:38.920]All right, those of you who are familiar with
[00:02:41.866]monarch butterflies know that they use milkweed as adults as their,
[00:02:46.413]one of their primary sources for nectar and also for laying eggs.
[00:02:50.640]So when the larvae hatch, this is their initial food source.
[00:02:54.960]And, and so a study was conducted.
[00:02:57.120]I'll, I'll take you through the study by the,
[00:03:00.924]this group of Cornell and it was published then in a reputable journal.
[00:03:06.880]It was that's read worldwide.
[00:03:09.080]So the question that these scientists had was this,
[00:03:13.444]we've got Bt corn now that farmers are growing and these,
[00:03:17.964]at least some of the hybrids of, of Bt corn express the Bt gene in their
[00:03:23.654]pollen.
[00:03:24.320]And it's possible for that pollen to land on milkweed leaves that would contain
[00:03:31.210]small monarch butterfly larvae.
[00:03:34.520]And and while the monarch butterfly larvae are there to eat the leaf tissue,
[00:03:39.348]they'll inadvertently consume the pollen.
[00:03:42.320]And if there is Bt protein in that pollen, they could be having a toxic effect from
[00:03:50.178]from that inadvertent consumption.
[00:03:53.360]That was that was the idea that these entomologists had.
[00:03:59.200]So they went about conducting an experiment to test that hypothesis.
[00:04:04.880]Is it possible for the pollen from these BT corn plants to have an effect on the
[00:04:11.388]health of monarch butterfly larva?
[00:04:14.720]OK.
[00:04:15.120]So I want to point out that this would be, this would be the responsibility of the
[00:04:22.027]regulatory agencies to look at that the EPA of course would be responsible
[00:04:28.269]primarily for this question.
[00:04:30.840]Is this safe for the environment?
[00:04:33.560]And when they conducted the study, they got results that were interesting,
[00:04:39.216]potentially significant, and they published their research in this
[00:04:44.268]Nature journal.
[00:04:45.400]Now, it was not a full scientific paper.
[00:04:50.200]It was what's called a scientific correspondence.
[00:04:52.960]What that ends up being is a pretty short a note that describes a an experiment in
[00:04:59.627]the The experiment was pretty simple.
[00:05:02.600]You know, it's something that high school science
[00:05:05.100]courses could probably repeat.
[00:05:06.760]They just had two graphs that show their data.
[00:05:09.600]So basically the light blue is the leaves that didn't have any pollen on it.
[00:05:16.720]The the, the kind of brown here is, are the monarch butterfly that we're
[00:05:23.066]feeding on leaves that had pollen, but it was from non Bt corn plants.
[00:05:29.240]And then the blue was the Bt And you can see what's happening in just a few days
[00:05:35.010]of feeding on those leaves that had the the Bt protein.
[00:05:39.400]Their survival rate was pretty dramatically diminished.
[00:05:44.680]So the results were pretty clear that the BT protein had a harmful effect on these
[00:05:52.389]larvae.
[00:05:53.040]Now, one of the things that scientists like to
[00:05:55.901]do when they publish this research or what they're expected to do is share
[00:06:00.467]their methods.
[00:06:02.200]So if we take a close look at their methods and look at the source of the,
[00:06:07.285]of the Bt corn, you can, you could find that hybrid and you could
[00:06:11.587]grow it again, you could repeat that.
[00:06:14.960]But then if you take a look at how much pollen they added,
[00:06:19.329]their pollen density was visually matched.
[00:06:22.440]OK.
[00:06:23.560]And what does that mean?
[00:06:24.680]It's, it's, it's not very precise and it would be
[00:06:29.620]difficult to repeat that experiment and, and so, so it,
[00:06:35.153]but this is the house science is often done.
[00:06:40.120]An initial experiment is conducted and then there's other experiments that,
[00:06:44.128]that follow up.
[00:06:45.800]That's the importance of, of publishing work in peer reviewed
[00:06:49.530]journals and then sharing it with the rest of the world.
[00:06:53.160]But the materials and methods are very important so that other scientists can
[00:06:57.060]repeat the experiment.
[00:06:58.520]Now, what was significant about this work is
[00:07:02.964]the EPA had not asked the companies that developed this product or their
[00:07:10.570]university partners who tested this product for a similar kind of study on
[00:07:18.274]the monarch butterfly larva.
[00:07:21.480]The EPA therefore could not combine their data with the data that came from this
[00:07:29.059]Cornell group and use that data to determine if the Bt corn really is safe
[00:07:36.451]to grow.
[00:07:37.240]So if they didn't have the data, what they had to do was fund additional
[00:07:42.358]experiments.
[00:07:43.200]So.
[00:07:44.120]So once this research was published, the EPA quickly decided to set up funding
[00:07:51.951]to support university scientists to do follow up research.
[00:07:57.880]And, and as a result of that follow up
[00:08:00.345]research, they built this web page that you can
[00:08:03.379]still find and you could still go to that, that reveals what they studied.
[00:08:08.120]A lot of this research was done at universities like mine at the University
[00:08:12.127]of Nebraska.
[00:08:14.280]Blair Siegfried was a scientist there at the time,
[00:08:17.410]and John Foster and Pete Clark were some of my colleagues there.
[00:08:21.720]And so they were, they were very interested in getting data
[00:08:26.880]that would help better clarify the obvious potential that Bt would have in
[00:08:33.331]having a negative impact on an important insect, the monarch butterfly larva.
[00:08:40.800]What was different about their studies is the,
[00:08:44.090]the level of precision and specificity in their experiments.
[00:08:48.360]So, so this first work, what they did is with the laboratory
[00:08:53.260]techniques, they were able to determine how much Bt
[00:08:57.121]protein was actually in the pollen.
[00:08:59.720]So almost anything you consume can be poisonous to you.
[00:09:03.880]Water can be poisonous to you if you consume enough of it.
[00:09:07.480]OK, So it's the dose of the protein that's
[00:09:10.408]that's important in determining toxicity.
[00:09:13.440]And so they work to establish the dose of of these Bt proteins in the hybrid that
[00:09:20.213]was a part of the study and in other BT hybrids, OK.
[00:09:25.080]And then this group but conducted their research out in the field,
[00:09:30.584]they actually did careful analysis studies of how much pollen from corn
[00:09:36.498]plants was found at different distances in the field and they therefore they
[00:09:42.824]could get a accurate measurement of the pollen dose in nature.
[00:09:48.000]So if you know how much pollen is being distributed at different distances away
[00:09:54.131]from cornfields, if you know the dose of the Bt protein in
[00:09:58.653]that pollen, you can put that information together and
[00:10:02.868]come up with a better calculation of the risk that the Bt in the pollen actually
[00:10:09.076]has to monarch butterfly larvae as they hatch from eggs and grow on milkweed
[00:10:14.978]plants that are growing near cornfields in the in the corn Belt.
[00:10:19.960]OK, again, very important questions just done with
[00:10:23.236]more precision.
[00:10:24.560]And once they accumulated this data went through peer review and it was
[00:10:31.536]published, the EPA could conclude that the
[00:10:35.432]probability in the field, in nature, in the field of,
[00:10:40.596]of larvae from monarch butterflies encountering a toxic dose of the Bt
[00:10:47.028]protein in corn pollen is almost 0.
[00:10:50.200]There's a lot of risks that this insect has is it is it lives its life as a
[00:10:56.626]migratory insect, but the risk that Bt corn pollen plays on
[00:11:01.700]its population is not 0, but it's, it's very close to 0.
[00:11:06.640]So, so the initial research initiated the
[00:11:10.595]research question, it was followed up and the final
[00:11:15.066]conclusion was that from the monarch butterfly perspective,
[00:11:20.226]it is safe to grow a Bt corn.
[00:11:22.880]But it gives you an idea of the nature of science and the role that the regulatory
[00:11:28.938]agencies play.
[00:11:29.960]OK, so now you have a better understanding of
[00:11:33.123]that story.
[00:11:34.040]But you could see where the media, the press would describe this story and
[00:11:39.850]many consumers would wonder about about the potential threat to an insect
[00:11:46.048]that they appreciate the monarch butterfly larvae and the impact that this
[00:11:52.245]new technology of GMOs would have.
[00:11:55.080]But the final resolution was that it was safe to grow.
[00:12:00.640]So now we'll take a look at the next story,
[00:12:04.994]the safety of tacos made from corn and and we'll we'll make a Part 3 to tell
[00:12:12.911]that story.

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Butterflies, GMOs and the Environment

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