Retracted green light on GM crops feeds suspicions

[Cricket Tragic]

Originally Posted by deek

CT - Are we in agreement that canola pollen is a recognised occupational respiratory sensitiser and therefore has the propensity to cause occupational asthma?

It is possible to get occupational asthma from exposure to any pollen over long periods of time, as I pointed out for wheat. However, this has absolutely no bearing on the public health issues of canola growing.

Originally Posted by deek

CT, I appreciate that your are drawing your thoughts from the literature, however, I wish to point out that this hypothesis has no scientific basis

I am not drawing my thoughts just from the literature. I am starting as a basis, my work in agricultural research and extension over a long period of time on 4 continents. In two of those, canola was a major crop and extensively grown. Until a couple of weeks ago, I had never heard of canola allergy arising from living adjacent to canola crops. This then sparked my interest as to why should there be a flurry of comment on this forum about it, so I then did the research in the literature.

My comments about the two events being coincidental is at this stage as good an hypothesis as any other to explain what might be happening. In all my reading I have not seen this hypothesis disproved, hence it remains in my list of 4 possibilities. In fact, I think it has quite a lot going for it. There is extensive research in the psychological literature showing people are prone to look for patterns and causes for events. We can see this for example with the current reports following the recent earthquakes in China of people being able to predict earthquakes from all sorts of phenomena. However, the literature will tell you that most of these events are no better than random at predicting earthquakes. What happens is people tend to remember some unusual event that occurs in the period leading up to the earthquake and associate it with that event. Our minds have been wired by evolution to look for patterns and causes, because more often than not these patterns have helped us be successful. The downside is that this evolutionary wiring lets us down from time to time and we mistake correlation for causality. This is also why the placebo effect occurs.

As to horses, I don’t happen to know anything about horses being particularly sensitive to canola. I have seen horses in and around canola crops and not personally noticed anything and nobody has ever mentioned an issue to me. So perhaps if you would like to direct me to the intense scientific study on horse illnesses caused by canola, I will be happy to look through it.

[screener]

Originally Posted by deek

Hi screener, I think the extent of allergic reactions (IgE-mediated) in Canada would be very much dependant upon the cultivars of canola grown and the environmental conditions.

Please bear in mind that the scientific opinion appears to be that the pollen is unlikely to be the main causal factor of the allergy type symptoms experienced in the UK. This does not imply that the pollen does not cause IgE-mediated responses, it merely clarifies the situation that other reactions other than IgE are likely to be the main cause/contributor of symptoms.

Hi deek, can you give me any ideas on how the other causal factors are dependant on Canola plants and how their causal effect is generated?

We've been told for example that one is more likely to develop allergies to plant pollen if you are exposed to plants that are not in your experience. So moving to a different ecosystem can mean the same species of trees can cause allergies by having slightly different metabolisms. I may not be getting the terms correct.

If that is the case then gm plants may have a similar effect.

[forfismum]

Originally Posted by deek

But I am pretty sure (as night follows day) CT you will attempt to counter this argument also.

CT is an unapolgetic apologist for the chemical industry

[Cricket Tragic]

Originally Posted by forfismum

CT is an unapolgetic apologist for the chemical industry

Really, forfismum, I don't think insults are called for, just because I don't agree with you.

[forfismum]

Originally Posted by Cricket Tragic

Really, forfismum, I don't think insults are called for, just because I don't agree with you.

Not an insult,a statement of fact,you represent the views of the chemical companies.

[Cricket Tragic]

Originally Posted by forfismum

Not an insult,a statement of fact,you represent the views of the chemical companies.

I am afraid it is simply an insult designed in order for you not to have to deal with what I have said. Frankly, you can simply ignore what I say without tossing childish insults around.

My opinions about the benefits or otherwise of chemical companies should bear no relationship at all to a discussion about the research which may or may not support the contention that oilseed rape leads to allergies in the general population.

In any case, I don't represent the views of the chemical companies, I represent my own views.

[deek]

Originally Posted by Cricket Tragic

I am not drawing my thoughts just from the literature. My comments about the two events being coincidental is at this stage as good an hypothesis as any other to explain what might be happening. In all my reading I have not seen this hypothesis disproved, hence it remains in my list of 4 possibilities. In fact, I think it has quite a lot going for it.

Are you feeling ok CT? Its just your comments appear to be out of kilter with your normal level-headed opinions. It seems out of character that you would put so much faith into such a weak hypothesis.

You say that your hypothesis is sound because it has still to be disproved. But I have just done so; unless of course you can provide evidence the horses have psychosomatic tendencies also.

If my memory serves me correctly, Prof. Anthony Seaton (now retired) of Aberdeen University was the first person to make mention of this hypothesis (relative to oilseed rape). Seaton had a letter published in the Scotsman newspaper in 1992 in response to public disquiet about the health concerns relative to oilseed rape crops. Seaton took the unconventional approach to advise the public about the interim results of his 3-year study (funded by the Scottish Office) through the placing of a letter in a national newspaper.

Since 1992 there have been quite a number of published studies into the health effects of oilseed rape crops on humans and horses. I’m sure you will agree that it would be unlikely that further research would have been funded had the scientists truly believed that the problems were psychosomatic. I am not aware of any scientific research that has attempted to look at this hypothesis, are you? Furthermore, I am confident that the IEH Scientific Committee would not have recommended further research had they believed that this hypothesis had any real scientific basis.

It would appear that the psychosomatic reference in the literature was a “plant” (if you will excuse my terrible pun) to grab the media’s attention and to focus attention away from this lucrative and important crop. I have read numerous reports in agricultural trade journals and documents promoting the biotech industry which have paid lip service to the IEH Assessment and used this to their advantage to dismiss health complaints as unfounded. Is it not rather strange that no-one (including Hemmer, 1998 and Murphy, 1999) ever accurately reports that the IEH Scientific Committee recommended (in the IEH Assessment A3 Executive Summary) that more research was required and that to date, no funding appears to have been made available to allow this to happen? Or am I just being cynical?

[deek]

Which, in response to your earlier reference to Murphy, brings me back rather neatly to talk about Denis Murphy who in 1999 had an article published in Immunology Today titled; Is rapeseed really an allergenic plant? popular myths versus scientific realities.

So, who is Murphy and what authoritative experience does he bring to the table?

Perhaps I can enlighten you…

In 1999, Denis Murphy was Head of the Brassica and Oilseeds Research Department, John lnnes Centre, Norwich Research Park, Norwich. In 2003 Denis Murphy published a booklet (titled GM Free Wales – admirable aspiration or misguided fantasy?) in opposition to the ban on GM crops in Wales. Murphy is a scientific researcher, consultant, advisor and educator in plant molecular biology and biotechnology. He advises a number of government agencies on crop biotechnology, both in the UK and overseas. He is currently Head of the Biotechnology Unit at the University of Glamorgan.

• Experience and published research in the medical field – None
• Experience and published research in the allergy field – None
• Experience and published research in the Immunology field – None
• Experience and published research in the oilseed rape allergy field – None

It's rather puzzling that the medical journal Immunology Today accepted and published Murphy’s article which was presented by a researcher who clearly has a conflict of interest relative to his work in promoting oilseed rape research and development in the UK. This is compounded by the fact that Murphy would appear to have no medical qualifications or experience.

Even his choice of title denigrates the public health concerns by implying that these are popular myths. This is despite the recommendations prioritised in the IEH (Institute of Environment & Health) Assessment A3 published in 1997 in which the scientific committee recommended that much more detailed research should be undertaken to elucidate the public health concerns about oilseed rape.

It is interesting to note that Murphy’s article did not actually contribute anything to previously published scientific research. The article was solely a summarised interpretation of information previously published in the IEH Assessment. I suppose, in retrospect, the article appears to very similar to Hemmer’s article published in the BMJ the previous year. Hemmer also implied that the IEH Assessment had considered the oilseed rape crop to be blameless. This was despite the prioritised research recommendations made by the IEH scientific committee.

It begs the question; if the articles by Hemmer (1998 ) and Murphy (1999), did not actually contribute anything to previously published scientific research, what was the purpose of these articles?

As I said previously, Parratt, et al. July 1998 published a letter in the BMJ in response to Hemmer’s article. I believe the following quote puts things into true perspective: -

Parratt advised “We have sought EU support to compare the putative causes of oilseed rape allergy/irritancy in European countries and the UK. No funding was forthcoming. Until such studies are undertaken there can be no satisfactory resolution of the public concern that oilseed rape is a genuine cause of ill health.”

[Cricket Tragic]

deek, I think if you were to look at the literature on psychology, you will find a large amount of research about correlations and the way the human mind deals with correlations. I don’t think it is a weak hypothesis to suppose that people would make the link that symptoms correlated with flowering of canola, therefore canola was the cause even when something else was to blame. Indeed, my many decades of working in agricultural extension biases me in this direction, because I have seen how often people can delude themselves about correlation equalling causation.

All the evidence we have for an association is after all self-reported. The obvious causes, if canola were to be to blame, pollen and fungal spores were discounted as correlating with symptoms. That leaves VOCs as a possibility. As I pointed out above, research on VOCs did not show up anything in particular that increased at flowering, but that was not present in other crops. The fact that such symptoms have not been reported from elsewhere where much more canola is grown, tends to cast doubt on canola-specific hypotheses and suggest human-based hypotheses or environment-based hypotheses are more likely.

I don’t know that you did disprove this hypothesis with the horse and psychosomatic illness data. 1) I did ask you to point me in the direction of the horse data so I could see what it said. You haven’t done so. I am not quite sure where to find it, as it doesn’t turn up in my searches of Pubmed, and so I haven’t been able to assess it and convince myself that horses get the same condition. 2) I haven’t been talking about a psychosomatic illness at all. I have not suggested the symptoms are not real and do not have a real cause. What I have been suggesting is that the hypothesis that these symptoms are merely associated in time with canola flowering and are in fact caused by something else has not been disproved. 3) Even if horses were affected by canola, it doesn’t necessarily mean that humans will as well, because of their different physiology. Although, if the symptoms were truly identical you would look at it more closely.

deek, you are making a mistake if you operate on the assumption that research funding would not be committed unless the cause was known. Lots of research is done simply to disprove possible connections, allowing a honing in on the real cause. In this case, the research done has been able to eliminate several possibilities (e.g. canola pollen or total fungal spore load). The fact that one hypothesis is being tested does not automatically invalidate all the other hypotheses. In the public health arena, it is not uncommon for research to be conducted in order to demonstrate pubic concerns are not real. If I can draw a parallel, you could look at the research on the safety of the MMR vaccine. None of the Government agencies funding that research seriously believed the MMR vaccine is unsafe, the research is being done to assure the public of safety. Not even knowing who the IEH Scientific Committee are I don’t feel empowered to make statements on their behalf, but their recommendations for further research may simply have been made to tie up loose ends, not because they believed the crop was inherently dangerous.

[deek]

If I may further quote from Parratt’s letter published in the BMJ: -

The article [Hemmer’s article in the BMJ] also suggested that volatile organic compounds (VOCs) from oilseed rape were irritants and might cause adverse effects. This is an area of particular interest for our group. We agree that the concentration of such chemicals in the environment has never been measured and therefore their role cannot be determined at this stage. However, we have evidence that very small amounts of some VOCs may form adducts with haemoglobin which might allow very low concentrations of these substances to be clinically relevant. Further studies urgently need to be done.

We would like to question Hemmer's view that the public reaction in the UK is due mainly to prejudice against European Union Policy or the "flashy" nature of the crop. There is a serious danger that such comments obscure the true picture and could be used to justify the absence of further investigations. We would suggest that the clinical picture in the UK is far more likely to be modified by closer contact between rural dwellers and large cultivated areas of oilseed rape, coupled with differences in climate, in oilseed rape varieties and agronomic practice.

Oh, and you may well ask what qualifications and experience does David Parratt have;-

• Qualifications - Dr. Parratt is a microbiologist at Ninewells Hospital & Medical School, Dundee
• Experience - Dr. Parratt has been actively researching oilseed rape human health complaints since 1986 and is arguably a world expert in this field.