http://ecowatch.com/2016/04/19/gmo-mushroom/
[Another reason we need GMO truth in labelling now. Or, let businesses
in the white button mushroom supply chain know you will stop buying all
white button mushrooms from all sources once we suspect the GMO 'shrooms
are in the food chain if credible labelling is not in place. If, as the
food industry researchers believe, customers can't wait to put GMOs on
their plates, they should be happy to advertise the new varieties.
links in on-line article]
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) said it will not regulate the
potential cultivation and sale of a genetically modified (GMO) mushroom
the same way it regulates conventional GMOs because the mushroom was
made with the genome-editing tool CRISPR-Cas9.
This is the first time the U.S. government has cleared a food product
edited with the new and controversial technique.
The USDA announced in a letter last week that it had approved
Pennsylvania State University plant pathologist Yinong Yang’s common
white button mushroom (Agaricus bosporus) that’s engineered to be more
resistant to browning. As the USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection
Service (APHIS) wrote on April 13:
The anti-browning trait reduces the formation of brown pigment
(melanin), improving the appearance and shelf life of mushroom, and
facilitating automated mechanical harvesting.
Based on the information cited in your letter, APHIS has concluded that
your CRISPR/Cas9-edited white button mushrooms as described in your
letter do not contain any introduced genetic material. APHIS has no
reason to believe that CRISPR/Cas9-edited white button mushrooms are
plant pests.
According to Nature, the mushroom was created by targeting the family of
genes that encodes the enzyme polyphenol oxidase that causes browning.
“By deleting just a handful of base pairs in the mushroom’s genome, Yang
knocked out one of six PPO genes—reducing the enzyme’s activity by 30
percent,” Nature reported.
So why has this deliberately genetically modified “frankenfungi” escaped
USDA scrutiny? Well, instead of the conventional method in which foreign
DNA is spliced into a seed (i.e. Bt corn), genetic modification of
Yang’s mushroom was achieved by altering its own genetic material.
As Quartz explained, a CRISPR-created product falls under a certain
loophole:
Despite being directly and purposely genetically modified, USDA has
allowed Yang’s mushroom to sidestep the regulatory system. The reason?
Yang’s method does not contain “any introduced genetic material” from a
plant pest such as bacteria or viruses. Conventional GMOs, the ones that
the USDA’s rules are designed to deal with, are created by introducing
foreign genes—for example, those of a bacteria might be introduced to
give the crop some pest resistance.
Ultimately, the GMO mushroom could be the first of many new
CRISPR-edited food products.
“The research community will be very happy with the news,” Caixia Gao, a
plant biologist at the Chinese Academy of Sciences’s Institute of
Genetics and Developmental Biology in Beijing, who was not involved in
developing the mushroom, told Nature. “I am confident we’ll see more
gene-edited crops falling outside of regulatory authority.”
Quartz reported that there are already several CRISPR projects in
development, including DuPont’s drought-resistant wheat and corn, a
banana that can resist a fungus threatening that’s threatening its
extinction and a herbicide-resistant oilseed from the biotech company Cibus.
GMO-opponents have already criticized the USDA’s move.
“The USDA decision is a perfect illustration of how weak regulations for
evaluating genetically engineered crops are,” Patty Lovera of Food &
Water Watch, told Quartz.
The U.S. does not have a government body that specifically regulates
GMOs. The Washington Post noted that the U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency only regulates GMOs designed for pest control and the Food and
Drug Administration considers all GMOs to be safe.
Yang told Nature he is considering whether or not to bring the mushroom
to market.
“I need to talk to my dean about that,” he said. “We’ll have to see what
the university wants to do next.”
Yang, however, told MIT Technology Review that even the company that
helped fund the research, Giorgio Mushroom Co. of Pennsylvania, isn’t
sure if they want the mushroom in a store near you given the public’s
overwhelming skepticism of GMOs.
“[The] marketing people at Giorgio are more interested in organic
mushrooms and are afraid of negative response regarding GMO from
consumers,” Yang said.
A 2015 Pew Research Poll revealed that 57 percent of U.S. adults believe
that GMO-foods are “generally unsafe” to eat.
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