THE THALIDOMIDE OF GENETIC ‘ENGINEERING’

L R B Mann, D Straton & W E Crist

By the end of the 1980s some millions of people, mostly in NorthAmerica, were supplementing their diet with L-tryptophan, an essentialamino-acid present in proteins of any normal diet.  Amino-acids such as tryptophan are routinely produced inmicro-breweries using suitable microbial cultures.  One producer, ShowaDenko K.K., artificially inserted genes into a bacterial species toincrease its production of tryptophan.

Then in late 1989, some 5,000 - 10,000 in North America fell ill with ahighly unusual illness, EMS (eosinophilia-myalgia syndrome), caused byShowa Denko tryptophan.  Within months, dozens had been killed by EMS andthousands maimed.  Today thousands continue to suffer permanent nasty effects, and a trickle of them continue todie early (totalling at least 80 by now in the USA).  The epidemic ceasedwhen over-the-counter tryptophan was severely restricted.

Two cases were reported in Australia, and one in NZ.  The tryptophan thosepatients took was not traced to manufacturer.

The total killed is not exactly known but may be in the region of a fewhundred.  Showa Denko has paid around U$2,000,000,000 to avoid damagestrials.

We emphasize that if thalidomide had happened to cause a type of birthdefect that was already common, e.g. cleft palate or severe mental retardation, we would still not know aboutthe harm, and pregnant women would have kept on taking it for its undoubtedbenefits.  The fractional addition to figures that were already relativelylarge would not have been statistically  significant.  But as it turned out, thedamage noticed was of a kind that most doctors never see in a whole career-  drastic malformations of the arms & legs  -  so although the numbers were not huge these cases were picked up.

Similarly, impurities in Showa Denko’s genetically ‘engineered’ (GE)tryptophan happened to cause an illness - EMS - which was novel.  The surgeof numbers therefore stood out and got noticed.  If SDKK’s poison hadcaused the same numbers of a common illness instead, say asthma, we would still not know about it.  Or if it hadcaused delayed harm, such as cancer 20 - 30 years later, or senile dementiain some whose mothers had taken it early in pregnancy, there would have been no way to attribute the harm to the cause.

This reminds us of the need for extreme caution with GE foods.  They mustbe assumed guilty until thorough tests have suggested they are, if notinnocent, at worst guilty of only minor dangers.  Such is nowhere near thecase today as large companies rush to market their GE foods.

It is very disappointing to find a leading physician writing on behalf ofthe RSNZ about this disaster thus: “Rare cases of EMS were known before theintroduction of the genetically engineered bacterium, which further supports thehypothesis that EMS is not due to the genetic engineering event.”   Anexact analogue of that argument would run: “Rare cases of seal-limb wereknown before the introduction of thalidomide, which further supports the hypothesis that seal-limb is not due tothalidomide.” 

But even more important is the fact that the trickle of about 100early EMS cases, years before the epidemic of late 1989, were due to (earlyversions of) Showa Denko GE bacterial cultures.

None of the half-dozen other manufacturers’ tryptophan caused EMS.  Noother manufacturer used gene-splicing to produce tryptophan. 

The contrast is startling with the elaborate procedure before registrationof a new drug.  It has taken a decade to get legal approval forsupplementing humans with (a modified version of) the human hormone amylin,for treating diabetics.  Yet GE foods are urged for legal distribution in great haste and with only extremely scantytesting, and the main discussion so far has been whether they should belabelled.

Labelling would not in itself be wrong, but can of course not substitutefor the careful lengthy testing that would be needed before any GE foodshould be approved for human consumption.  Labelling of GE food would implyacceptance by authorities, as doesthe ingredient list of any labelled food.

The Showa Denko disaster is crucial to understanding GE food.  If apurified single chemical  -  the natural amino-acid L-tryptophan, betterthan 99% pure and definitely satisfying the notorious ‘substantial equivalence’test  -  can turn out when GE’d to kill a hundred or so and cripplethousands, what will it take to check properly a potato expressing asynthetic ‘exact’ copy of a gene for a toxin from the African clawed toad?

And most urgently, the attempt to count purified amino-acids, sugars, oilsetc. as ‘substantially equivalent’ is shown by the Showa Denko disaster tobe a gamble.  The assumption that soy oil from GE soybeans is exactly equivalent to ordinary soy oil requires the most careful scientific measurementsto check it.  Merely assuming ‘substantial equivalence’ will not do.

Those who search the Internet on this topic will soon discover the claim byapologists for GE that the problem was only decreased purification oftryptophan. We disagree for several reasons - mainly, the first three GEstrains had been causing EMS (about 100 cases) for years before this slackening of purification procedure in Jan1989 when also the ‘superproducer’strain went into production and caused the epidemic.  But this questioncannot be settled with finality unless Showa Denko releases the GE microbesfor detailed examination.

Whether you believe the impurities were due to incompetent purification &monitoring, or to deviant metabolism in the GE-bugs, or both, you hadbetter believe that the fabled ‘substantially equivalent’ assumptionflopped in that epidemic of crippling & lethal illness.

Although GE proponents claim that the EMS epidemic was caused solely by faulty filtering, it is possible to question their seriousness.  Noneof them has publicly argued that the Health Food supplement industry shouldbe subject to legal controls for purity & efficacy comparable to thoseapplied to the pharmaceutical industry; yet this would be logical if indeed such a deadly epidemic occurredsolely as a result of inadequate purification in manufacturing.

Either way, biotechnology  -  which includes GE but also includes otherprocesses such as purifying the mixture “lyprinol” from mussels  -requires much-enhanced scrutiny.

Main sources

1.   L-Tryptophan Puzzle Takes NewTwist, Science 249  988, 31 August 1990

2.   Does Medical Mystery Threaten Biotech? Science 250  619, 2November 1990

3.   EMS and Tryptophan Production: A Cautionary Tale, Trends inBiotech 12  346-352, Sept 1994

4.   Eosinophilia-myalgia syndrome. Results of national surveillance, J Am Med Assoc 264  1698-703 1990

5.   Tryptophan produced by Showa Denko and epidemiceosinophilia-myalgia syndrome. J Rheumatol 46 Suppl 1996  81-91.

Dr Mann <robtm@maxnet.co.nz>, a biochemist, servedfor its first dozen years on the Toxic Substances Board advising successiveNew Zealand Ministers of Health on poisons. 

Dr Straton is a psychiatrist who has taken a special interest intherapeutic uses of tryptophan.  Mr Crist is a publicist who hasinterviewed researchers, victims, and lawyers involved with EMS.

This article is available athttp://www.connectotel.com/gmfood/trypto.html .  It is updatedfrom Soil & Health  Aug 1999.