GM Genes Found In Human Intestinal Bacteria

By John Vidal The Guardian - London 17 July 2002

British scientific researchers have demonstrated for the first time that genetically modified DNA material from crops is finding its way into human gut bacteria, raising potentially serious health questions. 

If genetic material from these marker genes can also find its way into the human stomach, as experiments at Newcastle university suggest is likely, then people's resistance to widely used antibiotics could be compromised.

The research, commissioned by the food standards agency, is the world's first known trial of GM foods on human volunteers. 

Michael Antonio, a senior lecturer in molecular genetics at King's College Medical School, London, last night said that the work was significant. "To my knowledge they have demonstrated clearly that you can get GM plant DNA in the gut bacteria. Everyone used to deny that this was possible." 

He said there were "lots of inadequacies" in the research but that did not take away the importance of the main findings. "It suggests that you can get antibiotic marker genes spreading around the stomach which would compromise antibiotic resistance. They have shown that this can happen even at very low levels after just one meal." 

"Industry, science and government advisers have always played down the risk of this happening and here, at the very first attempt by scientists to look for it, they find it," said Adrian Bebb, GM foods campaigner.

Guardian Unlimited (c) Guardian Newspapers Limited 2002
http://www.guardian.co.uk/gmdebate/Story/0,2763,756666,00.html