COVID-19 vaccines & genetic modification

The rapid approval and deployment of coronavirus vaccines in European countries, especially in the UK, is welcome news. These mRNA and viral vector vaccines are derived using techniques of genetic modification (GM). For example, the AstraZeneca vaccine uses a harmless virus that has been genetically modified to include coronavirus genes, which when injected into human cells makes coronavirus proteins that stimulate the immune system to fight any future coronavirus infections.

Politicians across Europe have queued up to praise these medical breakthroughs and to reassure citizens of the robust, science-based regulatory approval systems that are in place to ensure their safety as the vaccines are fast-tracked through the approval process and into deployment.

However, isn’t this stance inconsistent and hypocritical? These vaccines use the very same techniques of genetic modification (GM) or gene editing (GE) that most European politicians have spent the last 25 years preventing their citizens and farmers from having access to for the production and consumption of food, feed and fibre crops and which so-called environmental advocacy groups have opposed unequivocally.

If these politicians and advocacy groups were being consistent with their past behaviour, they would be vigorously campaigning against these vaccines’ approval and publicly stating that they personally will not be using them.

Robust regulations

Robust science-based regulatory frameworks for GMOs have been in place since the 1990s and over 4,300 such science-based regulatory assessments have been conducted in 70 countries by 2019 (ISAAA,2019).

These have facilitated the widespread adoption of GM crops, largely outside Europe.

To date, there has been no credible evidence of negative impact on human health, there is a broad consensus amongst the vast majority of scientists and regulators that these products are safe to consume and there is now a substantial body of evidence that GM crop technology has made important contributions. These include improving global food security, reducing the environmental footprint of agriculture and helping to cut global greenhouse gas emissions (e.g., Brookes and Barfoot, 2020).

Access denied in Europe

Despite all this, most European politicians have continued to apply a non-science and non-evidence-based approach to regulating these technologies, largely denying European farmers and citizens access to the benefits referred to above. As a result, the current status of GM/GE crop regulation and use in Europe is as follows:

• Only one GM crop trait, an insect resistant maize is grown, only in Spain and Portugal.

• EU Directive 2015/412 allows Member States to ban GM cultivation for non-scientific reasons. Eighteen Member States have used this ‘opt out’.

• Approvals for the importation and use of GM crops and their derivatives are often subject to long delays, often disrupting supply chains of raw materials to European farmers and food/feed users. The average completion time for a GM crop regulatory decision in the EU is five years (Smart et al, 2016) and a group of 15 EU Member States have a long track record of voting against or abstaining from voting for such approvals. However, all of these Member States import and use these same GM-derived commodities that their politicians have repeatedly voted to deny them access to.