USA: GMO Apples to be approved?

The USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service is poised to approve a genetically engineered apple, called the Arctic Apple, the Cornucopia Institute reports. Okanagan Specialty Fruits has developed a GMO Golden and Granny Smith apple that is designed not to brown when sliced and exposed to the air. Browning, however, reflects an apple's freshness – something all consumers are interested in. The actual genetic engineering process includes insertion of nptII, neomycin phosphotransferase type II gene from E. coli Tn5. This gene allows the transformed apple tissue to grow on a medium containing the antibiotic kanamycin but confers no benefit to the apple plant, according to the Institute.

Every cell of every GE apple tree, including the fruit and the tree roots, will show resistance to kanamycin - a commonly used antibiotic in human medicine, used to treat a wide variety of infections. Eating an Arctic Apple could transfer the gene for kanamycin resistance into the human digestive system. A similar transfer has been demonstrated with GE soy. Furthermore, the GE apple's DNA can also spread to bacteria on the plant and in the soil. Orchardists might very well find that controlling diseases of special concern like fireblight in orchards may become much more difficult. And in the soil environment, the GE DNA can persist for at least a year, where it can be taken up by natural soil bacteria and then incorporated into their genetic structure. More information is available here: http://www.cornucopia.org/