UK News Electronic Telegraph
Sunday 18 May 1997
Issue 723
Honey not safe for babies, parents told
By Andrew Gilligan
HONEY, regarded as one of the purest foods in existence, has been declared unsuitable for babies and there are also fears that honey made from the pollen of genetically-engineered crops could endanger people's health.
Warnings that babies under 12 months should not be given honey are beginning to appear on commercially-produced brands. The Government and honey trade associations said last week that the warning was issued as a precaution against infant botulism, a serious form of food-poisoning. "There has been a number of cases overseas - though none in Britain can be pinned down to eating honey," said Walter Anzer, secretary of the British Honey Importers' and Packers' Association. "The risk is small and it is purely a precautionary measure," he said.
A Ministry of Agriculture newsletter gave more details: "Very occasionally, honey may contain low numbers of naturally-occurring bacterial spores. Young infants' intestines may not have developed sufficiently to cope with them, which can lead to illness."
The Telegraph has also obtained details of a study funded by the Ministry which warns of a second danger. Botanists at Leicester University have found that bees can pick up mutant pollen from "transgenic" crops - crops altered to carry foreign genes - with potentially serious effects on human health.
Millions of pounds have been spent over the past decade by companies "reinventing nature" - mixing plants' natural genes with others to boost yields or increase resistance to insects and disease.
Some of these added genes are toxic to humans as well as insects; others can cause violent allergic reactions. Genetically-altered pollen "could pose problems to man who consumes honey as a food", the study says.
The paper's authors, Colin Eady, David Twell and Keith Lindsey, warn: "As ever-increasing numbers of genetically-engineered crop plants are being approved for release experiments, it is vital that the potential problems associated with the expression of transgenic products in pollen are addressed."
Until recently, most planting of genetically-modified crops was for small-scale experimental purposes, but now licences are being issued for commercial planting and production. In their paper, the scientists warn that the transgenic pollen proteins could remain active in honey for several weeks. Though their concentration was "expected to be very low", even "vanishingly small quantities" of the proteins could cause illness in allergic individuals.
Professor Lindsey, now professor of plant molecular biology at Durham University, said last week: "It is essential that genetically-modified plants are scrutinised very carefully before any release to take into account any potentially adverse effects on the environment. If the industry wants to use transgenic plants, they have to generate the confidence of the consumer."
But he said that there was no evidence that anyone had been harmed. He said: "What we trying we were trying to do was represent the worst-case scenario." Currently, "in insect-resistant crops, the proteins that have been produced are non-toxic to humans". "They are highly specific to insects," he said. "The scenario we constructed is an extremely unlikely scenario, though there is still an element of risk."
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