Biotechnology is the application of scientific and engineering principles to the processing of materials by biological agents to provide goods and services.[1] From its inception, biotechnology has maintained a close relationship with society. Although now most often associated with the development of drugs, historically biotechnology has been principally associated with food, addressing such issues as malnutrition and famine. The history of biotechnology begins with zymotechnology, which commenced with a focus on brewing techniques for beer. By World War I, however, zymotechnology would expand to tackle larger industrial issues, and the potential of industrial fermentation gave rise to biotechnology. However, both the single-cell protein and gasohol projects failed to progress due to varying issues including public resistance, a changing economic scene, and shifts in political power.

Yet the formation of a new field, genetic engineering, would soon bring biotechnology to the forefront of science in society, and the intimate relationship between the scientific community, the public, and the government would ensue. These debates gained exposure in 1975 at the Asilomar Conference, where Joshua Lederberg was the most outspoken supporter for this emerging field in biotechnology. By as early as 1978, with the development of synthetic human insulin, Lederberg's claims would prove valid, and the biotechnology industry grew rapidly. Each new scientific advance became a media event designed to capture public support, and by the 1980s, biotechnology grew into a promising real industry. In 1988, only five proteins from genetically engineered cells had been approved as drugs by the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA), but this number would skyrocket to over 125 by the end of the 1990s.

The field of genetic engineering remains a heated topic of discussion in today's society with the advent of gene therapy, stem cell research, cloning, and genetically modified food. While it seems only natural nowadays to link pharmaceutical drugs as solutions to health and societal problems, this relationship of biotechnology serving social needs began centuries ago.

Biotechnology arose from the field of zymotechnology or zymurgy, which began as a search for a better understanding of industrial fermentation, particularly beer. Beer was an important industrial, and not just social, commodity. In late 19th-century Germany, brewing contributed as much to the gross national product as steel, and taxes on alcohol proved to be significant sources of revenue to the government.[2] In the 1860s, institutes and remunerative consultancies were dedicated to the technology of brewing. The most famous was the private Carlsberg Institute, founded in 1875, which employed Emil Christian Hansen, who pioneered the pure yeast process for the reliable production of consistent beer. Less well known were private consultancies that advised the brewing industry. One of these, the Zymotechnic Institute, was established in Chicago by the German-born chemist John Ewald Siebel.

The heyday and expansion of zymotechnology came in World War I in response to industrial needs to support the war. Max Delbrck grew yeast on an immense scale during the war to meet 60 percent of Germany's animal feed needs.[2] Compounds of another fermentation product, lactic acid, made up for a lack of hydraulic fluid, glycerol. On the Allied side the Russian chemist Chaim Weizmann used starch to eliminate Britain's shortage of acetone, a key raw material for cordite, by fermenting maize to acetone.[3] The industrial potential of fermentation was outgrowing its traditional home in brewing, and "zymotechnology" soon gave way to "biotechnology."

With food shortages spreading and resources fading, some dreamed of a new industrial solution. The Hungarian Kroly Ereky coined the word "biotechnology" in Hungary during 1919 to describe a technology based on converting raw materials into a more useful product. He built a slaughterhouse for a thousand pigs and also a fattening farm with space for 50,000 pigs, raising over 100,000 pigs a year. The enterprise was enormous, becoming one of the largest and most profitable meat and fat operations in the world. In a book entitled Biotechnologie, Ereky further developed a theme that would be reiterated through the 20th century: biotechnology could provide solutions to societal crises, such as food and energy shortages. For Ereky, the term "biotechnologie" indicated the process by which raw materials could be biologically upgraded into socially useful products.[4]

This catchword spread quickly after the First World War, as "biotechnology" entered German dictionaries and was taken up abroad by business-hungry private consultancies as far away as the United States. In Chicago, for example, the coming of prohibition at the end of World War I encouraged biological industries to create opportunities for new fermentation products, in particular a market for nonalcoholic drinks. Emil Siebel, the son of the founder of the Zymotechnic Institute, broke away from his father's company to establish his own called the "Bureau of Biotechnology," which specifically offered expertise in fermented nonalcoholic drinks.[1]

The belief that the needs of an industrial society could be met by fermenting agricultural waste was an important ingredient of the "chemurgic movement."[4] Fermentation-based processes generated products of ever-growing utility. In the 1940s, penicillin was the most dramatic. While it was discovered in England, it was produced industrially in the U.S. using a deep fermentation process originally developed in Peoria, Illinois.[5] The enormous profits and the public expectations penicillin engendered caused a radical shift in the standing of the pharmaceutical industry. Doctors used the phrase "miracle drug", and the historian of its wartime use, David Adams, has suggested that to the public penicillin represented the perfect health that went together with the car and the dream house of wartime American advertising.[2] Beginning in the 1950s, fermentation technology also became advanced enough to produce steroids on industrially significant scales.[6] Of particular importance was the improved semisynthesis of cortisone which simplified the old 31 step synthesis to 11 steps.[7] This advance was estimated to reduce the cost of the drug by 70%, making the medicine inexpensive and available.[8] Today biotechnology still plays a central role in the production of these compounds and likely will for years to come.[9][10]

Even greater expectations of biotechnology were raised during the 1960s by a process that grew single-cell protein. When the so-called protein gap threatened world hunger, producing food locally by growing it from waste seemed to offer a solution. It was the possibilities of growing microorganisms on oil that captured the imagination of scientists, policy makers, and commerce.[1] Major companies such as British Petroleum (BP) staked their futures on it. In 1962, BP built a pilot plant at Cap de Lavera in Southern France to publicize its product, Toprina.[1] Initial research work at Lavera was done by Alfred Champagnat,[11] In 1963, construction started on BP's second pilot plant at Grangemouth Oil Refinery in Britain.[11]

As there was no well-accepted term to describe the new foods, in 1966 the term "single-cell protein" (SCP) was coined at MIT to provide an acceptable and exciting new title, avoiding the unpleasant connotations of microbial or bacterial.[1]

The "food from oil" idea became quite popular by the 1970s, when facilities for growing yeast fed by n-paraffins were built in a number of countries. The Soviets were particularly enthusiastic, opening large "BVK" (belkovo-vitaminny kontsentrat, i.e., "protein-vitamin concentrate") plants next to their oil refineries in Kstovo (1973) [12][13] and Kirishi (1974).[citation needed]

By the late 1970s, however, the cultural climate had completely changed, as the growth in SCP interest had taken place against a shifting economic and cultural scene (136). First, the price of oil rose catastrophically in 1974, so that its cost per barrel was five times greater than it had been two years earlier. Second, despite continuing hunger around the world, anticipated demand also began to shift from humans to animals. The program had begun with the vision of growing food for Third World people, yet the product was instead launched as an animal food for the developed world. The rapidly rising demand for animal feed made that market appear economically more attractive. The ultimate downfall of the SCP project, however, came from public resistance.[1]

This was particularly vocal in Japan, where production came closest to fruition. For all their enthusiasm for innovation and traditional interest in microbiologically produced foods, the Japanese were the first to ban the production of single-cell proteins. The Japanese ultimately were unable to separate the idea of their new "natural" foods from the far from natural connotation of oil.[1] These arguments were made against a background of suspicion of heavy industry in which anxiety over minute traces of petroleum was expressed. Thus, public resistance to an unnatural product led to the end of the SCP project as an attempt to solve world hunger.

Also, in 1989 in the USSR, the public environmental concerns made the government decide to close down (or convert to different technologies) all 8 paraffin-fed-yeast plants that the Soviet Ministry of Microbiological Industry had by that time.[citation needed]

In the late 1970s, biotechnology offered another possible solution to a societal crisis. The escalation in the price of oil in 1974 increased the cost of the Western world's energy tenfold.[1] In response, the U.S. government promoted the production of gasohol, gasoline with 10 percent alcohol added, as an answer to the energy crisis.[2] In 1979, when the Soviet Union sent troops to Afghanistan, the Carter administration cut off its supplies to agricultural produce in retaliation, creating a surplus of agriculture in the U.S. As a result, fermenting the agricultural surpluses to synthesize fuel seemed to be an economical solution to the shortage of oil threatened by the Iran-Iraq war. Before the new direction could be taken, however, the political wind changed again: the Reagan administration came to power in January 1981 and, with the declining oil prices of the 1980s, ended support for the gasohol industry before it was born.[1]

Biotechnology seemed to be the solution for major social problems, including world hunger and energy crises. In the 1960s, radical measures would be needed to meet world starvation, and biotechnology seemed to provide an answer. However, the solutions proved to be too expensive and socially unacceptable, and solving world hunger through SCP food was dismissed. In the 1970s, the food crisis was succeeded by the energy crisis, and here too, biotechnology seemed to provide an answer. But once again, costs proved prohibitive as oil prices slumped in the 1980s. Thus, in practice, the implications of biotechnology were not fully realized in these situations. But this would soon change with the rise of genetic engineering.

The origins of biotechnology culminated with the birth of genetic engineering. There were two key events that have come to be seen as scientific breakthroughs beginning the era that would unite genetics with biotechnology. One was the 1953 discovery of the structure of DNA, by Watson and Crick, and the other was the 1973 discovery by Cohen and Boyer of a recombinant DNA technique by which a section of DNA was cut from the plasmid of an E. coli bacterium and transferred into the DNA of another.[14] This approach could, in principle, enable bacteria to adopt the genes and produce proteins of other organisms, including humans. Popularly referred to as "genetic engineering," it came to be defined as the basis of new biotechnology.

Genetic engineering proved to be a topic that thrust biotechnology into the public scene, and the interaction between scientists, politicians, and the public defined the work that was accomplished in this area. Technical developments during this time were revolutionary and at times frightening. In December 1967, the first heart transplant by Christian Barnard reminded the public that the physical identity of a person was becoming increasingly problematic. While poetic imagination had always seen the heart at the center of the soul, now there was the prospect of individuals being defined by other people's hearts.[1] During the same month, Arthur Kornberg announced that he had managed to biochemically replicate a viral gene. "Life had been synthesized," said the head of the National Institutes of Health.[1] Genetic engineering was now on the scientific agenda, as it was becoming possible to identify genetic characteristics with diseases such as beta thalassemia and sickle-cell anemia.

Responses to scientific achievements were colored by cultural skepticism. Scientists and their expertise were looked upon with suspicion. In 1968, an immensely popular work, The Biological Time Bomb, was written by the British journalist Gordon Rattray Taylor. The author's preface saw Kornberg's discovery of replicating a viral gene as a route to lethal doomsday bugs. The publisher's blurb for the book warned that within ten years, "You may marry a semi-artificial man or womanchoose your children's sextune out painchange your memoriesand live to be 150 if the scientific revolution doesnt destroy us first."[1] The book ended with a chapter called "The Future If Any." While it is rare for current science to be represented in the movies, in this period of "Star Trek", science fiction and science fact seemed to be converging. "Cloning" became a popular word in the media. Woody Allen satirized the cloning of a person from a nose in his 1973 movie Sleeper, and cloning Adolf Hitler from surviving cells was the theme of the 1976 novel by Ira Levin, The Boys from Brazil.[1]

In response to these public concerns, scientists, industry, and governments increasingly linked the power of recombinant DNA to the immensely practical functions that biotechnology promised. One of the key scientific figures that attempted to highlight the promising aspects of genetic engineering was Joshua Lederberg, a Stanford professor and Nobel laureate. While in the 1960s "genetic engineering" described eugenics and work involving the manipulation of the human genome, Lederberg stressed research that would involve microbes instead.[1] Lederberg emphasized the importance of focusing on curing living people. Lederberg's 1963 paper, "Biological Future of Man" suggested that, while molecular biology might one day make it possible to change the human genotype, "what we have overlooked is euphenics, the engineering of human development."[1] Lederberg constructed the word "euphenics" to emphasize changing the phenotype after conception rather than the genotype which would affect future generations.

With the discovery of recombinant DNA by Cohen and Boyer in 1973, the idea that genetic engineering would have major human and societal consequences was born. In July 1974, a group of eminent molecular biologists headed by Paul Berg wrote to Science suggesting that the consequences of this work were so potentially destructive that there should be a pause until its implications had been thought through.[1] This suggestion was explored at a meeting in February 1975 at California's Monterey Peninsula, forever immortalized by the location, Asilomar. Its historic outcome was an unprecedented call for a halt in research until it could be regulated in such a way that the public need not be anxious, and it led to a 16-month moratorium until National Institutes of Health (NIH) guidelines were established.

Joshua Lederberg was the leading exception in emphasizing, as he had for years, the potential benefits. At Asilomar, in an atmosphere favoring control and regulation, he circulated a paper countering the pessimism and fears of misuses with the benefits conferred by successful use. He described "an early chance for a technology of untold importance for diagnostic and therapeutic medicine: the ready production of an unlimited variety of human proteins. Analogous applications may be foreseen in fermentation process for cheaply manufacturing essential nutrients, and in the improvement of microbes for the production of antibiotics and of special industrial chemicals."[1] In June 1976, the 16-month moratorium on research expired with the Director's Advisory Committee (DAC) publication of the NIH guidelines of good practice. They defined the risks of certain kinds of experiments and the appropriate physical conditions for their pursuit, as well as a list of things too dangerous to perform at all. Moreover, modified organisms were not to be tested outside the confines of a laboratory or allowed into the environment.[14]

Atypical as Lederberg was at Asilomar, his optimistic vision of genetic engineering would soon lead to the development of the biotechnology industry. Over the next two years, as public concern over the dangers of recombinant DNA research grew, so too did interest in its technical and practical applications. Curing genetic diseases remained in the realms of science fiction, but it appeared that producing human simple proteins could be good business. Insulin, one of the smaller, best characterized and understood proteins, had been used in treating type 1 diabetes for a half century. It had been extracted from animals in a chemically slightly different form from the human product. Yet, if one could produce synthetic human insulin, one could meet an existing demand with a product whose approval would be relatively easy to obtain from regulators. In the period 1975 to 1977, synthetic "human" insulin represented the aspirations for new products that could be made with the new biotechnology. Microbial production of synthetic human insulin was finally announced in September 1978 and was produced by a startup company, Genentech.[15] Although that company did not commercialize the product themselves, instead, it licensed the production method to Eli Lilly and Company. 1978 also saw the first application for a patent on a gene, the gene which produces human growth hormone, by the University of California, thus introducing the legal principle that genes could be patented. Since that filing, almost 20% of the more than 20,000 genes in the human DNA have been patented.[citation needed]

The radical shift in the connotation of "genetic engineering" from an emphasis on the inherited characteristics of people to the commercial production of proteins and therapeutic drugs was nurtured by Joshua Lederberg. His broad concerns since the 1960s had been stimulated by enthusiasm for science and its potential medical benefits. Countering calls for strict regulation, he expressed a vision of potential utility. Against a belief that new techniques would entail unmentionable and uncontrollable consequences for humanity and the environment, a growing consensus on the economic value of recombinant DNA emerged.[citation needed]

With ancestral roots in industrial microbiology that date back centuries, the new biotechnology industry grew rapidly beginning in the mid-1970s. Each new scientific advance became a media event designed to capture investment confidence and public support.[15] Although market expectations and social benefits of new products were frequently overstated, many people were prepared to see genetic engineering as the next great advance in technological progress. By the 1980s, biotechnology characterized a nascent real industry, providing titles for emerging trade organizations such as the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO).

The main focus of attention after insulin were the potential profit makers in the pharmaceutical industry: human growth hormone and what promised to be a miraculous cure for viral diseases, interferon. Cancer was a central target in the 1970s because increasingly the disease was linked to viruses.[14] By 1980, a new company, Biogen, had produced interferon through recombinant DNA. The emergence of interferon and the possibility of curing cancer raised money in the community for research and increased the enthusiasm of an otherwise uncertain and tentative society. Moreover, to the 1970s plight of cancer was added AIDS in the 1980s, offering an enormous potential market for a successful therapy, and more immediately, a market for diagnostic tests based on monoclonal antibodies.[16] By 1988, only five proteins from genetically engineered cells had been approved as drugs by the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA): synthetic insulin, human growth hormone, hepatitis B vaccine, alpha-interferon, and tissue plasminogen activator (TPa), for lysis of blood clots. By the end of the 1990s, however, 125 more genetically engineered drugs would be approved.[16]

Genetic engineering also reached the agricultural front as well. There was tremendous progress since the market introduction of the genetically engineered Flavr Savr tomato in 1994.[16] Ernst and Young reported that in 1998, 30% of the U.S. soybean crop was expected to be from genetically engineered seeds. In 1998, about 30% of the US cotton and corn crops were also expected to be products of genetic engineering.[16]

Genetic engineering in biotechnology stimulated hopes for both therapeutic proteins, drugs and biological organisms themselves, such as seeds, pesticides, engineered yeasts, and modified human cells for treating genetic diseases. From the perspective of its commercial promoters, scientific breakthroughs, industrial commitment, and official support were finally coming together, and biotechnology became a normal part of business. No longer were the proponents for the economic and technological significance of biotechnology the iconoclasts.[1] Their message had finally become accepted and incorporated into the policies of governments and industry.

According to Burrill and Company, an industry investment bank, over $350 billion has been invested in biotech since the emergence of the industry, and global revenues rose from $23 billion in 2000 to more than $50 billion in 2005. The greatest growth has been in Latin America but all regions of the world have shown strong growth trends. By 2007 and into 2008, though, a downturn in the fortunes of biotech emerged, at least in the United Kingdom, as the result of declining investment in the face of failure of biotech pipelines to deliver and a consequent downturn in return on investment.[17]

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History of biotechnology - Wikipedia

March 3, 2017 6:13am NASDAQ:IBB

From Taki Tsaklanos: Biotechnology stocks are breaking out. They have been consolidating for nearly 20 months. Investors lost interestand that is exactly what smart investors, in general, want to see in order to buy a market.

That is also how bull markets start: when nobody talks about it and only a minority of investors is buying it.

Now here it becomes interesting. InvestingHavens research team has closely followed biotechnology, and has written extensively about it last year. The red line throughout all articles was that smart investors are not in a hurry to buy biotech, but prefer to see which direction biotech would go. This is what was published on InvestingHaven until fall of last year:

Biotechnology Close To A Major Breakdown Level

Health Sector Testing All-Time Highs In 2016, Biotech A Buy After Breaking Out

Alert: Biotechnology and Health Sector Testing Long Time Support

Biotechnology Stocks Have News For Investors: It is Now or Never

In other words, on several occasions last year biotechnology stocks were ready to break down, but eventually they did not. The market refused to go lower, and that was a very important observation, which was shared with our readers: Biotechnology Stocks Refusing To Break Down

Then, something very interesting happened in January: Biotech And Health Care Stock Market Sector Showing Signs Of Life. That was the first sign that biotechnology stocks could go higher.

Today, they are attempting to break out.

The most interesting part was what InvestingHavens team wrote last year in April: Biotechnology Sentiment At Multi-Year Extremes. What Should Investors Do? Right at a time when a major breakout attempt in biotechnology stocks was at play, at a time when sentiment was extremely bullish, we wrote this:

What does all this mean to investors? Combining chart patterns with sentiment data is very useful for investors. We believe that a short term top has developed. Biotechnology needs to cool off a bit, which means a retracement is the most likely outcome for the coming weeks. The key is to watch how far the retracement will go: if prices remain within the existing pattern, above support, there is an opportunity for investors to buy the dips. As long as prices remain within the current chart pattern, it is not a good idea to short this market, unless you are a very short term oriented trader.

As a reminder, it was when IBB was trading at 280 points, in April last year, right before it fell 15 percent. Astute readers were very happy, and they keep on thanking us for our wise words.

Right now, biotechnology stocks are going through a serious attempt to break out from their 20-month consolidation period. If the 300 level in IBB holds for at least 5 consecutive days, biotech will go higher in the coming weeks and months.

The iShares NASDAQ Biotechnology Index ETF (NASDAQ:IBB) was unchanged in premarket trading Friday. Year-to-date, IBB has gained 12.97%, versus a 6.59% rise in the benchmark S&P 500 index during the same period.

IBB currently has an ETF Daily News SMART Grade of A (Strong Buy), and is ranked #2 of 36 ETFs in the Health & Biotech ETFs category.

This article is brought to you courtesy of Investing Haven.

Tags: biotech Health Care NASDAQ:IBB Taki Tsaklanos

Categories: NASDAQ:IBB

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iShares NASDAQ Biotechnology Index (ETF)(NASDAQ:IBB ... - ETF Daily News (blog)

Julie Kelly, cooking instructor, food writer, blogger and a Mom who lives in the Chicago area. In 2015, she got passionate about GMOs. Kelly is a contributing writer to the Wall Street Journal, National Review, Huffington Post, The Hill and other media outlets.| March 2, 2017

HIGHLIGHTS:

Hollywood is in our homes daily,often spreading misconceptions about science, and GE crops in particular Gary Hirshberg, founder of Stonyfield Organic and Just Label It, is the key celebrity organizer Gwyneth Paltrow has emerged as the face of celebrity moms who question the safety of GE foods Mark Ruffalo questions GE foods but also rejects biotechnological solutions beyond food, such as the gene-edited mosquito that could curtail the Zika virus Celebrity misinformation campaigns have filled a void created by the agricultural and food industries, which have been reticent to defend the science of biotechnology While the Internet and social media are valuable tools for disseminating information about complicated subjects like science and agriculture, it has also given rise to a modern-day monster: the expert celebrity From movie stars to television chefs, a cadre of self-promoting yet often ill-informed celebrities are influencing the public discussion about topics way beyond their expertise, particularly consequential issueslike vaccines and biotechnology

The explosive growth of cable television and more recently of the Internet has led to a celebrication of everyday lifeHollywood has invaded our homes in an oddly intimate way. Celebrities have long weighed in on public issues, which is okay if the issue is what clothes to wear next season, but science is different: it actually can impact peoples lives.

If Big Bang star Mayim Bialik talks about Zikas impact on the brain, we might be interested because she has a PhD in neurosurgeryshe has genuine credentials. But science-educated stars are few and far between. For example, campaigns led by Robert Kennedy, Jr., reality TV star Jenny McCarthy and her former husband Jim Carrey and flip comments by Bill Maher have convinced a lot of credulous fans to forgo getting their kids vaccinated the lowest vaccination rates in the country are in the swanky Hollywood suburban playgrounds. And thats just one of many misguided celebrity-driven campaigns.

Celebrities may have any number of motives for injecting themselves into the middle of debates over controversial, scientific issues. Ego, for example. Its a way to get publicity for themselves (McCarthy is more known now for her anti-vaccine activism than for her acting.) And as we know, stars are eager to follow the cause du jour. It is science-as-fashion.

While some people wisely ignore celebrity advice, their ill-informed and selectively ignorant comments can sway public opinion in destructive ways. Thats whats happening in the ongoing debate over our food and farming systems. In the last few years, movies such as Consumed and GMO OMG have fueled misperceptions about genetic engineering. And celebrity chefs such as Tom Colicchio have joined the fray, partnering with other anti-GMO chefs in a Facebook page, Chefs Against GMOs, and making appeals in Washington and on TV shows. But Hollywood is where anti-GMO groups draw their most visible campaigners.

A slew of Hollywood celebrities, have lent their names to one anti-GMO or pro-labeling campaign or another, among them a fading generation of actors and musicians: Morgan Freeman, Paul McCartney, Dave Mathews, Danny DeVito, Woody Harrelson and Neil Young, to name just a few. But there are some younger faces who have lobbied hard against modern agriculture, mostly B-list actresses, with Gwyneth Paltrow the most prominent. They rail against GMOs in an effort to persuade consumers our food system is hopelessly broken, and that crop biotechnology is scary, unnatural and part of a corporate conspiracy to control the worlds food supply. Its easily dismissible nonsense to those who know the consensus science, but their distortions have consequences outside of clickbait headlines.

Paltrow has emerged as the face of the anti-GMO movement over the last few years. Its unclear exactly how or why she decided to take up this cause except that she has worked closely with one of the most powerful figures in the organic movement, Gary Hirshberg, founder of Stonyfield Organic, who also started Just Label It, which has campaigned for mandatory labels. Just Label it and the organic industry in general have spent hundreds of millions of dollars in recent years to demonize conventional agriculture and mislead consumers into thinking organic food is healthier, safer and more nutritious than conventional food.

Although state-of-the-art meta studies conclude there are no meaningful differences, and some research shows organic farming is more stressful on the environment than farming using advanced technology including genetically engineered crops, organic companies peddle that narrative in hopes of driving consumers toward their pricier products. As the self-appointed priestess of all that is healthy and good in the world, Paltrow promotes organic food, which is by definition non-GMO.

Hirshberg has fueled and funded anti-GMO advocacy under the guise of promoting mandatory GMO labels. He has organized several anti-GMO groups, and has used celebrities like Paltrow to push his agenda. At his invitation, Paltrow was featured at a press conference on Capitol Hill in August 2015 to voice her support for mandatory GMO labeling. A bill the organic industry opposed had just passed in the House, and Paltrow wanted to use her powers of persuasion to stop the bill from advancing in the Senate:

Im not here as an expert, Im here as a mom who honestly believes I have the right to know whats in the food I feed my family. And we dont even know, the science is still inconclusive about GMOs, there are arguments they could possibly be harmful and there are arguments that they could be incredibly beneficial. But at this point, we just dont know.

The presser echoed widely on social media, but most disturbingly, her comments were reported uncritically by major media sites, giving her credibility on an issue she did not deserve.

Here is where Paltrow is wrong. We do know that GMOs are safe. They hold tremendous potential and promise to alleviate global hunger now and into the future as food demands are expected to nearly double by 2050.Nearly every major independent scientific organization and governmental agency in the world, including most recently the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine (NAS), have affirmed that genetically engineered crops and food are just as healthy and environmentally safe as other conventionally grown foods, including organic. American farmers have been using genetically modified seeds for 20 years and most of the corn, soy, cotton and sugarbeets grown are from those seeds. This has cut down on the use of pesticides (since some of those crops have been developed to include natural pesticides already used by organic farmers), which has reduced crop losses and increased yield, a huge boon to both farmers and consumers.

In its analysis of the GMO controversy, the NAS also noted several problems with mandatory labeling, such as higher costs to consumers and the probability that companies might eliminate genetically engineered ingredients in order to avoid labels. The report also outlined several crops that can only be achieved through genetic engineering that boost nutrients, withstand climate challenges and resist crop diseases. Promising new crops in the pipeline include nutritionally enhanced rice and bananas and disease-resistant cassava, a plant that hundreds of millions depend on every day. So, its galling for an ultra-rich celebrity to spread falsehoods about a technology that can feed and fortify the diets of hundreds of millions of poor people around the world.

That wasnt the last we heard from Paltrow. In April 2016, she made a brief cameo in a video sponsored by Just Label It (with Hirshberg taking a star turn) entitled GMO Transparency in the Real World. A harried mother attempts to use her smart phone to scan a QR code on a can of soup to see if the soup contains GMOs (QR codes are anathema to the pro-GMO labeling crowd). As she stumbles to use her smart phone, and her kids smash a watermelon in the aisle, a fresh-faced Paltrow appears from the dairy aisle, asking the distraught mom if she has a scanner on her smart phone that she could use.

Paltrow isnt the only actress to play the Im not an activist, Im a mom card. Around Mothers Day 2015, several B-list mom-actresses appeared in a Moms Against GMOs video produced by another Hirshberg group to talk about GMOs, including Sarah Michelle Gellar, The Talks Sarah Gilbert, UnREALs Constance Zimmer, Once Upon a Times Ginnifer Goodwin, Furious 7s Jordana Brewster, The Biggest Losers Jillian Michaels, Mariel Hemingway and Sharon Osbourne. They pledged to protect their little ones from the dangers of GMOs: This Mothers Day, give moms the right to know whats in the food we feed our kids. Tell the FDA to require GMO labeling.

These actresses are now part of a coordinated, calculated attack on American agriculture and an attempt to stop millions of farmers from using technological tools necessary for their livelihood and Americas food security. They are part of a destructive campaign to hurt American farmers and our overall agricultural and food system.

Since a bill requiring mandatory GMO labels passed Congress and was signed into law by President Obama in August 2016, the GMO labeling groups have been more forthcoming about their true motives. Anti-GMO activist and Institute for Responsible Technology founder Jeffrey Smith, who makes regular appearances on Dr. Oz and other celebrity-type shows, acknowledged their real agenda:

Labeling GMOs was never the end goal for us. It was a tactic. Labels make it easier for shoppers to make healthier non-GMO choices. When enough people avoid GMOs, food companies rush to eliminate them. Labeling can speed up that tipping pointbut only if consumers are motivated to use labels to avoid GMOs.

Some celebrities brazenly profit by spreading misinformation about biotechnology. Jessica Alba parlayed her fame into selling organic, non-GMO products as part owner of The Honest Company. She boasts about the naturality of her products, from organic baby formulameticulously blended using non-GMO, naturally derived, organicto organic tampons to non-GMO lip balm. Many items brandish a non-GMO label. Alba explains her healthy eating habits as trying to have the least amount of GMOs and pesticides you have energy, arent starving and dont have to count calories.

Actor and progressive environmental activist Mark Ruffalo, who does not have a college education, has embraced any number of controversial causes, from fracking to GMOs, where the science is contested. He became a rock star in the anti-GMO community, even confronting Monsanto CEO Hugh Grant in a CBS green room rant before a joint TV appearance and later bragging about it.

You are wrong, he lectured Grant. You are engaged in monopolizing food. You are poisoning people. You are killing small farms. You are killing bees. What you are doing is dead wrong. Its the horrible stuff you guys do that makes you and your company horrible. People like you and your company are horrible because you are horrible.

He has more than 2 million followers on Twitterthats scary. His obsession to demonize genetic engineering took a bizarre turn earlier this year when he started tweeting that the Zika virus was caused by a chemical manufactured by an obscure Japanese company that has a research pact with Monsanto, the bete noire of anti-GMO activists. By doing so, he deflects attention from what experts now say is the only feasible solution to containing Zikathe release of genetically engineered sterile mosquitoes to drive out the poison-carrying ones.

Chef Attack

Many celebrity chefs have taken up the anti-GMO crusade, apparently believing their ability to run a restaurant or cook on television gives them special insight into how food is grown on a farm. Tom Colicchio, the star of Bravos Top Chef program, gathered signatures of more than 4,000 chefs on a petition he delivered to Capitol Hill in March 2016 demanding mandatory GMO labels and rejecting a Senate bill that would have made the labels voluntary.

He claims he only supports the right to know. But his twitter feed is filled with anti-GMO propaganda and like most activists in the GMO labeling movement, he is also broadly against the technology. In a December 2015 op-ed in the New York Times entitled, Are you eating Frankenfish? Colicchio warned readers that the newly approved GE fast-growing salmon could escape enclosed tanks and endanger native speciesclaims multiple US and Canadian regulators have reviewed and rejected as untrue. Colicchio has also come out in opposition to insect-resistant eggplant, grown with government developed seeds distributed free to farmers in Bangladesh, which has reduced the spraying of dangerous chemicals by 85 percent.

Why are celebrities getting so much traction in their campaign against GMOs? They are filling an information void left by the scientific and agricultural communities. Scientists are reluctant to engage the public, either out of trepidation or arrogance, convinced that science will win the day. Infighting has plagued the science communications effort as leaders dispute the best way to fight misinformation from people like Paltrow and Ruffalo.

Some want to take a submissive approach and others want to fight fire with fire. The agricultural community and companies that benefit from genetic engineering arent standing up to defend the technology, either.

While science and farming communicators struggle with how to best educate consumers and the media, organic executives and celebrities are defining the narrative on GMOs. This is not without serious ramifications if we turn away from genetically modified crops. Food prices will rise and farmers will be forced to use more insecticide and more toxic herbicides. Its wonderful to celebrate the performances of TV, movie and music celebrities, but their opinions on science issues are no more relevantnow than they were when they were waiting tables in Hollywood and Nashville looking for a break. Hit the mute button when they start opining on serious policy issues that have considerable consequences for vulnerable people around the world.

Julie Kelly is a cooking instructor, food writer, blogger and mother of two who lives in the Chicago area. In 2015, she got passionate about GMOs. Kelly is a contributing writer to the Wall Street Journal, National Review, Huffington Post and other media outlets.

The Genetic Literacy Project is a 501(c)(3) non profit dedicated to helping the public, journalists, policy makers and scientists better communicate the advances and ethical and technological challenges ushered in by the biotechnology and genetics revolution, addressing both human genetics and food and farming. We are one of two websites overseen by the Science Literacy Project; our sister site, the Epigenetics Literacy Project, addresses the challenges surrounding emerging data-rich technologies.

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When Celebrity And Science Collide: Hollywood And The Anti ... - Genetic Literacy Project

LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Puma Biotechnology, Inc. (NASDAQ: PBYI), a biopharmaceutical company, announced that Alan H. Auerbach, Chairman, Chief Executive Officer, President and Founder of Puma, will provide an overview of the Company at 3:20 p.m. EST on Monday, March 6, at the Cowen and Company 37th Annual Health Care Conference. The conference will be held at the Boston Marriott Copley Place.

A live webcast of the presentation will be available on the Companys website at http://www.pumabiotechnology.com. The presentation will be archived on the website and available for 30 days.

About Puma Biotechnology

Puma Biotechnology, Inc. is a biopharmaceutical company with a focus on the development and commercialization of innovative products to enhance cancer care. The Company in-licenses the global development and commercialization rights to three drug candidatesPB272 (neratinib (oral)), PB272 (neratinib (intravenous)) and PB357. Neratinib is a potent irreversible tyrosine kinase inhibitor that blocks signal transduction through the epidermal growth factor receptors, HER1, HER2 and HER4. Currently, the Company is primarily focused on the development of the oral version of neratinib, and its most advanced drug candidates are directed at the treatment of HER2-positive breast cancer. The Company believes that neratinib has clinical application in the treatment of several other cancers as well, including non-small cell lung cancer and other tumor types that over-express or have a mutation in HER2.

Further information about Puma Biotechnology may be found at http://www.pumabiotechnology.com.

Forward-Looking Statements:

This press release contains forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties that could cause the Company's actual results to differ materially from the anticipated results and expectations expressed in these forward-looking statements. These statements are based on current expectations, forecasts and assumptions, and actual outcomes and results could differ materially from these statements due to a number of factors, which include, but are not limited to, the risk factors disclosed in the periodic reports filed by the Company with the Securities and Exchange Commission from time to time. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date hereof. The Company assumes no obligation to update these forward-looking statements, except as required by law.

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Puma Biotechnology to Present at Cowen's Health Care Conference - Business Wire (press release)