DEEP DIVE: Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs): Unraveling the Myths and Facts with Gay Timmons

[Intro] Hey, everyone. Welcome to Facially Conscious. I'm Trina Renea, a medically-trained Master Esthetician here in Los Angeles, and I'm sitting with my rockstar co-host, Dr. Vicki Rapaport, a board-certified dermatologist with practices in Beverly Hills and Culver City, Rebecca Gadberry, our resident skincare scientist and regulatory and marketing expert, and Julie Falls, our educated consumer who is here to represent you. 

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01:32 Rebecca Gadberry: Hello, everybody. This is Rebecca Gadberry. I am the resident cosmetic chemist, marketer, regulatory educator for the industry, and co-host here at Facially Conscious, the podcast that gives you the skinny on all things skin. And our founder and our wonderful esthetician, Trina Renea is here with me.

01:55 Trina Renea: Hello. How are you? 

01:57 Rebecca Gadberry: Oh, pretty good. Thank you. 

01:58 Trina Renea: Good to see you today. 

02:00 Rebecca Gadberry: How's everybody out there? 

02:01 Trina Renea: How's everyone doing? We're doing a deep dive today, which is going to be fun. 

02:06 Rebecca Gadberry: I know. With Gay Timmons from Oh, Oh Organic. We've had her on before and we just adore Gay. We've got just a limited amount of time, so if you're interested in who Gay is from Oh, Oh Organic, you can go to her website at ohohorganic.com. We also have her bio on our website and I think a couple of articles from her as well. So she's a fascinating person.

02:32 Trina Renea: And she's been in a couple of our episodes before, so she is a returning guest, which we love. Hi, Gay. 

02:39 Gay Timmons: Hi. 

02:41 Rebecca Gadberry: We're talking about you. 

Well, today we're going to be talking about GMOs, genetically modified organisms. There's so many myths about GMOs. There's so much misinformation. And Gay has always been my lighthouse when it comes to understanding what a GMO is.

03:04 Trina Renea: Because Gay is what? 

03:11 Rebecca Gadberry: Gay, well, as a matter of fact, Gay, I'm going to ask you, how come you know so much about GMOs? 

03:16 Gay Timmons: Because I started working in the organic industry 32 years ago and that's when the whole consciousness about genetic modification in food especially came into sort of the zeitgeist. So I've followed it ever since, and followed the regulations and the changes in laws and what they do in Europe and what they do here and what it is.

03:47 Rebecca Gadberry: So, Gay is our leading expert for the podcast for all things organic. 

03:51 Trina Renea: Yes. 

03:53 Rebecca Gadberry: And I'd like you to start, Gay, by talking about what is a GMO. I've heard them called Franken-seeds, thinking about they turn them into Frankenstein's monsters on the plants and all of that and there's a lot of scary talk out there. So can you help bring some rationality and information to this? 

04:15 Gay Timmons: Yeah. I always look at two things. I look at GMOs, genetically modified organisms, and GMMs, genetically modified microorganisms. 

04:30 Rebecca Gadberry: What's the difference?

04:32 Gay Timmons: I draw a pretty bright line between them. So GMOs are generally seed crops that are commercially available and sold a lot in the United States. There are a lot of places where they're not legal. They've just made GMO corn illegal in Mexico, for example, not just but recently in the last year or so. 

And what it is is they'll go into a seed DNA and they'll insert one gene. And where this all started was that as we as a society began to recognize that there were a lot of problems with pesticides, they started looking for ways to reduce the number of pesticides we were using and herbicides. Herbicides kill plants; pesticides kill bugs. 

And they developed, initially, I think it was, first, they did it with soy. It might have been corn first. I can't remember. But they developed a soy, for example, that had a petunia gene in it, that they could then spray with glyphosate, which is what we know of as Roundup. And the glyphosate would kill all the weeds, so you wouldn't have to use herbicides. 

And it had a very short shelf life… not shelf life, but half-life, I guess, is what you would call it in their parlance, and it would kind of disappear in the soil. To that degree, it's not a horrible product. However, people who use it a lot, there are some associations and there is a strong thought that the glyphosate is associated with some types of cancers. And so that is very specific to plants. 

And there aren't that many plants. I don't know, there's like eight or twelve. There's soy, there's corn, they had to use GMO technology to save papayas. We would have no papayas if there was not GMOs. 

07:03 Rebecca Gadberry: That's a fascinating story. You told me about that a while ago and it's very, very interesting. 

07:07 Gay Timmons: Yeah, it's a real interesting one. So there's good and there's bad. I think that the papaya story is probably a good story. The soy story and the corn story and sugar beet is a little more problematic because it means that, number one, one or two companies own the intellectual property of that seed and they are far more expensive for farmers. They're extremely expensive compared to a farmer just collecting his seed every year and replanting it.

One of the other problems, because then they also have to buy the chemical. So they reduced pesticides on one hand, but then they have to buy this other chemical. And so that…

07:56 Rebecca Gadberry: What kind of chemical?

07:59 Gay Timmons: The glyphosate or the Roundup.

08:01 Rebecca Gadberry: Okay. Got it.

08:02 Gay Timmons: So that changed the way that a lot of people were farming. One of the downstream problems with that is, number one, in the United States it's virtually impossible to grow corn in many areas because so much of the corn is genetically modified that it cross-pollinates and you can't even grow non-GMO corn because wind and birds and whatever, so it has to come from other places or other areas where there's not a prevalence of corn growing. Like the Midwest, so much of the corn comes from Iowa, Illinois, that region. 

And so there's some problems there. There's problems with what it does in the farming community. There's problems it does…

I'll tell you what. My biggest concern is this. We are the result of really smart evolution. Every single living critter on the planet has evolved to deal with different kinds of problems. When a scientist goes in and says, “This is the only genetic makeup we are going to have for this type of living thing,” you begin to lose genetic diversity. 

When they started to really look closely at soy, for example, they found that, depending on the microclimate, because they only had the one, I think they have two kinds of GMO soy. In one climate it did really, really well and in another climate, it really didn't do that well because it wasn't adapted. It had not evolved to deal with that microclimate. 

So they kind of created some other problems because of that situation. The yield of a crop is really important to a farmer. Here we are in the cosmetic podcast talking about farm. But, anyway, that's why there are some big concerns within the agricultural community because of those kinds of concerns. 

Then there are issues with the potential for carcinogenicity with some other parts of the world. And I honestly don't know… I know some big lawsuits have been won against them, and people who developed certain types of lymphomas have been parts of some results of some big lawsuits that were won on behalf of the people who got cancer.

10:52 Rebecca Gadberry: Is that because of the glyphosate or because of the GMO?

10:56 Gay Timmons: No, that's because of the glyphosate. But you kind of can't have the GMO without the glyphosate. 

11:02 Rebecca Gadberry: Right, because they're dependent.

11:06 Gay Timmons: And I do think people get very confused. As a physiologist, I would say the GMO itself probably doesn't hurt you at all. If you could grow that without the glyphosate, it probably is fine. We digest stuff. I mean, it goes in and the human gut is pretty effective at breaking things down. So I don't think that eating a GMO is a problem. 

I think that all of the other things connected with it, the yield, the glyphosate, the having one or two companies own all the IP for particular kinds of seeds, I think those are the problems more than that. 

And so I try really hard not to confuse that with the GMMs. And so I think that for the cosmetic industry, what we really want to talk about are the GMMs.

11:59 Rebecca Gadberry: So what are they?

12:00 Gay Timmons: Those are the genetically modified microorganisms. So what'll happen is they will take a yeast and they'll start slicing and dicing it, the DNA in that yeast in all kinds of interesting ways, and then they'll feed sugar to it. So this is a very contained technology. 

When you feed sugar to a yeast, the yeast then produces various kinds of molecules. Basically, it's a little genetic or a little molecular factory. 

That's what, for example, the Amyris Squalane is. There's all kinds of people who are beginning to… Amyris also made…

12:48 Trina Renea: Is Amyris a company?

12:50 Rebecca Gadberry: Yeah, they have Biossance in Sephora. 

12:55 Gay Timmons: Yeah, although they've sold that off. 

12:57 Rebecca Gadberry: Yeah, they just sold that off, didn't they? 

13:00 Gay Timmons: Yeah. And they sold the patent for the Squalane, but they have many different chemicals they've made from this process. And there are many companies who are doing the same thing. I think that, ultimately, it's going to be fantastic because you still have a renewable resource.

So if you grow some kind of carbohydrate, whether it's some kind of a grain or sugar or whatever, and then you can make molecules in these contained situations where you're not going to pollute and you're making the same molecules that we currently get from petroleum, I think that's a win for humans. 

13:52 Rebecca Gadberry: Absolutely. And I think that… let's go back for just a second. You're talking about fermentation processes, aren't you? 

14:00 Gay Timmons: Well, it's similar. I mean, so you can do enzymes for fermentation. You can do yeast, which is the same thing. You're basically feeding a microorganism a carbohydrate substrate base and it's making new molecules. That can be fermentation.

Ultimately, fermentation is a specific chemical cycle. There's some other chemical cycles in there, so fermentation is part of this. Let's put it that way. 

14:39 Rebecca Gadberry: Okay. And I know we're going to talk about fermentation in another episode, so I want to save that. 

Let's go back to the GMOs. We see GMO-free on a lot of these products that are out there now, especially in skin and hair care. How important are GMOs? How wary does the customer have to be if a product does contain a GMO and how relevant is it not containing a GMO to the customer? Because, like you said, there's only like eight or twelve GMO plants out there and they…

15:17 Trina Renea: And a lot of them aren't in skincare products. 

15:19 Rebecca Gadberry: Right. 

15:19 Gay Timmons: Right. We don't use a lot of soy in skincare. It's not a super stable oil so it's not something we use a lot of. We tend to use many other oils than soy and so I don't think it's that relevant. I think that the main place I see genetically modified materials in, or let's say ingredients made from genetically modified agricultural materials, like corn, propanediol is one. 

15:59 Rebecca Gadberry: Uh-hmm, and that's in a lot of stuff now.

16:01 Gay Timmons: Zemea. But this is so highly processed there's no protein left, there's no DNA left. It's not going to…

16:12 Trina Renea: What is it being used for?

16:13 Rebecca Gadberry: It's a humectant and it's used in a number…

16:16 Gay Timmons: Humectant and it's a great base for almost everything. It replaces propylene glycol, which is a petrochemical.

16:26 Rebecca Gadberry: It's also, we utilize it in that hurdle technology for a preservative, a self-preserving product. 

16:35 Gay Timmons: Right. 

16:36 Rebecca Gadberry: So it can take the place of a traditional preservative system when you put other ingredients in with it.

16:41 Trina Renea: And so that ingredient has GMO but we shouldn't be scared of it?

16:46 Rebecca Gadberry: Well, that ingredient comes from corn, which is a GMO crop. But what Gay is saying is that we don't have to worry about the GMO. It's the glyphosate that we might want to be concerned about. But the glyphosate doesn't come with the propanediol. 

17:03 Gay Timmons: It's heavily processed.

17:04 Rebecca Gadberry: It's heavily processed. So while you could say it's a GMO, what the end material is it has nothing to do with it being a GMO. 

17:16 Trina Renea: And so do you feel that…

17:18 Gay Timmons: They could make it out of regular corn and they've even said - I've talked to the company - if there was sufficient demand, it's going to cost a little more, but yes, they could. 

I think the other interesting part, this is like my favorite part because I'm a “waste not, want not” kind of person. If I remember this correctly, I saw the president of the company talk about it when they first launched it in 2006, 2005, something like that. I went up and talked to him later, because the plant is in Tennessee and my family is from Tennessee, so…

17:57 Rebecca Gadberry: It's a write-off, it's a tax write-off to go visit her family.

18:00 Gay Timmons: I had to chat. Well, no, he was at a conference. But so I had a chat with him, and, basically, it's a byproduct. It's this big plant where they're making cornstarch. So they're making cornstarch and then they have byproduct from the cornstarch. This is not the starch. This is other parts of the corn that are further processed, because there's nothing that a farmer or a food processor hates more than waste. So they try to find ways to utilize every single bit of that plant.

18:40 Trina Renea: That's a good thing. We talked to somebody in the past about that. 

18:42 Rebecca Gadberry: Yeah. And I think it's a marvelous thing in the cosmetic industry is a very welcoming recipient of a lot of the materials that would otherwise go to waste.

18:58 Gay Timmons: Yeah. So there's some interesting ways of doing all of this. 

19:00 Trina Renea: So in wrapping up, we have to wrap it up. 

19:03 Rebecca Gadberry: I have two more questions. 

19:04 Trina Renea: Excellent.

19:05 Rebecca Gadberry: Okay. Number one is when you have a GMO-derived material or a material that’s derived from a GMO plant, like a wheat source or a soy that… I think we're starting to use more soy in some of the emulsifiers, actually, or the propanediol that we've just been talking about. We're not using the entire plant. We are taking it as a source for the ingredient and then we purify the ingredient to the point where there's no glyphosate in that product. And there's even no genes that we're talking about anymore. Is that true, Gay? 

19:47 Gay Timmons: That's true. The one problem is that there is so much glyphosate used in the Midwest that we now have this huge pool of glyphosate running down the Mississippi River and into the Gulf. 

The other thing we know is, and I don't think this is broadly… I think the PhD work, the research has just recently been done I would say in the last five years. It kind of takes a long time, some time for some of this research to get to people.

Glyphosate, while it does not remain in the soil, it kills the…

20:29 Rebecca Gadberry: The biome?

20:31 Gay Timmons: Pardon me?

20:32 Rebecca Gadberry: The biome?

20:34 Gay Timmons: Well, it basically does kill the microbiome. One of the things we are understanding is that there's sort of this connective tissue in all soil that is living tissue that communicates. And so if you kill that, you have a really hard time getting it back.

I know, just being a pretty hardcore gardener that I moved into a home once, where they had used a lot of Roundup just to kill everything in this little patch of soil in the front of the house. It took me three years before I could get the earthworms to come back because there just wasn't enough natural bacteria, the little fungus activity that happens in soil. All of these things that are normal for soil and make it… I mean, in my world, soil is a living thing. Glyphosate kills. 

21:31 Rebecca Gadberry: Right. Absolutely. 

21:34 Gay Timmons: Because it's an herbicide and it's intended to kill everything and keep it from growing so that you don't have weeds. We’d probably be a little thinner if we just weeded.

21:48 Rebecca Gadberry: Yeah, we’d get our exercise. 

If we are concerned about GMOs from a health perspective, they're fine as far as our products are concerned. But if we're worried about GMOs from their impact on the earth and the soil, then we probably do want to avoid GMO source materials. Is that what the bottom line is?

22:08 Gay Timmons: Yes. That’s exactly what I'm saying. 

22:11 Rebecca Gadberry: Okay, got it. 

22:12 Gay Timmons: Scientifically, that's how I look at it. We need to look at the big picture because we are ultimately dependent on the big picture as living beings. 

22:23 Rebecca Gadberry: Yes. Are there any other myths that are related from GMOs to cosmetics that you want to go into here? 

22:32 Gay Timmons: Not really. I think a lot of it, I always kind of laugh because I have to constantly issue these non-GMO statements when I sell ingredients. Virtually everything we sell is certified organic. And if something is certified organic, it is automatically included in the law. It is baked in that it may not be genetically modified. You cannot get certified if you have any GMO material in that.

So if all of the people out there would just please stop asking me for non-GMO certificates for my organic products, I would be so happy. 

23:16 Trina Renea: You should put a big note up on your website that says, "Includes non-GMO." 

23:22 Gay Timmons: Yes. Actually, we made an explainer, which is kind of interesting. We had to explain all the things that organic includes because, you know.

23:31 Trina Renea: So many questions. 

23:32 Gay Timmons: We kept getting these funny questions. 

23:34 Rebecca Gadberry: Is that on your website? 

23:35 Gay Timmons: But if you’re buying organic then, yes, there can be genetically modified things there, so you might want to be aware of them.

23:42 Rebecca Gadberry: Is that explanation of organic on your website? 

23:46 Gay Timmons: No, but we're building a new website and we'll probably put it up there with the new one, which will be launched just before Suppliers’ Day next year in May. 

23:54 Rebecca Gadberry: Okay. Suppliers’ Day is an annual trade show that we all go to in the industry from a supplier standpoint, to supply raw materials to people like me in manufacturing or formulating chemists.

24:07 Trina Renea: I want to go with you.

24:08 Rebecca Gadberry: You can. 

24:09 Gay Timmons: It's fun. 

24:11 Rebecca Gadberry: You're in the industry. You could go and it's free. 

24:13 Trina Renea: Oh. Where is it?

24:14 Rebecca Gadberry: It is at the Long Beach Convention Center. 

24:17 Trina Renea: Let's go together. 

24:17 Gay Timmons: So no, that one, the Long Beach one is in two weeks in October. It's free if you're in the industry. The one I was referring to is the one in New York. The big one in New York is every May. It's going to take us that long to do our website.

24:31 Rebecca Gadberry: Oh, good. Well, we don't have to wait till October of next year. 

24:35 Trina Renea: This is an excuse to go to New York, though.

24:37 Gay Timmons: In two weeks, October of this year is the Long Beach Suppliers’ Day. 

24:42 Rebecca Gadberry: And we're actually getting together to canoodle together because Gay is consulting with Amber, my co-teacher at UCLA this year. She's helping to guide us in our presentation of materials on these topics that she specializes in.

24:59 Trina Renea: Gay, are you coming? 

25:01 Gay Timmons: We have a booth. We always exhibit at that show. So we will be in Long Beach on the I think it's 25th and 26th. 

25:08 Rebecca Gadberry: Yes, it is. So, okay. That was fabulous. Very short, sweet and to the point. 

25:14 Trina Renea: Yes, thank you. 

25:16 Rebecca Gadberry: Thank you so much. We knew we could go to you to get the clarity that we all needed.

25:22 Gay Timmons: I hope it was clear. Okay, you guys. 

25:24 Trina Renea: Very clear. We'll see you again on our fermentation episode on our next deep dive with you. Thank you so much. 

25:35 Rebecca Gadberry: Thanks, Gay.

25:35 Gay Timmons: You're welcome. Thank you for having me. 

25:37 Trina Renea: All right. Bye. 

25:38 Rebecca Gadberry: Absolutely. Bye-bye. 

25:40 Trina Renea: Bye, everyone. 

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