BEGIN forward:
I am reluctant to enter into a discussion area that is
such a minefield of conflicting scientific dogma and value-based
perceptions. However, it is a worthy question and one which merits
reasoned consideration by all of us - specifically because all of us
will be affected. In this spirit, I will offer some comments.
1. I have long held a near-instinctive distrust of biotechnology
(B), in part because, it must be admitted at the outset, *public*
funds allocated to this high profile, proprietary type research (e.g.
through industrial partnerships and the like) *mean*:
a. less money is available to address the real life issues
facing producers, the environment, and society today. I am not
convinced that faulty genetics are at the heart of current or future
difficulties in achieving profitable and ecologically sustainable
crop or livestock performance. Diverting scarce agricultural
research funding into molecular genetics, transgenics,
transformation, etc. distracts policy makers, producers, and society
from forthrightly addressing the real issues.
b. committing publicly funded researchers (at universities and
federal research labs, for example) to proprietary partnerships is
ethically unsound - it means that taxpayers dollars are being
channeled to support the competitiveness of a few, specific
agricultural companies, rather than to enhance the performance
(however defined) of all. I am not convinced that enhancing the
competitiveness of Company X will somehow trickle down to the rest of
us.
2. The ecological risks of genetically engineering organisms (GEO's)
have been explored in at least two publications - one of which I
reviewed for the Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics, on
whose editorial board I serve. The title was Ecological Effects of
Genetically Engineered Organisms, and it was a compilation of about a
dozen diverse papers presented at a symposium sponsored by the
Netherlands Ecological Society. Reviewing that book crystallized and
formalized the intuitive reserve I had for biotechnology. Some of
the issues raised - with strong, scientifically reputable, supportive
evidence from respected, refereed journals - were:
a. It is not a matter of "if" but "when" these inserted genes
will get out into the wider community - meaning not simply plants but
also microbes and us. In other words, the only question is whether
we ourselves (the creators of the GEO's) will have to face the music,
or whether it will be our children, or their children.
b. There is a very strong and well documented history of
unintended ramifying effects of well-intended, managerial
interventions into "nature" - for example, the effect of intentional
wolf kills on deer populations, resulting in overgrazing, habitat
degradation, and obligatory winter feeding programs; another example
might be something as seemingly benign as subdivisions encroaching
into nature, exposing humans to carriers of Lyme disease. It is not
just possible but entirely likely that releasing GEO's into
commercial agriculture will produce unintended, and at present,
unforeseeable responses in nature - at least some of which will be
adverse.
(con't)
ACLARK@crop.uoguelph.ca
Dr. E. Ann Clark
Associate Professor
Crop Science
University of Guelph
Guelph, ON N1G 2W1
Phone: 519-824-4120 Ext. 2508
FAX: 519 763-8933