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Institute of Science in Society
Science [ISIS logo]
Society
Sustainability
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Relevant Links: * Genetic Engineering - Dream or Nightmare
Beyond Bad Science and Big Business
Lecture for `Big Money Bad Science'
Teach-in on globalisation and genetic engineering,
Vogue Theatre, Vancouver, November 10, 2000
Mae-Wan Ho
Institute of Science in Society
The October Gallery, 24 Old Gloucester Street
London WC1N 3AL and Dept. of Biological Sciences
Open University, Walton Hall, Milton Keynes, MK7 6AA
Abstract
The mechanistic mindset of western science is all of a
piece with the neo-liberal economic theory promoting
globalisation -- the removal of all international
barriers to trade, investment and finance -- that has
enabled corporations to ruthlessly exploit human beings
and destroy our planet in their quest for maximum
profit. This paradigm has failed us in life as it has
within science, but is still perpetrated by the academia
and the political mainstream, if only because it serves
so well to promote gene biotechnology and to make even
unethical uses seem compelling.
GM crops destroy livelihood and self-sufficiency, and are
strenuously opposed by family farmers everywhere. There is
compelling evidence that genetic modification is inherently
unsafe, as are many of the GM products. While the benefits of GM
crops remain illusory, the success and benefits of ecological,
natural farming systems are well documented. It is time to turn
the tide on bad science and big business, to reclaim the good life
in every sense for everyone.
Britain might be mistaken for a Third World country, says a
newspaper headline: chaos on the rail network and protests over
fuel price increase in the midst of the worst storms and floods in
decades, and a CJD epidemic that may claim up to tens of thousands
of lives.
The public enquiry report, published at the end of October, blames
persistent government denials over the link between CJD and BSE
beef based on the `best scientific advice' given by the Southwood
Committee in 1989, which concluded "it was most unlikely that BSE
will have any implications for human health". The `best scientific
advice' is saying the same about genetic engineering. The
scientific establishment has failed, again and again, to
acknowledge that science is by its nature incomplete and uncertain
and to insist on the precautionary approach. The precautionary
approach might also have averted global warming, had it been
adopted ten, twenty years earlier. It is high time that the
precautionary approach is applied now in gene biotechnology.
If climate change and the CJD fiasco can teach us anything, it is
that science is too important to be left to the politicians or to
a scientific establishment increasingly in bed with big business.
Our academic institutions have given up all pretence of being
citadels of higher learning and disinterested enquiry into the
nature of things; least of all, of being guardians of the public
good. The corporatization of science is the greatest threat to our
survival, and it works in subtler ways than generally recognized.
Western science dominates the world through its technologies, many
of which become instruments of destruction and oppression in the
hands of corporate business. More significant, however, is the
mechanistic mindset of the science, through which the world is
perceived and shaped. It presents nature as isolated atoms at
every level, jostling and competing against one another in the
Darwinian struggle for survival of the fittest. Organisms are
mistaken for machines, and there is no limit to how they can be
manipulated for profit, especially by changing their genes. Genes
and genetically modified organisms (GMOs) have become the latest,
hottest commodities.
The mechanistic mindset is all of a piece with the neo-liberal
economic theory promoting globalization -- the removal of all
international barriers to trade, investment and finance -- that
has enabled corporations to ruthlessly exploit human beings and
destroy our planet in their quest for maximum profit. That was why
50 000 took to the streets of Seattle to close down the World
Trade Organisation last November; and a further 20 000 turned up
to demonstrate against the World Bank in Prague this September.
And it will go on, until peoples' aspiration for a safe, just,
equitable, sustainable and compassionate world is heeded.
The mechanistic paradigm has failed us in life. It has also failed
within science. Contemporary western science, across the
disciplines, has been rediscovering how nature is organic, dynamic
and interconnected. There are no linear causal chains linking
genes to the characteristics of organisms, let alone the human
condition. Genes function in complex entangled networks,
constantly responding to feedback from the internal and external
environment. Genetic engineering grew out of laboratory techniques
for modifying the genetic material of organisms discovered some 25
years ago. These same techniques enabled geneticists to study the
genetic material in ways that were not possible before. The
findings have turned genetics upside down.
By the 1980s, geneticists have coined the phrase, "the fluid
genome" to describe the dynamic state of the genetic material in
all organisms, which is subject to both small and large changes in
the course of development and in response to feedback from the
environment. The new genetics is radically holistic and
ecological, as is life itself. But the discredited paradigm is
still perpetrated by our academia and the political mainstream, if
only because it serves so well to promote gene biotechnology, and
to make even unethical uses seem compelling.
The human genome project to map the genetic material of our
species has been hyped a great deal, but the only concrete offers
thus far are patented gene tests, some 740 already in the market.
In cases where such tests can help to diagnose and treat patients,
exorbitant licence fees have prevented their use. On the other
hand, healthy people testing positive are denied employment and
health insurance. Among the human genes and cell lines patented
and sold by corporations are those stolen from indigenous tribes
under the pretext of providing medical care, and even coercion is
used.
Prenatal and pre-implantation diagnoses are eliminating human
foetuses and embryos carrying genes said to pre-dispose them to
cancer as adults. Jim Watson, co-winner of the Nobel Prize for the
structure of DNA, the genetic material, suggested that parents
might want to eliminate the unborn carrying homosexuality genes.
There are no such genes, by the way.
The overwhelming causes of ill health are environmental and
social. The World Health Organisation has long concluded that at
least 80 percent of all cancer is attributable to environmental
influences. Hundreds of actual and potential carcinogens have been
identified among the 70 000 industrial chemicals that pollute our
air, water and soil. Rising epidemics of childhood cancers are
linked to mutations caused by radioactive wastes seeping from
processing plants, or dumped into the sea and washed up on our
beaches. But the cancer research establishment is doing little for
cancer prevention except identifying putative genes predisposing
people to cancer.
The focus on genes is misplaced. It is diverting attention and
resources away from the real causes of ill health, allowing the
chemical industry to continue to pollute our life support system
with impunity, and to profit from the lucrative health market
created by the rising tide of ill health. A headline in the
financial pages of The Guardian (Wednesday August 2, 2000) says it
all: "Gene hunters say patients are a bankable asset". Worse yet,
the `genetic mantle' placed on diseases and other human conditions
end up blaming the victims, fueling the re-emergence of genetic
discrimination and eugenics that have blighted the history of the
last century.
A prominent band of scientists and `bioethicists' are advocating
human germline gene therapy, which amounts to making genetically
modified human beings. They see the creation of a gene-rich class
of human beings to be inevitable due to the free reign of the
global marketplace. The rich will pay to genetically enhance their
offspring, in the same way that they will pay for expensive
private education. Consequently, there will be a genetic
underclass -- children of the poor -- that will eventually become
a separate, inferior species. Social inequity is thereby
translated into genetic inequity and vice versa.
Human embryos are cultured in the laboratory to provide cells and
tissues for transplants. International trafficking of human organs
is already rife, and eggs and embryos will be added to the list.
In the Indian Seed Tribunal in September, three farmers in the
same family in told the Tribunal how each had to sell a kidney
when their crops failed from the bad seeds they were sold. They
were the responsible ones, other farmers committed suicide
instead. In future, the women may well be forced into selling
their eggs and embryos.
Two years ago, the first `human' clone was created, by
transferring the genetic material of a human cell into a cow's
egg. In October this year, researchers from an Australian and a US
company made another by transferring human genetic material into
the egg of a pig. Mercifully, the experiments were destroyed at 14
days, which is the current legal limit; or we would have been
faced with Frankenstein. At least the original Dr. Frankenstein
did not do it for money. And that is the bottom line. In deciding
whether any application is ethical or beneficial, ask whether it
would be done if there were no money to be made. And who but the
rich can benefit when all the genes, cell lines and reproductive
processes are patented for commercial exploitation?
Gene biotechnology is not just about GM food or GM human beings.
It is a commitment to an existential nightmare, a descent into a
self-made hell on earth. Mary Shelley´s brilliant novel was not
only a parable of the arrogant scientist playing God, it is also
about mechanistic science out of control, today, in the service of
the corporate empire.
In China, where my family originates, `rice' pronounced `faan'
means livelihood, it means contentment and self-sufficiency. In
Thailand, rice is life, and the Karen hill tribes are so
intimately connected to rice that the `rice spirit' is brought
back to the people and the land in a rice ceremony every year.
Tens of thousands of rice varieties still exist in Thailand, which
have been collected, created and propagated by farmers in the
course of thousands, if not tens of thousands of years. That,
despite the fact that a US scientist, Dr. Love, absconded with 120
000 varieties collected for the Thai gene bank in the 1950s.
Thai rice varieties come in endless shades of gold, red and black,
each with a distinctive fragrance, serving different purposes and
occasions, to enhance life as much as to provide nutrition. Each
variety is valued and loved for its own sake, more than a
connoisseur might appreciate varieties of tea, coffee or wine. I
was given a bag of red rice to take home to London, and have
savoured every mouthful since. Seeds are freely given and
exchanged as gifts among farmers in Thailand, as they are all over
Asia, Latin America and Africa.
To people whose lives are so inextricably interwoven with their
indigenous plant varieties, what else can GM crops be but an
abomination? And why should the rest of us not recover to some
extent this aesthetic and spiritual connection to our food?
There is little doubt that GM crops will further destroy
livelihood and self-sufficiency through corporate patents on seeds
that farmers cannot resow or exchange, and through GM `terminator'
seeds that are rendered sterile, breaking the very cycle of
renewal and regeneration that is the essence of life. There are
152 patents on rice, some 70 of them associated with the GM
`golden rice' that Astra Zeneca is supposed to be offering free to
the Third World as a cure for Vitamin A deficiency.
Farmers all over South East Asia are incensed about the
introduction of GMOs and the accompanying corporate propaganda and
intimidation. In September, thousands of Thai citizens plus
representatives from Cambodia, India, Malaysia and the Philippines
took part in a long protest march. They issued a joint declaration
rejecting all GMOs and patenting of seeds and plant varieties, and
demanding government support for sustainable, natural farming
systems.
GM is furthermore an untried, inadequately researched technology.
There is no evidence that GM crops are safe, of the kind that
could stand up in a court of law or to scientific scrutiny,
despite what our regulators and their chosen scientists are
saying.
The UK Government tried to place Aventis' Chardon LL GM corn on
the National List, but overwhelming objection from the public
forced a public hearing which is still going on. Aventis is also
behind the recent massive recall of taco shells and other maize
products contaminated with the `Starlink' GM variety that has not
been approved for human consumption because it showed all the
signs of being allergenic. As for Chardon LL, Aventis' unpublished
report submitted to the hearing showed that there were twice as
many deaths in chickens fed the GM corn compared to those fed non
GM corn. And on the basis of that, our Government had approved it
for use as animal feed.
There is less than a handful of published papers on GM food safety
from industry, and these are no better. The two papers from
Monsanto on Roundup Ready GM soya showed that it increased milk
fat in cows and decreased weight gains in male rats, and has an
unexpected 26.7% increase in a-antitrypsin, a major allergen and
growth inhibitor. Monsanto failed to make available even more
damning data indicating that the GM soya had 100% increase in soya
lectin, another allergen, which was also unexpected.
The evidence of hazards, much of it in the scientific literature,
is stronger than ever before. That is why some 370 scientists from
more than 40 countries are calling for a moratorium, as well as a
ban on patents of organisms and living processes and support for
sustainable, organic agriculture (see www.i-sis.org.uk).
The hazards are inherent to the uncontrollable, unpredictable
nature of the genetic modification process (see Boxes 1 and 2).
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Box 1
GM is inherently hazardous
* GM involves making artificial genes and combinations of
genes that are transferred into cells and embryos to
create GMOs, none of which may ever have existed in
billions of years of evolution.
* GM genetic material are typically from dangerous
bacteria, viruses and other genetic parasites that
cause diseases and include antibiotic resistance genes
that make infectious diseases untreatable. The gene
products encoded by the genes may be harmful, as they
have never been part of our food chain, and are also
new to the ecosystem.
* GM constructs are designed to cross species barriers
and to invade genomes. But the genetic engineer cannot
control where and in what form the GM constructs end up
in the genome. Unexpected toxins and allergens may
result.
* GM constructs are unstable, as are GM lines. GM
constructs are often scrambled when inserted in the
genome. In later generations of the GMO created, the GM
constructs may get scrambled further, become inactive
or lost altogether. This seriously compromises
agronomic performance as well as safety, because the GM
line will change further in unexpected ways, and the
lost genes may jump into unrelated species.
* Dangerous GM genes and constructs can spread, not just
by cross pollination to related species, but by
horizontal transfer to unrelated species, spreading
antibiotic resistance genes, creating new viruses and
bacterial pathogens, and triggering cancer in animals.
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The biotech industry and their supporters claim we need GM crops
to feed a growing world population. But UN studies show that world
population growth has been slowing down since the 1960s. The
prediction in 1998 was that total world population will peak at
7.7 billion in 2040, then go into long term decline to 3.6 billion
by 2150, less than two-third of today's number. The FAO report on
Agriculture released earlier this year, similarly concludes that
existing technologies, not counting GM, will produce enough and
more than enough food to meet population growth for the
foreseeable future. The real problem is distribution, as generally
acknowledged. People are starving in the midst of plenty.
Finally, there is plenty of evidence that low input, ecological
farming methods using crops and knowledge adapted to local
conditions have been increasing yields two, three-fold or more in
Latin America, Africa and Asia since the 1980s, providing social,
environmental and health benefits besides. There are compelling
reasons for farmers to grow and sell locally crops adapted to
local conditions, rather than national or international varieties
for export. Export industrial agriculture is responsible for a
great proportion of the fossil fuel consumption that contributes
to climate change. There is also incalculable health bonus to be
gained by all in phasing out agro-chemicals already linked to
cancers and many other illnesses.
In short, now is the time for all of us to join forces to turn the
tide on bad science and big business, to reclaim the good life in
every sense for everyone.
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Box 2
Evidence that GM and GMOs are unsafe
1. Bt-toxins, isolated from a soil bacterium, Bacillus
thuringiensis, and incorporated into a wide range of GM
crops, are harmful to beneficial and endangered
species, such as lacewings and the monarch butterfly.
2. Several Bt toxins are allergens or suspected allergens,
including the Cry9C in Aventis' Starlink GM corn, which
is responsible for the recent massive recall of
contaminated taco shells and other corn products in the
United States and elsewhere.
3. Random insertion of GM constructs result in monstrous
abnormalities in animals such as pigs and fish. No one
has checked for toxins and allergens.
4. In plants, unexpected toxins and allergens have arisen,
as in Monsanto's GM soya: 26.7% increase in allergen
and growth inhibitor, a-antitrypsin, and 100% increase
in soya lectin, another allergen.
5. In 1989, a genetically modified batch of tryptophan
killed 37 and made 1500 seriously ill, many to this
day.
6. The instability of GM constructs lead to inconsistent
performance in the field, yield drag, and other
failures which have frequently turned up in GM crops.
7. Herbicide tolerant GM crops created weeds and
superweeds. A canola resistant to three different
herbicides made by different companies, was found in
Alberta, Canada.
8. GM genes in GM pollen have transferred to bacteria and
yeasts in the gut of baby bees.
9. UK government scientists provided indirect evidence
that antibiotic resistance genes from GM pollen and
dust can transfer to bacteria inhabiting the human
mouth and respiratory tract.
10. GM genes from GM plants have been found to transfer to
soil bacteria in laboratory experiments and in field
monitoring.
11. GM corn DNA has been found transferred to chicken.
12. `Gene therapy' experiments show that animal cells,
including human cells, can readily take up GM
constructs, and incorporate them into the genome. These
GM constructs are similar to those used to make GM
plants and animals and pose the same risks.
13. New viruses have arisen in GM plants engineered with
viral genes.
14. GM constructs may recombine with, and wake up dormant
viruses that have now been found in all genomes.
Reactivation of dormant viruses by GM constructs in
cultured cells is a major problem in packaging gene
therapy vectors.
Random insertion of GM constructs into animal genomes
may lead to cancer. This also occurs when GM constructs
are put into cultured cells.
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