Scoop has an Ethical Paywall
Robert Mann Address To RCGM
Statement to:
The Royal Commission on Genetic
Modification
by
L. R. B. Mann
consultant
ecologist
P.O. Box 28878, Remuera 1005
telephone:
(9) 524 2949 1 The Global Ecological
Context 2 GM
generally relies on junk science 3 The Roles of
Propaganda 4
Relevant Theology 1. The Global Ecological Context 1.1
Ecological Decline 1.2 Population 1.3 The
GM L-Tryptophan Case 2.1
Outline of Relevant Science Animal
GM, using different methods, concerns some people even more
than crop GM. I know of no way to compare them with any
exactitude, but mammals share more pathogens with humans
than do plants; and moreover, the issue of cruelty arises.
2.2 A Perspective on GM 2.3 100 Molecular
Millionaires http://www.genengnews.com/news1.htm The
1999 edition of Genetic Engineering News Biotechnology companies are used to the ups and downs
of an This seems a suitable place
to quote Nicholas Wade, one of the most experienced science
journalists, who wrote in the New York Times recently that
nearly all GM corporations have yet to win a dollar of
revenue, let alone net a profit. Stock-market ramps up into
mid-air are the usual situation. "to stop means being left
behind" On the
contrary, let us resurrect the reasoning of the Nuclear
Freeze To stop means, therefore, not to
be left behind in any legitimate Resorting to my favourite analogy
as expounded in 'Technological Blind Alleys', please reflect
upon the scorn which has been, at last, earned by the
nuclear fanatics. It is not inherent in science that such
dangerous, expensive, unreliable, feared & despised
technology will come out of applied science; but many young
folk today seem to think the disreputable nuclear
technologies are a fair example of where science must lead
society. GM is already repeating or trumping the same
offence against science, to my very strong regret &
resentment. Meanwhile, the practical question remains:
how should current GM Massey zooms in on science Hot on the heels of
the recent Government announcement of its Bright Future
initiative, Massey University has introduced three new
science degree - - - This piece may not be the most dismaying in
the 18-p Education® Science is in bad trouble in the
universities. Government grants have tended to favour
polytechnics over universities (while encouraging both BMJ
1999;319;1282 ( 13 November ) [abridged] THE IMPACT OF
NEW TECHNOLOGIES IN MEDICINE Mapping the human genome the
genetics revolution JUDY JONES ASKS R L ZIMMERN FROM THE
PUBLIC HEALTH GENETICS UNIT, . . . The psychological and social
implications of greater genetic ... The
complexities of biological phenomena may be so great that,
even This last para aligns fully with the summaries
by scientists such as Prof. Wills and myself. In such a
context of ignorance, some of it never to be relieved, who
should bear the burden of uncertainty? The claim of the GM
industry is that they should be allowed to do their thing
while the rest of us run the risk of harm (and largely pay
for their experiments). I
contend that a major tragic side-effect of the GM craze is
degradation of scientific standards of truth. 2.5
Routinely the gene-jockeys lie In addition to
positive lying, GM is characterised by endemic A prominent gene-tamperer, Dr Phil l'Huiller
of AgResearch Ruakura, purported to correct me after my
invited speech at the NZ Dairy Expo (Hamilton 00-1-27). Dr
l'Huiller's "correction" took the form of asserting that GE
began with the 1953 double helix DNA structure. I responded
that this structure is merely a postulate for the
short-range folding (secondary structure) of 2-strand DNA,
and has extremely little to do with GE which relates to the
sequence of bases (primary structure). He thus
unconsciously amplified the evidence that gene-jockey
science is junk science. He was so anxious to assert to the
dairy farmers & others present that I was in scientific
error that he delivered a ludicrous scientific error
himself. 2.6
What You Don't Know CAN Hurt You It
is an intriguing fluke that this K. planticola fiasco is
reminiscent of Two decades on, how much has
been learned? June 10, 2000, New York Times Dead Birds Are a
Portent Of Return of West Nile Virus Three crows found
dead -- two in New York State and one in New Jersey
-- 2.8 Prestige of
Objectors The Guardian February 26 1999 Risk
of escaped GM food genes Sarah Hall GENES from
genetically modified foods could evade scientists'
control, Steve
Jones, professor of genetics at University College, London,
said He added: "The genes you put in may actually
leak out and get to places Prof Jones was speaking last night at a Guardian
debate - GM Foods: Where Likening the
Green movement to Nazism in its reactionary ignorance
and "I
definitely think we need more knowledge before we make the
same Guardian columnist
and visiting professor at Green College, Oxford,
George He said the aim of genetic
engineering was to wrest control of "the ........ Other
examples of the fallacy "what you don't go looking for won't
hurt you" include the fact that it remained unnoticed until
the 1940s that rubella early in pregnancy is likely to cause
malformations. (from least to
most hazardous) within one species from one species to a
related species e.g. potato to tomato from a non-food
related species to a food species from an unrelated food species e.g. salmon to a
food species e.g. tomato from an unrelated non-food
eukaryote from a non-food prokaryote to a food species
and finally, the most
perversely stimulating for the
gambler-experimenter, I would
like it discussed, because I drew it up on the instigation
of my most successful ex-student, who is now a professor of
biochemistry AND of medicine (unprecedented in this
country). I consider it a prudent preliminary approach to
the biology in question. By contrast, the 'Lego' model
of biology, an unspeakably crude assumption shared by most
gene-jockeys, pretends that the context of a gene is
immaterial, as long as it gets expressed (i.e. the protein
for which the transgene codes does get made in the target
cell). 2.9 The Flagship of the Small Fleet 2.10
Secrecy in GM The
Vancouver Sun Opinion Editorial Ottawa
clings to an absurd code of secrecy on GMOs: When a
scientist asked BY
Mark Winston I'm a bee scientist and beekeeper by
occupation and pastime. The first is that
European consumers have become shy of
anything The second concern is that a protein
resulting from genetic engineering of There
is no evidence to date that either honey or bees have
suffered from Nevertheless, I remain a hard-core scientist at
heart, and when the CFIA Upon returning to Vancouver, I e-mailed the CFIA
staffer, asking him to I knew something was amiss when my e-mail
message was bumped up to a Have honey bee adults
or larvae been examined in tests to evaluate effects What GM crops were
tested? Where did the data originate -- from industry
or an independent source? Can you provide me with the
experimental protocols for these tests? What were the
results? Why can't you reveal the protocols and
results from these tests? I'll be blunt. There is
absolutely no reason for this information to be If a
GM crop is safe for bees and people, the public should be
allowed to It's not just bee data, and it's
not just GM crops that we should be I don't happen to share the deep distrust
expressed by many on the Nor do I
have any particular reason to mistrust the quality
or The
problem lies in government policy that has handcuffed our
civil Or, if a pharmaceutical
company develops a new antibiotic for livestock, The underlying issue is trust. The
consequence of secrecy is that we Anything less than full
disclosure on information pertinent to human
and - 3.1 A Warped
Context --
Charles, Prince of Wales I juxtapose
these two quotes with intent to call in question the
sincerity of the 'Life Sciences' PR corporation. They say
roughly as does the Prince; but their behaviour belies this
image. Well, that's PR for you! 3.1.2 We are thus faced with wave after
wave of superficially plausible images 3.1.3 I give one example out
of many of how PR deceives people on
GM. http://www.the-times.co.uk/news/pages/tim/99/07/22/timnwsnws02012.html?999
Tree trial survives protest attack BY NICK
NUTTALL, ENVIRONMENT CORRESPONDENT A PIONEERING
experiment to make environmentally friendly paper Activists against
modified crops struck at the Berkshire field where 115 Scientists with Zeneca, the British biotechnology
company behind the Nigel Poole, a spokesman for
Zeneca, which has been carrying out the Laboratory studies indicate that
the gene-altered trees, when processed Dr Poole said that if the
pulping and paper-making confirmed laboratory
Dr Poole said: "I think these people went too far this time.
These trees are Jack Cunningham, the
Cabinet Office Minister, yesterday criticised He was speaking after another incident, last
weekend, when up to 500 [ image ] 3.1.4 Here is another
example of mass media coverage of GM. This is indeed
what Monsanto PR has since done. I do not doubt they are
still working on this technology in their labs and the
announced delay in trying to deploy it is only making a
virtue of necessity. 3.1.6 Another lulu: This
definitely belongs with the immortal testimony of Ed
"Father 3.1.7 More PR: They
are in fact extremely far from innate. The two categories
of B.A.
continues: It is tiresome to find this lie still
promulgated. What the gene-jockeys call 'single genes' turn
out usually to be bundles including not only a gene for the
desired property but also a vector, promoter, and
antibiotic-resistance 'marker' gene. There are serious
grounds for concern about each of these, and it is sleazy
pseudo-science to claim that functionally this amounts to a
'single gene'. to whom? This is
*THE* classic lie of advocates for GM. The whole point is
to insert genes which the target organism could not acquire
by any usual NZ Herald Your
correspondent Colin Little asserts that genetic engineering
is 3.2 Flops 3.3 A NZ Flop 3.3.1 Dear Sir, Yours
faithfully, [RM ] [ the rest of the story: the
Ministry for the Environment published a couple of sentences
saying the experiment was a complete flop, the goats had
been destroyed, and Prof Bullock had moved overseas. If
this is the standard of reporting of GE science, it must be
adjudged totally unsatisfactory. ] 3.3.2 Yet another
lulu: Leaving aside for the moment the facts, what
is more important about this line of talk is its logic: it
quietly assumes transgenic organisms are of a very similar
kind to organisms arising by natural breeding. 3.3.3 The assumption that the safeguards built in to
natural breeding are no more reliable or effective than
those of gene-jockeys is more important than many have yet
understood. I completely disagree with this
assumption. 3.3.4 Ace cow cloners David Wells & Phil l'Huiller
(The Geniuses according to the Waikato Times page-wide
headline) have threatened to take their project overseas if
they don't get even more public funding. 3.3.5 The
commentary Kuiper et al. produced on Pusztai's paper in The
Lancet, October 16 1999 deserves careful study. > Another shortcoming of the study is
that the diets were protein A different impression is
produced by mentioning, as few have Is it claimed that such stringent testing
has been done on current RR® soybeans, NuLeaf™ potatoes,
etc? 3.3.6 Meanwhile, I would interpret the main facts of
the Pusztai affair The similarity is
noteworthy to the Losey et al. vilifications. 3.4 Labelling of GEF 3.4.2 I
regard as very reasonable the suggestion that campaigns for
labelling are actually intended to ban GEF. The broad
pattern has been for industry to claim that, say, seatbelts
or cleaner exhausts are expensive, and then to deliver at
vast price some technical fix (which always has its own
failure modes). Labs closely involved with transnational
accounting corporations (e.g. KPMG) will channel more money
into molecular biology in the Crick tradition. 3.4.3 What is needed instead of course is much
more crop rotation in most 3.5
Ethics of Direct Action 3.5.2 Soon after
Goldsmith's urging, a group calling themselves Wild Greens
uprooted - leaving in the field all the living material
plus their own clothes - an inadequately-contained trial
plot near maturity of potatoes in our South Island. The
particular spuds were GM to contain an 'improved' copy of a
toxin gene from the African clawed toad - for the
little-needed purpose of inhibiting bacterial rot. The
offender, Tony Conner PhD, told the nation on TV that he had
put only one gene into the spuds - a lie. 3.5.3 Democratic processes have drastically
failed to appraise GE crops, and GE animals, which deserve
far more scrutiny than they have yet had. For those who
realise that this dereliction entails unprecedented hazards
on scales up to global, the concept of sabotage arises.
Gandhi is the big name for most, but Te Whiti is the big
name here, and many of us are inspired by the example given
in the Cleansing of The Temple. 3.5.5 Having helped Greepneace as early
as 1973 I have followed with mounting horror their
withdrawing into an obscure relatively remote 3.5.6 The general principle
seems to me to be that when the government has persistently,
drastically failed to protect people &/or ecosystems from a
serious hazard then we must fall back on direct action as
urged by Goldsmith. 3.5.7 Advocates of GEF routinely claim
no harm has been recorded from GEF. 3.5.8 I hasten to add that
labelling is not an ethical answer if 3.5.9 I deplore the mischievous
gagging writ lodged by the PR company Communications®
Trumps™ against Ms Fitzsimons MP claiming 'defamation' for
her revealing a leaked copy of CT's advice to King Salmon NZ
Ltd to suppress all mention of malformations.
http://www.environmentaldefense.org/pubs/Reports/Aquaculture/transgenic.html 3.5.10 A corollary of the
Bunkle/Coney/Cartwright travesty is insertion into ethics
committees of a fast-turnover sisterhood, some of them
selected also on the further criterion of race, who lack
more or less completely the qualifications which would
enable understanding of the proposed science and technology,
so that they cannot make any informed assessment of the
ethics entailed. ERMA is only one level of such corruption,
and Kedgley has recently introduced legislation to expand
the realm of ethics committees. 3.5.11 Ace gene-jockey
Tony Conner asserted on TVNZ '20/20' some preliminary claims
from his CRI experiments at Lincoln (Canterbury,
NZ). 3.5.12 The NZ Association of Scientists put out
a questionnaire thru the RSNZ weekly email 'Alert'. It was
a glaringly biased questionnaire, obviously designed to
promote GE and to make out that legal controls on GE will
force scientists out of the country. >It is possible that a
proposed moratorium on releasing I am not a
current experimenter in the field, but I was in molecular
biology before most of the current practitioners and I
attempt to contribute from that perspective to what some
term the debate. I regard this 'debate' as very scanty &
sporadic & even inchoate, but it is something toward
what yes, it would strengthen that
commitment. no; and if Phil l'Huiller
has, then let us wish him Godspeed. of course not - the artificial
commercial bubble is about to burst, and there are far too
many scientists in the field already to be sustained by any
reasonable future developments. Biologists are being purged
from university positions to make room for molecular
biologists in a 'gene rush' less rational than a typical
gold rush. 3.6 The Conflict with 'Animal
Rights' Activists 3.7 Involvement with the Computer
Trade file: faith in
komputink 3.7.2 When first 'fly-by-wire'
(computer-control) airliners were mooted, the union of
flight engineers in NZ investigated thoroughly because their
jobs would evaporate to the extent that these types of
airliner would be deployed. 3.7.3 You may recall the mid-1988
crash of a similar Airbus at the Paris air show. A senior
test pilot instructed to carry out a simple, safe manouevre
to help sell billions of dollars' worth of airliners does
not crash the plane, but he was killed so it was convenient
to blame him. I have never believed he did anything wrong;
I think some other subroutine kicked in and over-rode the
pilots' controls, in this case depriving them of power
needed to climb. 3.7.4 You may also recall that, soon
after Boeing had gone the same way, a near-new twin-engined
Boeing of Lauda Air, climbing thru about 30,000ft over
Thailand after takeoff from Bangkok, suddenly was destroyed
because one engine was slammed onto full REVERSE - a
manoeuvre the pilots could not do even if they wished.
3.7.5 These mishaps in aviation occurred despite the fact
that the IT experts in the aviation industry shun such piles
of junk as Windows® which, for instance, allowed the "Life
Sciences" PR outfit to send you and all your email list a
potentially troublesome computer virus. 3.7.6 Blind faith
in komputink has worried me. Refusal to admit
even 3.7.7 I challenge those who
have detailed understanding of this dishonest ---- 4. Relevant Theology 4.1 Crude
Atheism James
Watson endorses scientists "playing God" At the annual
meeting of the British all-party Parliamentary
and The
leading environmental journalist George Monbiot has made
some The
strongest reasons to be extremely cautious about GM are
theologically-based ethical reasons. Sure, the fears of
poisonings by GEF, and of ecological disruption, are
generally sound (as I have indicated above); but the fear of
unethical gene-tamperers playing God is - with all its
admitted vagueness - to my mind more important. 4.2 'Maadi Religion' Australasia has
been for a couple decades approx 85% urban; we
have 4.3 A Respectable Expert Paul Davies THE FIFTH MIRACLE - The
Search for The Origin of Life p5 but he goes on immediately: Yet this is a
dance with no sign of a choreographer. No
intelligent he seems to realise this is
implausible: How did something so immensely complicated,
so finessed, so exquisitely pp35-6 p42 {This is an
outright error. LH helices are perfectly respectable among
the pp81-2 ( note 2 question-beggings: 'presumably
. . . ' It is worth repeating that, in spite
of the appearance of purpose, p77 { next section: THE GENETIC CODE
} . . . p81 I have subjected the reader to the
technicalities of the . . . p84 I have described how life, at rock
bottom, has the same logical
( he hasn't , and it hasn't) Tell that
to Newton and Faraday! It was to at least some
extent Are these of similar authority
to 'the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi'? Has Davies
stated them? Where can we read The Those comments on a prominent scientist's
purported philosophy will, I hope, give some idea of how far
adrift atheism has led scientists. It does matter that such
crude epistemology is common among gene-tamperers. They are
therefore, as a group, less to be entrusted with dangerous
technology. 4.4 A Better Path The vagueness
in that outline may seem daunting - it certainly does to
me. But that is no excuse to shrink from this, our calling
as stewards of God's Creation. * *
* I would be glad to discuss any of the above with
the Commission. I briefly presented my credentials in my
application to take part more fully from the start; it is
unclear whether Mr Brown QC showed you that document.
---
email:
I
align myself with Dr Peter Wills who told the Commission:
scant consideration has been given by the broader
scientific community to the overall effects of the
enterprise of genetic engineering and its capability of
transforming biological reality beyond historical
recognition.
I have thought exactly so for a
quarter-century, and am deeply worried that control of this
class of technology is still so poorly developed.
Control of GM in New Zealand has in some legal forms
been ahead of many countries. But actual control of GM food
has been almost comprehensively frustrated by the ANZFA
staff. The politicians who front for these industry stooges
are largely ignorant and appear to exert less power than
depicted for ministers of the crown in 'Yes Minister'.
Within New Zealand ERMANZ is little better, and the
politically-appointed ERMA board have interpreted the HaSNO
Act far too permissively, issuing 23 approvals for field
trials in 23 decisions. ERMA has turned out to be an
expensive rubber stamp, collecting a lot of money from both
the government and the applicants. It has exerted
outrageously little control. ERMANZ staff have been very
obstructive to some who advocate stronger controls of GM.
The presence of a pro-GM ERMA agent (Ms Beale) on the RCGM
staff is wrongful and seriously undermines the Commission's
status.
Actual harm from GM food has almost certainly
occurred - as reflected by $4,000,000,000 in out-of-court
settlements. Actual ecological harm is shown by scientific
trials to be truly on the cards.
The burden of proof
must be placed firmly upon the applicants to justify GM
experiments, especially field trials.
If there were a
genuine inspection system, with punishments for breaches,
less regulatory charade & fees might be justified for the
least hazardous GMOs in proper containment.
The
strongest reasons for control of GM are theological.
The material I present to the Commission is compiled over
the past two years from many sources. (I use various fonts
to denote various origins.)
This information is
organised under broad headings:-
1.1 Ecological Decline
1.2
Population
1.3 The GM L-Tryptophan Case
2.1 Outline of
Relevant Science
2.2 A Perspective on GM
2.3 100
Molecular Millionaires
2.4 The General Outlook for
GM
2.5 Routinely the gene-jockeys lie
2.6 What You
Don't Know CAN Hurt You
2.7 The enormous
venture-capital bubble of DNA sequencing
2.8 Prestige
of Objectors
2.9 The Flagship of the Small
Fleet
2.10 Secrecy in GM
3.1 A Warped Context
3.2 Flops
3.3
A NZ Flop
3.4 Labelling of GEF
3.5 Ethics of
Direct Action
3.6 The Conflict with 'Animal Rights'
Activists
3.7 Involvement with the Computer Trade
4.1 Crude Atheism
4.2 'Maadi
Religion'
4.3 A Respectable Expert
4.4 A Better
Path
The context into which GM emerges is
summarised in a recent report from the World Resources
Institute (www.wri.org), the UN Environment Programme, and
other agencies. "Every measure used by scientists to assess
the health of the world's ecosystems tells us that we are
drawing on them more than ever and degrading them at an
accelerating pace," Dr Klaus Topfer, Executive Director of
the United Nations Environment Programme said. Grave
conclusions along these lines have been stated for 3 decades
in The Ecologist and during that period by large groups of
Nobel Prize winners etc. The Worldwatch Institute is one
of the most reliable sources for science-based
interpretation, notably in their annual 'state of the world'
reports. I attach a commentary on one of their recent
surveys, pointing out that they have been, if anything,
insufficiently alarmist.
We are living through the
early stages of what bids fair to become one of the most
severe periods of extinction in the whole existence of the
biosphere, and such organisms as survive are being subjected
to increasing loads of chemicals and radiations causing
mutations, cancer, malformations, and mental disturbances
(where applicable). Care for Creation is evidently a low
priority for the overdeveloped world, and for the elites of
the never-to-be-developed world. Christianity can take
little satisfaction from the state of the biosphere in which
the human has lately become so numerous and so
technologically intoxicated. Nevertheless I will argue that
Christianity is the only known basis for solving the
problems posed by GM.
The human
population is now expanding by about 90M/y, many of whom are
born into severe deprivation & malnutrition. Starvation is
a monstrous and growing problem. But the answers which are
known are not being used. Meanwhile, education & practice
in science are being warped in favour of the claim that GE
can feed the hungry which, as the Prince of Wales and some
scientists point out, is a claim devoid of scientific
plausibility and reeking of emotional blackmail.
As a
long-time university teacher of Environmental Studies I
disbelieve that current trends, taken as a whole, will EVER
double the human population. Tragically, instead of
controlling population by known methods, we are delegating
this task to the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.
Thus, the world upon which GM
bursts is already in a very bad way, and being grievously
damaged. Ecosystems are being degraded and destroyed.
Species are being exterminated at a terrible rate. On top
of all that, we now release novel organisms with
combinations of genes that have never occurred, created by
radically novel methods which may have unforeseen
effects.
In such a rapidly-changing context, severe
damage can be caused by GM but go unnoticed. The toxic
impurities in the GM versions of the 'health food'
supplement L-tryptophan a decade ago constitute an
exceedingly important example which has been mis-depicted by
the Royal Society of NZ. I have, with an international team
of experts, written a 37-ref review of this very important
evidence which is under consideration by a technical
journal. Meanwhile I append an outline review.
2. GM generally relies on junk science
In the limited time we have
to discuss ethics of GM, we must take as read much of the
science. The two best websites are www.psrast.org and
www.ucsusa.org. You will soon see that the main commercial
promotors of GM speak with forked tongue to you through PR
deceivers. I am gravely dismayed that these operatives have
been encouraged to do so by your failure to require oaths,
so that lies to you are not liable to provoke prosecutions
for perjury.
Here we have time only to note the
outlines of the technology. Groups of genes from various
organisms & viruses, often synthetic approximate copies, are
inserted by more or less radically unnatural methods into
living cells. Some of the processes used are reminiscent of
viral infections, using modified bits copied from the only
known tumour-causing plasmid of the plant kingdom. Another
technology, favoured for monocotyledons such as maize, uses
the 'gene gun' to implement the technology of 'biolistics':
the groups of foreign DNA are coated onto heavy-metal
particles much smaller than the target cells and blasted in
by a micro-shotgun. Nothing like this is known in nature.
Not surprisingly, most of the target cells are killed.
The surviving cells are then challenged with an
antibiotic, resistance to which is encoded by a gene which
was attached to the main transgene of the foreign DNA
'cassette' that was inserted into them. Those few cells
which grow despite that antibiotic in an artificial medium
are likely to have incorporated also the desired transgene
- in most of the commercial crops so far, conferring either
resistance to a particular herbicide spray or ability to
produce within themselves a modified proteinaceous
insecticide.
These surviving cells are then grown into a
whole plant. Cuttings may then be grown from that.
The
assumption that an organism of such bizaree origins won't
have unexpected properties is junk science, an imprudent
gamble. And at best it represents extreme narrowing of the
genetic robustness of the target plant. Even if all turns
out luckily for the property desired of the transgene(s),
other properties may turn out to be unpredictably odd (e.g.
the 30% yield deficit of GM soybeans in N. Amer. drought
districts, owing to unforeseen inferior stem
properties).
I emphasize the prudence of Prof. Patrick
Brown, a consultant to some NZ gene-tamperers:
http://news.gefree.org.nz/patrick-brown-jul-2000.html
I hope it does not
seem immodest of me to say my policy has not had to change
during the quarter-century of my sporadic involvement in
this controversy. I reiterated it in my chapter
'Technological Blind Alleys', appended hereto. (A similar
general review has been on the website www.psrast.org over a
year, and no disputes about it have reached my attention.)
But this chapter was suppressed by a RSNZ operative who
edited it out of the book 'Designer Genes'. I return later
to the tragic pro-GM bias of the RSNZ hitherto.
I
believe that both the hazards AND the benefits of GM are,
generally, speculative. Ill-founded claims of benefits have
stimulated rushes to premature commercial deployment,
leading to some flops (see www.ucsusa.org) and some known
harm as well as perhaps some side-effects which remain
unknown because nobody has looked for them or indeed they
have not yet had time to emerge in those doomed to them.
The broad picture is of gambling rather than care. Here is
a tiny glimpse of the money involved:
entrepreneurial business fraught with risk.
Depending on the financing
environment, life often seems
like a roller-coaster ride to them.
But for many
biotech stockholders, particularly those with doctoral
degrees, 1999 is proving to be a memorable year. The
1999
edition of Genetic Engineering News 100 Molecular
Millionaires
includes a record number of doctorates -
89! This compares to 69
last year and 72 in 1997. It
looks like years of dedication to
research and hours
upon hours of work in the lab or clinic are
finally
paying off for those with a Ph.D., M.D., or Sc.D. This
is
made very clear when you consider that our list
included only 63
doctoral millionaires in 1996 and 64
in 1995.
William K. Bowes, Jr., is our top
millionaire with $286,134,875 of
Amgen stock. Our
number one doctoral millionaire is Endre A.
Balazs,
Ph.D., with $109,281,795 of Biomatrix stock.
The
value of the biotech/pharmaceutical stock held by all 100
of
our 1999 millionaires totals $1.41 billion. This
compares to $1.76
billion last year, $1.97 billion in
1997 and $2.05 billion in 1996.
The equity markets
for the biotech industry experienced one of
their
worst years in 1998. Large public financings were
negligible
as investors looked elsewhere to invest
their money.
Nevertheless, our list of Molecular
Millionaires demonstrates that
significant awards await
many of those who remain bullish on
biotech. The
industry posted bioproduct sales of over $13 billion in
1998 and saw 24 biodrugs approved. There are over
1,000
products in clinical trials and about 80 are
already being sold on
the market.
With the
ongoing evolution of the new drug discovery paradigm,
which is characterized by the novel technologies of
high-throughput
screening, genomics, proteomics and
pharmacogenomics, the
bioindustry appears poised for
rapid growth in the new millennium.
Since many of
these techniques are based on the advances of
laboratory researchers and, increasingly, computer
scientists, we
can expect to see the number of new
molecular millionaires to
grow in the near future.
*Lindsay A. Rosenwald, Ph.D., owns shares in eight
different
companies. These include: Procept
($7,948,876); Neose
Technologies ($7,043,451);
Biocryst Pharmaceuticals
($3,545,753); Cytoclonal
Pharmaceuticals ($3,241,838);
Interneuron
Pharmaceuticals ($2,724,279); Avax Technologies
($1,874,026); Titan Pharmaceuticals ($1,324,733); and
Ribogene
($1,107,215).
2.4 The General
Outlook for GM
I believe there may be benefits which
will emerge from properly
targetted transfers between
closely-related strains of a given species.
This is how
GM began in this country, and I had no objection to that
cautious
beginning. I deplore the fact that this caution
was soon thrown to the
winds. The offensive rush to
deployment which has lately taken over, in
the hands of
Novartis etc, is likely to provoke restrictions and,
more
practically effective, loss of reputation for
science which will leave
undone work that ought to be
done. A much more cautious start would have
led to surer
building. I think that is a fair summary of Professor
Brown's assessment.
- Ed Teller
special interview, 'Science at
War'
Prime TV (Auckland N.Z.) 00-1-17
campaign. When the USA govt had 30,000 nuclear
weapons, Prof Frank von
Hippel (Princeton), Sen. Mark
Hatfield (Ore.) and many others pointed out
that if
you're in an elevator going in the wrong direction, in order
to
reverse you will have first to stop.
That campaign
did succeed: expansion of the arsenal was stopped,
and
since then the USA has substantially decreased its nuclear
arsenal.
Similarly, if GE is to be brought under proper
control, expansion of the number of expts will have to be
stopped, pending the first careful examination of which
types of GE should be permitted and what conditions
would
make them acceptable.
sense. My country chose
to be "left behind" in nuclear power (and to
exclude
nuclear weapons). We are now conducting a full public
inquiry
by a Royal Commission. The world has to stop, in
the sense of stopping the
ill-examined expansion of GM.
Much more stringent standards must be
imposed. It is far
from clear what low level of GM will continue after
this
process - it will be largely if not entirely in
containment, I expect.
proposals be assessed. No nation
has yet set up anything like a duly
cautious procedure,
with the result that farmers have been conned into
buying
dubious & possibly hazardous seed, and labs continue to
conduct
dangerous experiments which, if containment
fails, could cause very nasty epidemics. (This latter
issue, to the fore during the mid-70s debate, has been
pushed to the background by the more obviously urgent issue
of uncontained GM crops & animals; while fully understanding
that relegation, I urge that we renew awareness of the
labs.)
New Zealand Herald
EDUCATION Supplement
99-11-11
majors for 2000.
The university has
launched programmes in food science, human nutrition, and
sports science for students at its Albany and Palmerston
North campuses.
The courses are the first of their kind
in the North Island, the head of
Massey's institute of
food, nutrition and human health, Professor Paul
Moughan,
says.
He is anticipating a high demand for university
graduates in these major areas.
"With an increasing
awareness of the effects of nutrition and exercise on health
and longevity, there are growing opportunities for
employment using human nutrition and sports science
knowledge and skills," he says.
"The students can expect
a rigorous and interesting course of study built
around
an understanding of the scientific method. The courses will
be
aimed at developing the principles of science and will
set the students up
well for a multiplicity of careers in
science."
Students can begin studying the new topics in
the first semester of 2000. Enrolments close on December
15.
Supplement, but the Massey food
science 'launch' concerns me in several respects.
This
Massey announcement prompts me to peer into the
'Bright
Future' of food science, especially the possible
expansion & warping of
tertiary education in food science
intimately connected with commercial GM.
I have serious
difficulty distinguishing Bright Future from the earlier
Kraft durch Freude (Strength Through Joy, the initials KdF
of
which adorned early VW). I resent & conspue its
conspicuous econobabble.
It is a different set of
slogans, but their psychological quality is similar to that
of the totalitarian National Socialism chanting 'the Slavs
are sub-human' as it delivered the economic goodies from the
prototypical modern military-industrial complex.
Massey PR claims nothing so modest as training
technicians or even
technologists for the food industry;
it is science that is to be the basis
for bulk jobs, they
claim.
I am sorry to say that even the best food science
scene in NZ -
the Massey setup - is no great centre of
science. I fear the polytechs
which are likely to corner
much of the funding predicated on the need for
GM
infrastructure - research, development, deployment and
monitoring -
will be even less scientifically
impressive. The visible Massey GM
promoters - notably
Brian Jordan, and Paula Jameson who has duly been appointed
to the IBAC - have made inaccurate public claims
exaggerating the usefulness and understating the potential
harm from GM.
to
keep unqualified unemployed youth off the streets - a
cynical sabotage of tertiary education) but total govt
funding has been steadily decreased, forcing down the
staff/student ratios, deleting technical staff, and purging
biologists to make room for gene-jockeys who are expected to
bring in money from venture capitalists.
Money has
flowed relatively more to polytechs, some of which have
claimed
to become universities in which doctorates can be
supervised by staff who lack any higher degree. These
jumped-up polytechs have delusions of grandeur. They are
blatantly devoted to training for industry, yet they strike
academic poses.
The U of Auckland chemistry building has
an empty hole in the basement for a nuclear reactor, and a
little-used top storey of stainless benches in high-rate
fumehoods etc, predicated on the need to train the
infrastructure of the nuclear power station programme (now
defunct). In a country claiming to have abandoned planning
in favour of market forces, we now have huge subsidies -
approx. $120M to date - to GM which is evidently incapable
of developing on the fabled 'level playing field' where
organic agriculture is left to struggle. The Massey
launches may at worst turn out to be just another subsidy to
GM.
The challenge to proponents of proper agriculture is
to restore the status
of the term 'agriculture' for a
start - beginning with Massey's own degree and faculty
repositionings.
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/abridged/319/7220/1282
STRANGEWAYS RESEARCH
LABORATORY,
CAMBRIDGE, ABOUT THE ARGUMENTS FOR AND
AGAINST EXPLOITING THE RECENT ADVANCES IN GENETICS IN
CLINICAL MEDICINE
knowledge, and the
ability of individuals to make their own risk
assessments
as a result of that knowledge, are difficult to
predict.
Public opinion is divided over what constitutes
progress, as the recent
furore over genetically modified
organisms has demonstrated. "The gene
as an icon of
scientific determinism, corporate power (as represented
by
the pharmaceutical industry), discriminatory
practices, and the legacy
of the eugenic movement have
done much to dampen widespread enthusiasm
for genetic and
reproductive technologies," argues Ron Zimmern.
with advanced computing technologies at our
disposal, the interactions
between genes, and between
genes and environment, may defy the power of
human
analysis.
I contend this is
immoral.
Here is a glimpse of what has been happening
recently in our universities.
Biologists are being
purged, down the road to make room for gene-jockeys who (it
is claimed) will bring in money from GE venture-drongos.
At Auckland, the local expert on ferns & mosses is thus
purged. Who cares? At VUW, the country's only university
expert on classification of fungi has been given the bullet.
Who cares?
Long after the bubble of GM euphoria has
burst, the real scientific intellectual strands of our
culture will be struggling to recover from this sabotage.
Who cares?
Meanwhile, sideshows fill the media.
Prof
Bronowski's little book 'Science and Human Values'
(London:
Hutchinson 1961) rams home the point that
science is - or was, until then
- based on
truth-telling as a convention. You can read it in a couple
hours, which is well worth doing.
But today the GM fad
has radically degraded this honourable convention.
* They pretend the DNA
& RNA alphabets have only 4 letters
(GCAT and GCAU,
respectively)
e.g. "The DNA is a very long molecule
built of only 4 letters."
- Dr Andy Shenk, Genesis
R&D Corp (Auckland, N.Z.)
TV1 'Holmes show'
00-6-27
But it is a well-known fact that DNA contains
'odd' bases - methylC, methylG, and others.
* They
pretend that the primary structure - the sequence
- of
any protein will normally determine its folding (secondary &
tertiary
structure) when this is known to be less than
generally true.
* They pretend that the effects of a
gene inserted by drastically, usually lethal, unnatural
methods are predictable, when they are known to be extremely
variable.
* They pretend that a cell selected on just
one property - usually
resistance to an antibiotic -
and then grown into a whole organism, e.g.
a potato, will
have all properties at least as good as a normal
organism.
* They tell the public, and you, that no harm
and great benefits are the record of GM.
.
Another
tiresome example of misleading extremism is the common
attempt to make out that ONLY the neoDarwinian model holds
- that no other sort of inheritance also exists. This junk
science has lately the stupid & dangerous motive of propping
up GM, trying to maximize the commercial potential of the
structural genes which GM can insert.
One of my
favourite refutations of this crudity is the inheritance of
the induced state of the lac operon in certain E. coli
strains thru many generations in inducer concentrations so
low that they are incapable of inducing that operon. This
is not readily intelligible to the public, or even to many
scientists that have not studied that classic operon. But
it sure is Lamarckian inheritance.
secrecy,
for commercial motives. This too is inimical to science.
There is no such thing as secret science - sooner or later
it jumps the rails, as evidenced by the nuclear
industry.
I could go on. The point I'm making, in a
spirit of grief for one of the greatest creations of the
human intellect, is that never since the Nazis attempted to
legitimise racism has science been so suddenly & drastically
degraded. Greed has swamped truth & cooperation. This
alone is a good reason to control GM far more than has yet
been done.
"If we can help just one MS sufferer . . . "
says on TV this same man, whose proposed insertion of a
human nerve-cell gene into cows was being held up not for
scientific or ethical reasons but because some Maoris were
saying it could be "culturally offensive" and somehow affect
their whakapapa. At the Dairy Expo I asked this man whether
he really believes that, as he has claimed, drinking milk
containing a human nerve-cell protein is likely to work as a
treatment for MS. His reply, correctly reported in the
February Dairyman , was only that he hoped it will.
Here is another example
of how GM can cause harm - though in this case intercepted
before release.
Klebsiella planticola, a common soil
bacterium, was genetically engineered by a German research
institute to make ethanol for industrial purposes. The
inventors had planned a recycling system: farmers would give
them agricultural slash, which would be used for the
bacterial fermentation; the resulting ethanol would be
separated out, and the sludge could be given
back to the
farmers to spread on their fields as fertilizer. It all
sounded very good for the environment, but how much soil
ecologists impinged on the planning is unclear.
Dr
Elaine Ingham of Oregon State University and her graduate
student M.T. Holmes discovered to their alarm that soils
containing the engineered
organism killed wheat
seedlings, most likely through alcohol production in the
root system, which kills roots at very low concentrations.
Mycorrhizal fungi were also killed.
Had the engineered
sludges been returned to farmers, it would
have
drastically degraded their soil, rendering them
unable to grow many or all
plants. Since K. planticola
is a ubiquitous organism, found in the root systems of
plants all over the world, the GM mutant could have spread
and made ALL soil unable to support crops! Microorganisms
are easily spread on surfaces of insects, on the feet of
birds, on people's feet, etc; this engineered bacterium
could have spread world-wide quite rapidly.
Luckily Dr.
Ingham and her student did the work before commercialization
and were able to warn the company, who didn't commercialize
it. The references are:
Holmes T M. and E.R. Ingham
(1999) Ecological effects of genetically
engineered
Klebsiella planticola released into agricultural soil
with
varying clay content. Appl. Soil Ecol. 3
394-399;
Holmes T.M. and Ingham E.R. The effects of
genetically engineered
microorganisms on soil foodwebs.
in: Supplement to Bulletin of Ecological
Soc. Of America
75/2, Abs of the 79th Annual ESA Meeting: Science
and
Public Policy?, Knoxville, TN, 7-11 August,
1994.
Dr. Ingham can be reached at:
inghame@bcc.orst.edu.
The story really shows the awesome
power of genetic engineering, the
multidisciplinary
nature of the review it requires, and the folly of releasing
GM microbes before very extensive contained studies.
This is a very good example of how slight changes in a
highly evolved
bacterium can greatly change its
ecological significance. Klebsiella spp have adapted to
many different niches; some are also not-too-virulent human
pathogens. Klebsiella pneumoniae rarely causes human
disease but is a common cause of aspiration pneumonia in
alcoholics (i.e. a leading cause of a somewhat rare
condition). We know that small changes in bacteria or
viruses often tip the delicate balance between a pathogen
and host and result in large-scale outbreaks of disease.
Many "new" diseases have occurred, like syphilis in the 15th
century, when slightly changed microbes suddenly cause
epidemics. The 1919-20 influenza pandemic, which killed
about 20 million - more than the Great War it closely
followed - was caused by a simple mutation in a virus.
one of the very first GM microbes, New
Zealand's own bold 'nitrogen-fixing
mycorrhiza'. A dozen
pine seedlings in the preliminary pot-trial died, and
the
transgenic fungus, derived from one which had been normally
ectomycorrhizal, was found at autopsy to have invaded pine
root cells.
This caper was written up to some
extent:
Giles KL, Whitehead HCM (1975). The transfer of
nitrogen fixing ability to a eukaryote cell. Cytobios 14:
49-61.
Giles KL, Whitehead HCM (1977). Reassociation of
a modified mycorrhiza with
the host plant roots (pinus
radiata) and the transfer of acetylene reduction activity.
Plant and Soil. Preprint.
Epidemiology on harm from GEF involves
great difficulties even if the GEF is labelled. The
ever-changing context is illustrated by the story
below.
were confirmed yesterday as this year's first known
victims of the West Nile
virus, the mosquito-borne
disease that killed seven people in New York City
last
year, health officials said.
Last summer's
outbreak prompted widespread fear of the virus, and sweeping
efforts by city, county and state health officials to
monitor for the disease this year and to try to eradicate
the mosquito population through treatment of breeding
grounds with larvicide and public education campaigns.
Officials hope to avoid the aerial spraying that was used
last year, when
the outbreak was discovered late in the
summer and many less-drastic methods of preventing
mosquitoes from hatching would no longer have been
effective.
Yesterday's cases surfaced much earlier in
the year than the first cases
last year, but Dr. Ostraff
cautioned against any inference that the disease
may be
more widespread this summer. "Last year," he said, "nobody
was
looking for the virus."
2.7 The enormous
venture-capital bubble of DNA sequencing
When the BBC
World Service interviewed me on this, I stated the 'human
genome project' is a vulgar con-trick. I stand by this
condemnation.
This commercial racket is based on junk
science and is grossly overhyped using crude caricatures of
biochemistry & genetics.
The recent fad of exaggerating
the biological & social significance
of genes has been
ably criticised by Dorothy Nelkin in her book 'The
DNA
Mystique', and earlier by Jonathan King one of the
pioneer critics of GE
and still a professor at MIT. If
we really want to improve health & welfare, we know many
good methods without gambling on GE; and the outer limits
of
credible potential benefits from GE are very modest
compared with the hype.
To the extent that genes are
important, the idea of improving on them by "engineering"
has been enormously overblown.
And the sequencing
corporations generally underplay the little-understood
importance of the minor bases within DNA. It is not
only
journalists who oversimplify by stating The Big Four
Rule OK;
your actual 'genome' enthusiast typically tries
to patent rows of 3-letter codons in just the 4-letter
alphabet of the journos.
But the truth is that other,
minor ('odd') bases occur in DNA.
Some of them are
methylated derivatives of the Big 4, notably Me-C and Me-G;
but there are others, and this fact has been known 4
decades. What is actually sequenced is almost always copy
molecules made in systems which make not true copies but
drongo polymers on the slogan The Big Four Rule OK. Thus
the sequences for which patents are sought will be,
generally, false.
The leader of the Arabidopsis Genome
Project, my sometime MSc
student, responds that he thinks
odd bases other than Me-C must be very
rare, but he
admits we 'haven't got a handle on them'.
Even if they
were all true sequences, their usefulness is far more
limited than the enthusiasts make out. The general business
model is: find a mutated sequence correlated with an
illness, or failing that a pseudo-illness (e.g. AAT
deficiency), and then work up an image of correcting that
dud gene either by gene therapy (of which few if any actual
examples exist) or by other biochemical intervention. There
is more wrong than right with this model.
Along with
most other GE, this approach is futuristic rather than
realistic. The gene-jockeys, intoxicated with power over
life, pretend that they are about to deliver something
useful, in order to get funding for their experiments from
venture-capitalists who don't understand.
I realise many
will find it hard to believe, but there you have it.
The
"exact copies" of genes in the constructs inserted by GE are
based on the simplistic assumption that the Big Four A, T, C
& G will suffice, even tho' minor bases are reasonably
thought to exist at unknown spots in the real sequences.
These 'odd' bases have apparently been carried on in
evolution but they are assumed to be non-functional in the
sense that the 'nearest' of the Big 4 can be blithely
substituted. There are 64 codons all accounted for, so
we'll move freely to & fro between nucleic acids and
polypeptides on that self-consistent but simplistic
model.
Every time I look into some part of GM science I
find an intellectual brothel.
Among the more dishonest furphies from GM PR
is the image that no prestigious scientists share grave
reservations about GM. From the invention of GM in the
mid-70s there has in fact been a slender but prestigious
minority strand of scientific objection.
One of the
best-known genetics experts, Reith lecturer while he was
still at Aberdeen, says the same as I've said all along
about transgenic organisms in general. Note he says this
notwithstanding his declared animosity & contempt toward
conservationists:
"leak out" and infect other organisms, an
eminent genetics professor
warned yesterday.
evolution was " predictable" and organisms' genetic
make up altered
naturally as they developed
resistance.
where we can't control them
... Genes can leap in the most extraordinary
and
alarming way. There's no reason to say the same thing
cannot happen in
genetically modified plants. It only
has to happen once. The dangers are
really quite
real."
does the truth lie? - at
Westminster Central Hall, central London.
emotiveness, he said he [nevertheless] supported a
moratorium on growing
GM crops in Britain.
mistakes with GM foods that we made with penicillin
- and I most clearly
think we should stop doing this
until we know more about it," he said.
Monbiot, warned there was a major gulf between the
manufacturers' claim
for GM foods and what they really
intended to do: rather than increase
food production in
the next century, they would be "the hunger merchants
of
the new millennium. "
biggest
commodity market of all - namely food".
I would be glad to explain further
evidence on this problem - that surprisingly intelligent
people presume lack of evidence equals proof of safety.
2.8 Ranking of Hazards
I copy to you the
following list which I presented to our statutory authority
the ERMA 10-12-98 - a rough suggestion for how, on
general biological grounds, one might rank priorities for
prima facie hazard.
A DRAFT ORDER OF INHERENT
BIOLOGICAL HAZARD IN TRANSGENIC EXPERIMENTS
- the only type
of transgenics we would normally approve, and then only
after very careful detailed scrutiny
e.g. Arabidopsis to
mustard
e.g. African clawed toad to a food species
e.g. potato
e.g. TB bacillus to banana
from a non-food prokaryote to a
non-food eukaryote - NuFood®.
The ERMA took no
apparent notice of this suggestion. Their PR chief Karen
Cronin refused to give me a copy of the decision.
Today's
flagship of the GE fleet, recombinant human-type insulin,
took some years longer to produce than the
venture-capitalists had been told it
would. The original
concept was that the gene for human insulin would
be
expressed in a bacterium, in something like a
micro-brewery, and the
insulin then purified from that
culture would give diabetics more benefit
than the
byproducts of the meatworks.
To cut a long story short,
it turned out that this smallish protein could be assembled
by the bacteria but not then folded properly. (Until then,
a dogma had largely prevailed that a given sequence of
amino-acids, combined to form the primary structure of the
protein, would automatically fold into the
right shape -
the right secondary & tertiary structures.) Some
interesting
active processes to fold and otherwise
process proteins post-translation
had to be discovered
before the GE insulin reached commerce.
Former
colleagues in the local med school include leading experts
on some aspects of diabetes. They tell me the biggest, most
impressive-looking of the studies on rhIns in clinical
practice have indeed reported: no statistically significant
differences in frequencies of harm. Thus the
advantage
of faster action continues to commend recombinant
human-type
insulin to most medicos.
At the same time,
impressive detailed BBC TV journalism alleges
higher
frequencies of 'hypos' (bouts of low blood sugar) induced by
rhIns.
The situation is indeed somewhat
unclear.
What is less unclear to me is whether a
byproduct of abattoirs is actually more costly to purify
than the rhIns which took, as few recall, years longer to
bring to market than had been predicted. If the true R&D
costs were fully reflected in the price of 'Humulin', I
doubt the GE stuff could compete with an established
purification method using essentially free feedstock.
If
I may hazard a guess, I think rhIns will turn out to have
subtle
anomalies of secondary structure (folding) so that
even when the primary
structure is exactly the same
sequence of amino-acids as real human insulin
some
different molecular shape(s) can occur. That vague message
seems to
be the nearest to sense coming out of the prions
(BSE, scrapie, CJD) puzzle, which turns on secondary
structures.
Three decades ago, Crick's awful 'central
dogma of molecular biology' was rivalled or even exceeded in
repute by the doctrine that primary structure determines
secondary and tertiary structure in proteins. This belief
was crucial in the over-optimistic plans of the GE-insulin
engineers. They then had to learn some news about folding
of proteins, before they could offer for sale the rhIns
which is now well established commercially.
I suspect
there are subtle differences which are still little
understood. And the practical question of whether rhIns is
better medically than pig or cow insulin remains unclear.
That the picture is this murky may be annoying, but it
should be reported as such if only because rhIns is the
flagship of the small fleet of GE benefits, nearly all of
which turn out - so far - to be trivial, uneconomic, or
downright fakes.
I see no reason to concede that rhIns
is a great medical advance.
And whether it really saves
any money I gravely doubt. But I doubt
even more whether
we will ever find out! The flagship will be
cross-subsidised to whatever extent is necessary to keep it
selling up large, and the fanatics will continue to make out
that this commercial success in contained labs means we must
let the corporations with the Martian names let loose any GE
organism they like.
I must add that the burgeoning
demand for insulin as prevalence of diabetes expands will
continue to make rhIns a booming product, even if porcine
and bovine insulins get thoroughly exploited.
Here is an instructive example.
July 18, 2000
for data regarding genetically modified
canola's effect on bees and honey
production, civil
servants responded with a suspicious skein of silence.
Beekeepers have two concerns
about genetically modified crops.
genetically modified, and our Canadian
beekeepers export honey to Europe.
Genetic engineering
does not affect honey directly, but bioengineered
crops
such as canola are major sources of honey in
Canada, and so honey has been
swept along in the general
biotech hysteria.
plants might get
into pollen, which bees collect and feed to their
young,
and perhaps could have some unforeseen negative
effects on colony
populations or bee behaviour.
genetic modification of crops, and nothing
of concern was revealed at a
recent ''bear pit'' panel I
participated in during the annual beekeepers
conference
in Saskatchewan. Included on the panel were a honey packer,
a
representative from the canola industry and an official
from the Canadian
Food Inspection Agency
(CFIA).
spokesman said that pollen from
GM crops did not harm bees, my
data-sensitive antennae
twitched and I made a mental note to obtain the
relevant
studies.
substantiate the results alluded
to in his talk. In my circles, providing
data for fellow
scientists to corroborate statements is akin to passing
the
salt at the dinner table. It's good manners, if
nothing else.
higher-level civil servant.
The questions I asked were straightforward,
seeking
information needed to develop an informed opinion about an
issue
that could seriously affect beekeepers'
livelihoods. The answers also were
straightforward,
although not in the way I expected:
of
GM pollen on bees?
Answer: Yes.
Answer: Can't tell you that; it's proprietary
information.
Can't tell you that; it's
proprietary information.
Can't tell you
that; it's proprietary information.
Can't tell you that; it's proprietary
information.
We deem those to be
confidential business details.
kept
confidential. I can understand a novel process, or even the
nature of
a particular gene product, being kept under
intellectual-property wraps.
But how could information
like number of replicates, methods and
experimental
protocols used, what plants were tested, and how many
bees
lived or died possibly be considered a threat to
patent protection or
industrial confidentiality?
see the data that says it's safe. If it's
not, we should have clear
information about the danger.
Period. Our government needs to be a
trustworthy
arbitrator of such issues, and their secrecy stance
torpedoes
credibility.
concerned about. As
one CFIA official put it, ''secrecy is business as
usual
as far as we're concerned.''
There are many issues
larger than bees and pollen. Our government
makes
decisions about biotechnology products, pesticides,
antibiotics fed to
livestock and myriad other health and
safety matters based on copious data
provided by
industry.
environmental left about
industry-generated data, but I do share the
opinion that
such information should be publicly accessible when it
relates
to human and environmental health.
professionalism of the staff at the CFIA or other
Canadian government
agencies. I've worked with
regulators on many issues, and found that
the
on-the-ground workers are dedicated, honest and as
helpful as they are
allowed to be. They often have told
me stuff they are really not supposed
to reveal because
they, too, see the foolishness of overdone silence.
servants. Stealth may be necessary -- for an
undercover military spy. But
can someone explain to me
why the number of bees killed or not killed by GM canola
pollen is a government secret?
why
can't I see the data presented to government on residues in
meat, even
without top-secret information on the identity
of the antibiotic? How
about the inert ingredients in
which pesticides are dissolved before
being
sprayed?
perceive conspiracy by
shadowy government-industry cartels at every
turn,
whereas the opposing perspective, transparency,
would reduce our anxieties
about new and potentially
beneficial technologies.
environmental health is an affront to the public
interest. How about it,
Ottawa? I await the
data.
Mark Winston is a professor of biological
sciences at Simon Fraser
University, and a regular
contributor to The Sun.
---
3 The Roles of
Propaganda
http://www.lifesciencenz.com/pb/about/code_ethics.asp
"Biotechnologists should use the principle of
precaution. This principle
implies that in scientific
research and the application of its results (as
far as
can be foreseen at that moment) the starting point should be
that
one should not progress unless one can make
plausible that no harmful or
irreversible consequences
will occur, that the risks can be sufficiently
estimated,
and that the possible side effects are justified for
the
community by the purpose and the expected advantages
of the application. "
"We simply do not know the
long-term consequences for human health and the wider
environment [of genetically modified crops]. . . . If
something does
go badly wrong, we will be faced with the
problem of clearing up a kind of
pollution which is
self-perpetuating. I am not convinced that anyone
has
the first idea of how this could be done."
June 1998
3.1.1 In GM perhaps
more than any other field, confusion reigns between fact and
fantasy, between reality and hope. It has turned out to be
very easy to put up a PR image of some beneficial properties
in some hoped-for GMO, but every time such an image is
investigated with any scientific scepticism we find many
problems, usually including scope for harm that had not been
noticed by the enthusiasts. And in many examples, the
distinction is blurred between what is real and what is only
hoped for by the promotors. Many mundane, unglamorous
aspects lag behind in the real world of measurement, such as
yield, growing conditions, pest vulnerabilities,
side-effects (e.g. Bt toxins harming soil ecology),
completely unimagined toxins (e.g. the Showa Denko
L-tryptophan impurities), as well as cultural aspects (e.g.
acceptability of yellow rice). To some extent these lags
are inherent in the very nature of, on the one hand, the
readily-sketched fantasies of technobenefit and, on the
other, the incorrigible delays of measuring yield etc. But
such lags fit ill with the enormous venture capital sunk
into these capers.
which have already
gained funding from ignorant gamblers, promoted
by
compliant media stooges heavily influenced by that
depraved trade PR. The RSNZ got thoroughly caught up in
this pattern - a very sad disgrace.
Your main expert on
that would be Dr Judy Motion, senior lecturer in marketing,
U of Auckland, who has with a colleague conducted a detailed
study of the RSNZ involvement in the deception exercise
'Genepool' partly funded by Monsanto. I urge the Commission
to subpoena this expert.
She can also tell you much about
the King Salmon caper, executed by the same PR agent who put
across the Genepool racket.
from
genetically modified poplars has been partly salvaged a week
after
an attack by protesters.
test trees were growing, snapping saplings and stripping
bark off more
mature trees leaving them wilting and
dying.
trial, believed that years of work
had been lost. Yesterday, however, the
company, which
has altered the poplars' genes to produce less of the
woody material lignin, which turns paper yellow, announced
that it had
managed to recover 1,900 tonnes of
genetically altered wood.
studies under a
European Union research programme, said that the 48
salvaged trees were enough to take the research forward to
the pulping
stage.
into paper, will
need 15 per cent less of the bleaching and other
chemicals
used to make paper white. The scientists,
using the salvaged experimental
trees, now plan to test
this at Domaine University in Grenoble, where
there is
a centre for paper research.
studies,
they would have to decide on their next move. They plan
to
modify the fast-growing eucalyptus to test its
potential for making paper
with less chemicals. He
said, however, that given the damage at the
poplar test
plot it was unlikely that any future plantings will be in
Britain
and the research is expected to go overseas.
designed to benefit the environment.
The local newspapers here have
called these activists
eco-terrorists not eco-warriors."
protesters for "trashing" genetic crop trials. He told the
House of
Commons that it was a serious and difficult
situation.
protesters destroyed a trial at
Watlington, in Oxfordshire, one of Britain's
biggest
test sites.
A Zeneca research
scientist salvaging genetically modified wood from
among
the damaged poplars. The timber will be turned into
paper
Photograph: BEN
GURR
...........................
This story implies a
growth rate hundreds of times faster than any trees have
ever been reported to achieve. It is not to be believed.
Yet the Murdoch press refused to print a simple letter of
correction. Mass media that have been taken in by PR often
refuse to carry corrections.
USA ambassador
Josiah Beeman (leaving for home the following day), Radio NZ
99-12-8 0940 said:
"We've been eating
genetically-engineered food in the United States for years,
and our streets are not full of people with two
heads."
This is especially interesting in his context of
advocating that only SCIENCE-BASED restrictions on
international trade can be tolerated.
He asserted that
for NZ to exclude US GEF would be pure whimsy, not at
all
science-based; and he threatened retaliatory
exclusions.
One of the penalties exacted from us to date
by the media putting
to the fore non-scientific
spokespersons is that Beeman (& others) can get
away with
this falsehood that objections to GEF are not science-based.
Some certainly aren't, but the key point is that more than
enough are.
The interviewer Fiona Hill (one of the chief
media problems instrumental in publicising mainly emotive
feminist politicians and hardly any scientific objectors to
GEF) did not at all challenge Beeman's claim that GEF is
scientifically flawless. She didn't say "yes - 2 or 3
years" in response to his misleading claim for how long GEF
has been eaten - let alone "EMS symptoms didn't include
bicaputism but did kill dozens and maim thousands".
This
example illustrates that the PR trade is succeeding in its
deceitful aims partly because the media lack interest in
investigative journalism.
3.1.5 I have argued for a
couple of years that discussion of GM is especially prone to
resonating paranoia. Here is an instructive example I
contributed to the email GE-list:
27-11-98
J M
Fitzsimons list MP has accused Monsanto and Hon. John
'Satchmo jr' Luxton (Minister of Food Fibre & Furphies) of
trying to import Terminator® seed which would cause
difficulties for organic growers. Satch responds that
market forces would allow organic horticulture to prosper
notwithstanding availability of Terminator® seed. Monsanto
Australasian PR chief Nik Tydens said two days earlier, but
Radio NZ now excerpts the tape as if it were a response to
Fitzsimons' accusation today, that Terminator crops will
simply be a 'single-use' item which nobody is forced to buy
and which cannot biologically affect other crops.
What
nobody has mentioned in the media these few days - or any
other time that I know of - is that the Terminator®
patent does not entail any evidence that such a seed exists
or could exist.
Attached is a good account whose author
Assoc-prof Martha Crouch agrees with me when I point out
patents are granted without regard to whether the invention
would work . . . unless the application describes a blatant
violation of scientific law - e.g. perpetual motion
machines - a patent may be issued for what the examiner is
convinced will not work . . . Most people are surprised
when they learn this fact about patent law, but the reasons
for it are not hard to see.
In my opinion such
criticisms can reasonably be levelled against some aspects
of the Terminator patent. They may be no more
than
wishful thinking. If so, that of course has no
bearing on the moral status of the Terminator
concept.
It does envisage a racket - but at the
moment, so far as we know, it is only a vision. Sordid,
warped, wicked - yes, all those, but if it is not real let
us refrain from amplifying the paranoia which is all too
readily generated around GE.
To denounce the intention
of the Terminator concept is our main
duty; to warn that
it might not work as tidily as claimed is also urgent; but
to credit anyone with having it incipiently on sale is worse
than saying Windows 98© really works as claimed. We must
not accord power to lying creeps when they have not actually
achieved what they desire and perhaps cannot. Let us not
make them look more technically competent thanthey really
are! . . . The Monsanto PR man denounces Ms Fitzsimons'
Terminator warning as alarmist. The facts as I see them,
briefly set out above, seem to make that a fair comment -
tho' for different reasons than he states.
If so, where
did the alarmism start? I believe Monsanto PR may well have
planned to 'monster' us 'greenies' with the Terminator
image; then if Terminator™ seeds never come to exist, or if
something approximating the patent concept gets realised
sometime but doesn't work as reliably as hoped, or in a
variety of other scenarios, Monsanto can sacrifice The
Terminator™ as a commercial project, at least for an
indefinite period, while still pursuing research on it and
claiming to have been green, clean, sensitive,
harpie-compliant, etc. in 'abandoning' it.
Dr Dewar, an
entomologist, was furious that some of his research for
AgrEvo had been destroyed by activists. . . . "Destroying
these crops is
destroying knowledge. . . . "
of the H-Bomb" Teller to the U.S.A. senate cttee
considering the partial
{above-ground} nuclear test-ban
treaty of 1963 - reported in H. York 'Arms
Control'
(Freeman). Teller told the cttee that to ban nuclear
explosions
in the atmosphere would be
"against
knowledge".
>
B.S.Ahloowalia
>Principal Research Officer, Agriculture
and Food Development Authority,
>Kinsealy Research
Centre, Dublin,
Ireland.
>
>Perspective
>
>Biotechnology and
transgenic crops are here to stay as are
the
>multinational seed companies. Plant breeding based
on genetic
>modification has two innate values:
value which B.A. now defines are very far indeed from
being inherent in GE.
In fact, almost all cells into
which bundles of transgenes are inserted go badly wrong
after the abuse entailed in foreign genes inserted by glass
needle, or by micro-shotgun, or by infective particle of
whatever sort. Then to select a tiny minority of survivors
by one property (antibiotic resistance) and assume the
resulting organisms will be exactly as wished, even
quantitatively e.g. soybean yield, is rotten science.
>1. Social value which results in benefits to
the society at large,
>e.g. use of less chemicals and
pesticides in case of disease
resistant
>genes.
>
>2. Commercial value from
increased yield or improved product quality by
>changing
traits that enhance the agronmic performance in a
positive
>manner, e.g. early maturity, disease
resistance, bigger fruits, more
>colourful
flowers.
>
>The use of transgenes (so far mostly
single genes)
> for the enhancement
>of commercial
value
> of plant varieties does not
constitute anything
>different than [sic] conventional
gene transfer
>through crossing and selection
biological process - to overwhelm barriers
of not only geography but also
cell biology, e.g.
inserting African clawed toad genes into a potato which
could not normally acquire such genes. The 'commercial
value' is indeed supposed to derive from this novelty which
can NOT be bought by conventional breeding. This is
thoroughly different from 'crossing and selection'. Yet
when possible drawbacks are suggested, we are next told that
GM is just nature revved up - natural processes, unusual
only in the speed. Here is one of my published responses to
this deceit.
Letters, 99-11-16
no more than science speeding up cross-breeding and
selection of varieties
to obtain more and better
food.
This is seriously misleading. Dr Little has
unfortunately been
taken in by a line of propaganda
designed to obscure the fact that genetic
engineering
usually performs artificial transfers which are not believed
to
occur in nature.
Toad genes do not get into
potatoes in the course of nature's
workings, nor human
genes into cows. The properties of these
artificial
chimeras are unpredictable. They may well
include poisons or allergens
previously unsuspected. And
the process of growing GE crops may cause
ecological
harm, even in cases where the resulting food turns out OK;
'food
safe' does not equal 'ecology safe', which is one
good reason why labelling
is not sufficient.
No GE
food should be distributed, or even grown
outside
containment, before thorough testing which has
scarcely begun.
yrs etc.
Where is the
refereed account of the FlavrSavr® debacle? There have been
many flops in GE, as averred by the Union of Concerned
Scientists' head GE expert; but the number of those flops
that have been properly published as scientific reports is
few indeed. That is not our fault! Note the double
standard normally prevailing: the failures are denied by GM
PR unless described in a peer-reviewed journal, but the
successes often achieve an image of reality (e.g. in
speeches in the NZ Parliament) when they are still nothing
more than fantasies.
Letters
to the Editor
The Press
P B Christchurch 17 June
1993
Your report of June 11 on the
part-human goats proposed by Prof
Bullock of Lincoln
University, funded by Genzyme Corp of the USA, was
less
misleading than any other I've noticed in the media,
but nevertheless requires correction.
The professor's
formal proposal is written, and ancillary
mass-media
propaganda has been slanted, so as to create the impression
that
the Genzyme/Lincoln work is based on some scientific
hypothesis which could well lead to therapy for cystic
fibrosis. This is a misleading impression.
Even if it
proves feasible to insert the gene for the human lung
protein
CFTR (cystic fibrosis transmembrane-conductance
regulator) into goat
zygotes or embryos, leading to
goats' milk containing significant
quantities of human
CFTR, there will still remain the difficulty that
no
therapy is in prospect using any concentrated
preparation of CFTR. The
leading relevant experts in
paediatric biochemistry will confirm for you
that pure
CFTR has no foreseeable use. The proposal's phrase "the
drug
produced" is therefore false and deceptive.
The
leading medical experts on cystic fibrosis have
found
themselves in the unpleasant role of breaking the
news to the parents of CF
sufferers that, contrary to the
Genzyme/Bullock image, no therapy is in
prospect. It is
cruel to raise hopes which must thus be dashed by
others.
The public should also learn that permission was
denied for Prof
Bullock's conjoint proposal to produce
similarly in goats' milk a second
human protein, AAT,
which has even less prospect of utility or market
value
but which he termed a "pharmaceutical
protein".
Genetic engineering's brief two decades of
history has been
characterised by exaggerated claims of
benefit, confusing hope with fact in
attempt to allay
natural fears (and to stimulate stock-market ramps).
I think it would be safe to say that GMOs have been
tested a lot more
extensively than is the case for non-GE
crop varieties introduced routinely by seed
companies.
This is a
radically bold assumption. The behaviour is not
within
the same limited range. The tiny minority of
cells surviving the unguided
insertions of transgenes
(plural!) by processes not believed to occur in
nature
may exhibit behaviour never suspected in the species thus
targetted.
It is not reasonable to assume that
transgenic organisms have only the narrow range of
properties foreseeable in ordinary breeding.
Therefore
it is not reasonable, but is misleading, to suggest that the
testing regimes for transgenic organisms should be anywhere
near as permissive or loose as the testing of new strains
arising from ordinary
breeding, selection, Granny Smith
watching with eagle eye in an Australian
suburb,
etc.
The issue thus opened is, in theological
terms, whether nature is unplanned, not designed but merely
the outworking of laws of chemistry and
random mutations.
That model, most notably expounded by Dawkins, is in my
opinion one of the most outrageous intellectual cons of all
history.
The other view, which originally fostered the
science now so tragically
vulgarised & rebellious, is
that nature is designed by God (and then trammelled by
evil). I find much of Genesis 3 very mysterious, but it
is
nevertheless the original statement of that view, and
is to my mind infinitely truer than Dawkins' nihilistic
caricature of nature.
I am arguing, at a minimum, for
vastly more respect for nature than is shown by those who
vilify and abuse her. I further argue that such respect is
entailed in true religion, and is gravely threatened by the
typical atheistic values of the apologists for mainstream
GM.
Also they were
mysteriously held up for legal permission from
the ERMA
on their most radical trans-species project; on this I
have
publicly expressed sympathy with them. There are
good reasons under the
ERMA's authorising statute for
refusing permits for GE, and the ERMA should
use those
reasons based in science & ethics; but instead, ERMA has
staged
large cowardly delays, vaguely alluding to its
special Maori cttee (prime
mover Mere Roberts). This is
an undermining of the rule of law, and an
evasion of
duty. It is not a proper ground for refusal; and the
ERMA
hasn't the courage to refuse, but dishonestly
delays, perhaps hoping the
applicant will give up.
But on the general issue of threats to flounce off if
they don't get their way: some leading scientists ran out of
public funding in a certain European country a half-century
ago and were permitted to shift to another major
military-industrial complex to pursue their hi=tech
enthusiasms. Was it unjust that they ran out of funding in
their homeland? Was it right that they got funded
elsewhere? If their fatherland had refused them funding for
moral reasons, would we admire or deplore that
restraint?
The possibility that The Geniuses would be
allowed to continue their radical transgeneses elsewhere is
no reason for us to let them do such expts here.
Two
parts I comment on:-
>deficient; they contained
only 6% protein by weight.
remarked, that the GE
potatoes were 20% down in protein content. Both
facts
should be mentioned, when one has space.
To my mind the
most remarkable aspect of argumentation by Kuiper et al. is
that they simply refer to
> GM potatoes containing the
GNA lectin
whereas the main point of the experimental
design was to compare potatoes
(a) containing the GNA
lectin simply added
(b) containing similar levels of
that lectin, but by the different history of having the gene
for that lectin inserted by modern GM.
Having conflated
these two for the naive reader, they then proceed to
denounce Pusztai for inadequate controls!!
The
commentary is as if from a great height of scientific
purity, and conveys the impression that extremely high
standards, similar in stringency to those required in
testing novel medicines, prevail in the actual regulatory
regimes under Codex, WTO, and all those transnational
bureaucracies.
Take the following para and ask whether
its scrupulous vision is in
force
anywhere:
>Particular attention must be given to the
detection and
>characterisation of unintended effects of
genetic
>modification. Inferences about such effects can
no longer
>be based solely on chemical analysis of
single
>macronutrients and micronutrients and known
crop-specific
>antinutrients or toxins. New methods have
been developed
>to screen for potential alterations in
the metabolism of the
>modified organism by analysis of
gene expression
>(monitored by microarray technology,
mRNA
>fingerprinting), by overall protein analysis
(proteomics),
>and by secondary metabolite
profiling.11,12 Depending on
>the outcome of these
studies, further toxicological and
>nutritional studies
may be needed.
If someone reliable can tell us where these tests
have been
documented, I expect then to have further
comments. As far as I can tell, the truth is that no such
testing has yet been done. But GEF is on
sale.
as illustrating:
the great
difficulty of choosing WHEN to blow that poorly-known
whistle;
the duty to alert relevant authorities to
preliminary results, though not
conclusive, if they imply
important hazard;
the scope for disinformation from PR
agents;
the laziness of the media;
the unwisdom of
commercialising science, especially university research
schools;
the extreme authoritarianism of many
time-serving scientists;
the hypocrisy of some scientists
in talking about stringent standards that they don't intend
to see enforced;
the extreme dishonesty of many
scientists mired in the GM bubble's collapsing foam of
deceit;
the atavistic cowardly childish misbehaviour of
those who hope to gain
approval from big money &/or big
science by endorsing whatever seems to be all the go just
now, and personally attacking anyone who seems to
be
annoying the heavies;
the cleverness of those such
as Kuiper who put up a convincing impression
of joining
the previous category but then slip in proposed
requirements
which, if diligently enforced, would
probably wipe most if not all GEF;
the fact that lists
like this can be extended . . . .
Facts
which, though preliminary, were worth disclosing are
minimised; the
obvious incompleteness of the preliminary
study is sneered at as if a moral
breach; money is poured
into muddying the waters rather than pursuing the
leads
opened up for research; caricatures of various origins are
vilified in a straw-man stunt as if they were the original
authors' careful statements; etc.
It is worth adding
that Pusztai, a leading expert on lectins in diets, has
stated that he expected no harm to the rats in his
now-famous preliminary tests.
Let us keep focussed on
the real significance of those tests. They
revealed
enough evidence of harm that to repeat and extend them
should be a very high priority. In order to do so, exactly
the same Durham U potatoes will be needed. Let us hope that
GE line has not been expunged as the Showa Denko GM bacillus
strains are claimed to have been.
Alongside those tests,
Monsanto's NuLeaf® Bt-potatoes should also
be
tested.
3.4.1 An associate
Minister of Health, John 'Tuariki' Delamere, stated, with no
attempt at justification, that a labelling regime might
double the price of food. I don't know of anyone who
believed that sourceless assertion.
He was soon removed
from the topic of GEF, replaced by the then Minister (and
deputy Prime Minister) who stated after the council of
health
ministers of Australasia that the increase would
be 6%. This figure is not
pulled out of mid-air, but is
not much better: it's said to be in a secret
'report' by
the transnational accountancy corporation KPMG. Again, I
don't
know of anyone who believes it. Still more
recently, an unsworn agent of the same corporation stated to
this Commission a yet lower number, the justification for
which was not revealed. Why not require KPMG to produce
their reasoning?
The ANZFA is being used as a trial run
for a regulatory charade.
It is not possible to create a
thorough system for checking all the possible harm GEF could
do to people (& other species), and some of the delayed
categories of harm could be very severe before noticed, if
ever, by epidemiology.
The testing regime for GEF might
have to be ludicrously expensive
- as stated early by
New Zealand Assoc. Minister of Health 'Tuariki'
who
asserted a doubling. And then it could not screen
for the numerous possible human disorders that could
conceivably arise from even minor changes in key
macromolecules of life. Labelling is therefore not the
answer if the precautionary principle is to be honoured.
GEF is such a generally dangerous idea that it should be
stopped a.s.a.p.
How soon might that be?
We in NZ
have had over a year of internecine dispute between those
who say that labelling GEF will lead to "market failure" -
they claim the market for GEF will collapse if consumers are
able to identify it by labels - and those such as myself
who think labels will not suffice.
Why should labels on
GEF affect sales much more than is now achieved by labels on
organic food - which of course is all already certified
non-GEF?
Furthermore, 'food safe' does not equal
'environment safe' - we
cannot safely permit the
processes in the fields which produce GEF, because
their
ecological effects may be very harmful. We ought not to
leave these
issues to the fabled 'market forces'. They
will no doubt help, but will not suffice.
The processes
which lead to GEF on the shop shelf are, in general, so
dangerous they shouldn't be permitted - even if the GEF
itself were demonstrated safe (which it certainly
isn't).
circumstances, and advanced
organic agriculture applying science in the
service of
mankind. Prince Charles is completely correct about this.
Organic agriculture is the superior alternative to not only
GM farming but also current toxic agriculture.
GE crops
are just the latest stunt from agribusiness, but of an
unprecedentedly hi-tech quality and therefore genuinely
harder to understand than what Steinbeck sketched in 'The
Grapes of Wrath'.
The brilliant article in Le Monde
Diplomatique by Lewontin & Berlan underlines that the
Terminator patent is only the latest (and worst) concept
within the strand of biology and of commerce exploiting
'hybridity' in F1 hybrids which do not breed true.
3.5.1 My friend the founding
editor of The Ecologist was permitted to advocate direct
action in one NZ newspaper early last year:
>
>'Sunday
Star Times' 25-4-99
>National Affairs Editor Patrick
Smellie
>
>'Destroy GE crops says campaigner', with a
good photo of Teddy Goldsmith.
>
> New Zealanders
should rip out of the ground the first local
[,]
>commercial plantings of genetically modified crops,
says one of the world's
>leading opponents of the
practice, Teddy Goldsmith.
>"If I were you I'd organise
yourselves and pull the stuff up," said the
>70-year-old
during a public meeting in Wellington.
> He advocated
"non-violent direct action, even if it involves
>breaking
the law".
> Far from helping to feed the world,
genetically modified crops
>would increase the acelerated
depletion of farmland through industrial
>farming
techniques, and the replacement of staple foods for
local
>consumption with export crops.
The action
was carried out at night with no hazard to anybody.
The
offending subsidised research institute fronted on TV a
pretty
Canadian grad student stating she "felt violated",
near tears at what she claimed to be the destruction of a
year's work. This may not be true. The potato crop in
question was at or near maturity. The expt was stated not
to be a yield trial, but by the look of the uprooted crop on
TV the yield would be measurable to some useful accuracy.
And the living material was all there - just unable to
grow any further - so it was not at all apparent that
biochemical analyses could not be performed as originally
intended.
3.5.4 The issues raised
by this type of direct action are well traversed, at least
in outline, regarding previous threats. The Revs Berrigan
were widely inspirational, and many noble examples shine
down thru history reminding us that existing laws do prove
too sluggish sometimes. The questions then become e.g.
how is damage to people prevented; what compo do innocent
parties get (farmers, in the present discussion) for any
property loss; and do the saboteurs represent some reasoned,
legitimate cause.
subculture
largely dominated by PC including some very
unreasonable
wimminsLibbers. I no longer assume they
represent reasonable, scientifically informed priorities.
This has been my view from the time I chaired the biggest
branch of our nation's main conservation group a decade ago.
In 1994-95 I tried hard to get some cooperation from
Greepneace NZ regarding GE, but this was vetoed from Europe.
Talk about transnationals!
The first answer to
this deceitful line is the new disease EMS caused by Showa
Denko L-tryptophan impurities - thousands poisoned, scores
killed by a "pure" natural compound which is indeed required
by the human.
The second main answer is that large
numbers of people could be
seriously harmed by GEF while
no medicos, let alone politicians, noticed. If the SDKK
tryptophan had caused not the new illness EMS but a common
illness such as asthma, or delayed harm e.g. severe mental
retardation in some of those whose mothers took it early in
pregnancy, we would still not know it to be harmful. I am
astonished at medical school profs who deny this.
GEF is
typically unlabelled, whereas the SDKK Trp was subject
to
traceback studies.
propounded as
essentially the only governmental action needed. Tracing
the
cause is cold comfort to the crippled. I therefore
despise politicians such as Susan Kedgley list MP who claim
labelling will cause market failure - GEF so labelled will
be boycotted on her advice, causing collapse of the market,
she claims. Even if this megalomania were plausible, it
fails to protect people from the severe harm that GEF may do
before she learns of it.
Claims
such as '8x faster growth' and my favourite '37 times
bigger' are often heard from this sector of gene-jockism.
Why have no veterinarians been heard thru the media
regarding possible harm from such expts?
The persistent
slackness of ERMA in this matter will, I'm sure, interest
the Royal Commission.
Conner says the question for discussion is not the
safety but the ethics; he then expounds "I know that animals
and plants share most of their genes already, so for that
reason I have no difficulty about these experiments".
He
proceeded to show a couple of caterpillars on leaves,
asserting that one was smaller because of eating a GM
insecticide in that leaf.
The question I wish to raise
is whether Conner will be attacked &
vilified for putting
across his claims on TV rather than reporting them in a
refereed scientific journal. A very accomplished scientist,
Dr Pusztai, was sacked & vilified for summarising on TV
damage measured in many organs of rats eating a certain GE
potato. Conner's TV announcement does not appear to be
based on much evidence at all. But as he is asserting
benefit, rather than harm, the Royal Society will not vilify
him. Indeed, this very man has been allowed to supply the
RSNZ with its public position - a false one - on the
Showa Denko poisonings. This type of bias represents an
awful degradation of scientific standards, in the service of
commerce.
My answers which I
sent in may be of interest.
>genetically modified
organisms (GMOs) may be extended to field
>trials for the
duration of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into
>Genetic
Engineering.
>
>1. Is the current public debate about
the safety of genetic
>engineering and GMO release
affecting your ability to do
>science?
should happen. To resent it as if it could cease
rather than expand is
severely unrealistic. There is no
chance that the period of unchallenged
secretive
experimentation in GE will persist; a main practical
difficulty
is that some of the enthusiasts have yet to
face up to this fact. It is
not a proper role of NZAS to
assist the attempted protraction of this
period of
unscrutinised GE. I refer you anew to the NZAS policy
under
President W Q Green which advocated public scrutiny
(not case-by-case in
the expensive ERMA rubber-stamp
charade, but more fundamentally scrutiny of
policy).
>2. Would a moratorium on field trials
affect your long-term
>commitment to staying in New
Zealand?
>3. In relation to Point 2, have you had
a job offer from
>overseas?
>4. Would you
advise a student to take up a career in
gene
>technology?
Most seriously for the NZAS, science itself
is being seriously degraded by the secretive commercialism
which characterises this gene rush.
Most of the gene
technology that is being done lately is based on
junk
science anyhow. NZAS has done nothing that I know
of to arrange critical
discussion of this science. Have
you foreseen how this will look to the
Royal Commission
and to the public?
I have indeed advised several
promising recent graduates to stay out of this fad as it is
most unlikely to lead them to a career at all, let alone a
career in real science.
Those who advocate proper testing of
GE food are, logically, immediately in disagreement with the
'animal rights' activists. The tests of GEF
would
certainly use considerable numbers of animals -
mainly rodents such as the rats sacrificed by Dr
Pusztai.
The 'animal rights' crowd are among the most
extreme fanatics that I know of in our country. They have
invaded labs to wreak serious damage, and have carried out
loathsome raids on the homes of leading scientists. I am
happy to record that the media have very decently refrained
from publicising these crimes, but I can assure you they
were committed. So far as I am aware, no culprit has been
caught.
I don't know how this clash is to be resolved; I
simply wish at the
moment to point out the looming
conflict.
3.7.1 A further neglected dimension of GM is its
intimate interweaving with the computer trade - one of the
most notoriously dishonest realms of modern life.
I give
some notes on this.
Perhaps the most amusing
item they discovered was the description of an event soon
after the first computer-controlled Airbus entered into
routine service.
It was at an airport where taxiing is
done not on the planes'
engines but by a special tow
vehicle. The passengers were all loaded, the doors closed,
the checklists moving along calmly between the two
flight-deck crew.
The tow vehicle backed in and hooked
onto the nose-wheel strut.
The plane's engines
immediately roared up to full forward
thrust,
accelerating the plane straight ahead, strewing
ground-crew and the tow aside (without serious injury, by
good luck).
As the plane raced faster & faster across
the field, the pilots
quickly confirmed that their
'throttle' T-handles were as if disconnected.
Evidently
the computer control had over-ridden the pilots' normal
control. Perhaps the immortal sounds "I'm sorry Dave, I
can't do that" echoed thru their fevered minds.
The
captain had only seconds to decide whether to try to take
off
across the field - which might well have worked in
that they might have got off the ground, but perhaps at the
price of damaging some tyres as they drove across the edges
of the runway & taxiways, and with the prospect of flying
around at full power until they consumed all the fuel -
speeded presumably by dumping fuel - and then glide in
once the motors had stopped (if they stopped
simultaneously). It must have been an uninviting
prospect.
Fortunately the co-pilot extemporised a way to
disconnect the fuel supply from the engines soon enough to
allow them to brake to a stop before the far side of the
airfield.
The explanation turned out to be simple. The
computer program had a subroutine to detect the state 'in
the air and below (stall speed + 20kt)' and when this
condition arose, automatically slam the engines to full
ahead in order to prevent stalling.
The definition of
'we're in the air' for the purpose of this fail-safe
automated safety subroutine was: no pressure on the
nosewheel strut. As the tow vehicle hooked on, it
momentarily produced that condition. And the airspeed was
certainly below (stall speed + 20kt); so the subroutine took
over and prevented the "imminent stall" by slamming the
motors to full ahead.
notorious frequent errors is a new kind of lying by
those who feel their
future income somehow depends on
such collaboration. I find such
corruption sad &
worrying.
My further point is that what has so
distressingly become mainstream komputink, largely using
Gates' appalling piles of junk, has now become intimately
interwoven with transgenic expts. The reliability of the
DNA & protein sequences read out from such komputink will be
less than hoped, won't it?
I append an example, sent by
a gene-jockey, of this stuff.
komputink
to produce some analysis of how GM is rendered more
dangerous by relying on Windoze etc.
This Commission may
well feel unable, in the time available, to go into this
topic. In that case I ask you to report that suitable
experts should.
> A 1
MAESEDIQPLVCDNGTGMVKAGFAGDDAPRAVFPSIVGRPRHTGVMVGMG 50
>
||:.|||:||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
> B
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>
. . . . .
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>
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.
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>
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.
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> . . . .
.
> A 201
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> |||||||||.|
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376
>
This theme may be introduced by a glimpse of a
relatively candid advocate of
gene-tampering:
Scientific Committee held in mid-May, James Watson
argued that there
is nothing intrinsically wrong with the
idea of scientists "playing
god" by manipulating the
human genome. Watson rejected criticism of
human
germline engineering by asking, "[I]n all honesty, if
scientists
don't play god, who will?"
A further
introductory glimpse is the following letter from me to a
British newspaper about one of their columnists:
of the most penetrating comments on genetic
modification (GM). It is
therefore a shame that he now
presumes to set up several false antinomies
for the
purpose of attacking Prince Charles' view of the
issue.
Monbiot begins with the assumption "Prince
Charles's solution to
the environmental crisis is
spiritual transformation, rather than
political
awakening". Monbiot seems to assume that political
awakening can
be achieved without spiritual
transformation, or anyhow these are mutually
exclusive,
alternative pathways.
This is a fake counterposition.
The big efforts to achieve
political awakening aside
from, or in direct opposition to, spiritual
advancement
have been disastrous - the French and Russian
revolutions,
for instance. And today's dominant
money-worship (your Thatcherism, our
Rogernomics, etc) is
all the more insidious because it uses PR instead
of
guns. Either way, not only spiritual health but also
ecology suffer
drastically under ideological
materialism.
Monbiot takes from his Bible that " God
granted man dominion over
nature" and suggests this idea
is contrary to any environmental ethic.
Again, a false
antinomy. When man takes care of nature on his
best
understanding of God's plan, he does relatively
well; but in Genesis 3, and
in the big GM corporations
today, man presumes to know better than God, and
tends to
cause ecological & social mayhem.
And again: "the need
to protect the environment springs not from 'a
sense of
the sacred', but from social justice." Why can this "need"
not
spring from both sources? Why imply they are in
conflict? (Where does
Monbiot get his sense of justice,
by the way?)
Monbiot asserts "human life, resulting
from a series of
evolutionary accidents, is arguably
meaningless". If it were so, why
should anybody care
for the biosphere in which the human species will live
or
die? Ethics has no logical or workable basis except in
religion; and
the religion which our monarchy defends,
and which Monbiot evidently
dislikes, is the only known
basis for a decent society and for properly
taking care
of nature.
The media have, over the past decade at
least, presented every
issue as a one-dimensional bipolar
gladiatorial conflict. I had thought
Monbiot above this
type of journalism. But apparently his antagonism
to
religion has misled him to join the common game. In
so doing he has
misused the hard-won right to voice
criticism of the heir to the throne.
yrs etc
In
thus aligning myself with some other Christian people I am
of course aware that this ground is, in the minds of most
New Zealand citizens today, weak or even nonexistent. I
refer them to the other category of reasons, which are quite
strong enough to justify a proper ANZFA and ERMA in place of
the present cynical charades.
Those who will release
uncontained GMOs, falsely claiming they've been properly
tested and can be foreseen to cause no ecological harm can
only be called liars. They are doing this partly from
greed. But there is a deeper reason for their reckless
lying. They crave the power over nature which is a fleeting
shadow of God's pleasure in Creation. Never has such a
power been accessible to the human. Its use will evidently
require great restraint - primarily self-restraint by
those who can perform the manipulations.
Rebellion
against our Maker is depicted in Genesis 3. I freely admit
I cannot make much of that dense, profound set of myths; but
I do take it as, at the very least, a warning that when
humans pretend to know better than God how the biosphere
should be we can create colossal trouble.
The devious
Comstock purports to answer by solemnly discussing an
alleged notion that all technology could be bad. As a
practical technologist in several fields and an observing
Christian, I advise you to ignore this caricature. Nobody
is saying that all technology is bad, so Comstock's
knocking-down of that straw man (his main mode of arguing)
is irrelevant.
I deplore the
very recent attempt by Mere Roberts and a few others to make
out that some alleged ancient Maori religion is a strong
basis for opposing GM today.
The appended letter to
Roberts gives some idea of this rort.
really gone in for the 'parasitical cities' blunder.
In particular, the
people who had arrived first (tho' as
late as mid-way thru the Christian
era) were at most 15%
urban as late as the end of WW2 but by now have largely quit
growing food. They nevertheless maintain to some extent a
philosophy of living which has been summarised thus: walk
backwards into the future. We can't know much about the
future, so look to the past as we try to act wisely in the
present. I used to arrange Dr Ranginui Walker to lecture my
main Environmental Studies class most years, and am glad
that many hundreds of students were taught this wisdom -
one of the philosophical lessons by which Maori culture can
improve New Zealand.
But I do not see evidence that the
religion alleged by Roberts existed until a few years ago,
and I deem it a very weak reed for the purpose of appraising
GM (or any other purpose).
In the ERMA hearing 98-12-10
the chairperson of their special Maori cttee was elevated to
the ERMA Board itself for the occasion. She raved at me
incoherently. I asked your staff to procure, thru Agent
Beale, a transcript of this rave; no response has yet
occurred. I again recommend that you get this transcript,
for some idea of the quality of the tendency which I am
criticising.
I now give my
comments on the relevant philosophy of one of the less silly
ideologues - far more sensible than Dawkins - available
for propping up GM: Professor Paul Davies, the best-selling
author of many books featuring phrases like 'The Mind of
God', now at Adelaide on a similar footing to what Asimov
enjoyed at BU:
Allen Lane 1998
The living cell is the most complex system of its size known
to mankind.
Its host of specialized molecules, many found
nowhere else but within
living material, are themselves
already enormously complex. They execute a
dance of
exquisite fidelity, orchestrated with breathtaking
precision.
Vastly more elaborate than the most
complicated ballet, the dance of life
encompasses
countless molecular performers in synergetic [sic]
coordination.
supervisor, no mystic force, no conscious
controlling agency swings the
molecules into place at the
right time, chooses the appropriate players,
closes the
links, uncouples the partners, moves them on. The dance of
life
is spontaneous, self-sustaining and
self-creating.
clever, come into being all
on its own? How can mindless molecules,
capable only of
pushing and pulling their immediate neighbours,
cooperate
to form and sustain something as ingenious as a
living organism?
pp 32-3
The source of semantic
information can only be the environment of
the organism,
but this begs the question of how the information got
into
the environment in the first place. It is surely
not waiting, like
fragments of a pre-existing blueprint,
for nature to assemble it. The
environment is not an
intelligent designer. . . . In the end,
the
environment is the entire universe. Follow the
chain of causation and the
question becmes one of
cosmology. We are then confronted by the
ultimate
question: Where did the information content of
the universe come from?
The reason that the
universe can have zero energy and still contain
1050
tonnes of matter is because [sic] its gravitational field
has
negative energy - a peculiar concept . . . A
convincing mechanism was
found to explain how positive
energy was channelled into matter, and an
equal quantity
of negative energy went into the gravitational field. So
in
effect, all the cosmic matter was actually created for
free!
No law of Nature forbids a left-handed DNA
molecule, yet nobody has
ever found one.
mainstream DNA theorists, X-ray analysts, etc. -
tho' admittedly not as
common as RH helices. That Davies
could make such an error suggests he
does not bother to
get his rapid writing checked by experts.}
To
fully comprehend how life arose from non-life we need to
know
not only how biological information was
concentrated, but also how
biologically useful
information came to be specified , given that the
milieu
from which the first organism emerged was presumably just a
random
mix of molecular building blocks. In short, how
did meaningful information
emerge spontaneously from
incoherent junk?
and in thelast sentence 'how did . . . '
when no good reason has been advanced for believing THAT it
did. )
p76
Having thus SEDUCED the right tRNA
molecule to berth at the
production line . . . [my
emphasis]
. . .
the participating molecules
are completely MINDLESS. Collectively they may
display
systematic cooperation, as if to a plan, but individually
they just
career about. The molecular traffic within the
cell is essentially
chaotic, driven by chemical
attraction and repulsion and continually
agitated by
thermal energy. Yet out of this blind chaos order
emerges
spontaneously. [my emphasis]
I began by
explaining the geometrical forms of molecules,
the
structure of DNA and the sequence of base pairs, then
I sneakily started
describing messages and information
and specifications. In short, I
shifted from the
language of hardware to that of software. A gene is
a
particular material form in three-dimensional space,
but it is also an
instruction to do something. The
secret of life lies with this dual
function of biological
components. And nothing better illustrates this
duality
than the genetic code.
genetic code to make a general
conceptual point that goes right to the
heart of the
mystery of life. Any coded input is merely a jumble
of
useless data unless an interpreter or a key is
available. A coded message
is only as good as the
context in which it is put to use. That is to say
it has
to mean something. . . . The information distributed
along a
strand of DNA is biologically relevant. In
computerspeak, genetic data
is semantic data.
. . .
p83 Like the floppy disk, DNA is itself hardware, but again
the
crucial feature is not the stuff of which DNA is made
but the message
written into its base pairs. Put this
message into the right molecular
environment - in the
right semantic context - and, what do you know,
life
happens!
structure as a computer.
p219
For 300 years
science has based itself on reductionism and
materalism,
leading inevitably to atheism and a belief in
the
meaninglessness of physical existence.
vice-versa. He implies science is inherently
reductionist & materialistic;
he overlooks the fact that
it has been made so lately by atheists but is
not
inherently so. He should read Rev Dr Harold Turner's
'The Roots of Science'.
p221 . . . the principles
of Darwinism rule out the teleological notion
of life
striving for betterment.
Principles of
Darwinism?
I am aware the
Commission will be receiving detailed theological material
from Christian groups, to which I leave most of that
role.
I simply close by saying that what we should do -
not resembling what gene-tamperers are now doing -
is:
• design technologies with all the prayerful
awareness we can muster of God's intentions for this world;
• test our inventions carefully & fully;
and only
then, if they have passed stringent tests,
• deploy them
with due prudence and close monitoring.
As the person who first proposed this Royal Commission
(in 1977), I have been dismayed at aspects of its
composition, terms of reference, biased & unhelpful staff,
lack of sworn evidence, etc. These concerns have made me
all the more anxious to do whatever I can to
help.
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