Genetically modified foods debate

Contentious issue of genetically modified organisms
Along with potential benefits, this revolutionary field also bore possible hazards
Moral and ethical implications of the new genetics

Contentious issue of genetically modified organisms

Recently I have begun to speak out in public about the contentious issue of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in food. As a result, I have been accused by PR spokespeople and executives of biotechnology companies of being either uninformed because I am not actively engaged in research or biased in my opinions.

As human beings, we perceive life through perceptual lenses shaped by our values, beliefs and professional interests. The expression "he who pays the piper calls the tune" is a recognition that the source of one's paycheck, research grant or stock dividend exerts a powerful influence over one's actions.

I am a geneticist by training. At Amherst College in Massachusetts, my honours thesis was in genetics as was my PhD research at the University of Chicago. After a year of postdoctoral research in genetics at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, my first university position was in the Genetics Department at the University of Alberta. At UBC I taught both introductory and advanced genetics and in 1969 was awarded the E.W.R. Steacie Memorial Fellowship as the "outstanding research scientist in Canada under the age of 35". For over a quarter of a century, genetics was an all-consuming passion in my life. I have not ceased thinking like a scientist simply because I'm no longer actively engaged in research.

In the 1970's revolutionary techniques to manipulate DNA, the genetic material, provided profound insights into the structure and function of genes. One method involved "recombinant DNA" in which genes from unrelated species could be hooked together and inserted into living cells. This technique enabled scientists to bypass species and sexual barriers and to shuffle genes at will.

Recombinant DNA was a powerful tool that quickly became a standard lab technique. But it was also clear that such technologies could be applied with enormous social and financial implications. Organisms might be engineered to degrade pollution, produce useful products and create plants that were more nutritious, disease resistant, salt tolerant and nitrogen fixing.

Along with potential benefits, this revolutionary field also bore possible hazards

But scientists themselves recognized that along with potential benefits, this revolutionary field also bore possible hazards. The proposal to insert DNA from a cancer-causing virus into a common gut bacterium triggered widespread debate and a call for a moratorium on all potentially risky experiments. Guidelines were painstakingly hammered out but only applied to scientists holding government research grants.

As a columnist for the National Research Council publication, Science Forum, I wrote in August 1997:
"For young scientists who are under enormous pressure to publish to secure a faculty position, tenure, or promotion and for established scientists with 'Nobelitis', the siren's call of recombinant DNA is irresistible…in my own laboratory, there is now considerable pressure to clone Drosophila DNA sequences in E. coli…My students and postdocs take experiments and techniques for granted that were undreamed of five or ten years ago. We feel that we're on the verge of really understanding the arrangement, structure and regulation of genes in chromosomes. In this climate of enthusiasm and excitement, scientists are finding the debate over regulation and long-term implications of recombinant DNA a frustrating roadblock to getting on with research."

A year later, in August 1978, I wrote in Science Forum:
"I can appreciate the pressures that are brought to bear to stifle dissent within the scientific community. Peer approval brings with it invitations to give lectures, to speak at symposia and honorary positions in scientific organizations. The driving priorities of young scientists are to get and keep good-sized grants, and achieve recognition, tenure and promotion. Therefore, outspoken criticism is understandably rare in this group, and they depend on people higher up in the scientific hierarchy to set their objectives…What am I saying? Not that scientists are evil, malicious or irresponsible - rather that our personal priorities, membership in a vested-interest group, ambitions and goals prevent us from objectively weighting the social against personal consequences of our work."

So I had made a public declaration in my 1977 column:
"Can the important questions be addressed objectively when one has such high stakes in continuing the work? I doubt it. Therefore, I feel compelled to take the position that…no such experiments [on recombinant DNA] will be done in my lab; reports of such experiments will not acknowledge my grants; and I will not knowingly be listed as an author of a paper involving recombinant DNA."

I had achieved far more in science than I ever dreamed or hoped. So I felt some of us whose careers and reputations were not in jeopardy had to forego this work in order to take part, as scientists, in the discussion of the moral and ethical questions free from the bias of vested interest in the work. Scientists working for the nuclear, tobacco and petrochemical industries speak from a perspective of their employers and there is no reason to suppose that scientists in biotechnology will be any different. Eventually I stopped taking government grants altogether so I wouldn't be vulnerable to any influence of outside agendas.

As a popularizer of science through newspaper columns, television and radio, I am able to survey a far broader range of topics and questions than I ever did as a research scientist. Rather than losing my interest in the field of biotechnology and all of its implications, I have a broader perspective to reflect upon and have written extensively on the subject over the years. In 1986, I discussed moral and ethical issues of genetics in my autobiography, "Metamorphosis: Stages in a Life". I wrote syndicated columns on genetics that became chapters in the best-selling books, "Inventing the Future" and "Time to Change". In 1988, science writer, Peter Knudtson, and I coined the term "genethics" and co-wrote "Genethics: The Ethics of Engineering Life" that became a bestseller and continues to be widely used in university courses.

Moral and ethical implications of the new genetics

So it is puzzling to me when individuals, some not even scientists, but spokespeople for the biotechnology industry call my credibility into question. I deliberately gave up on the day-to-day excitement of scientific research in order to remain a credible discussant on the moral and ethical implications of the new genetics. At the very least, all of us who participate in this discussion ought to be forthright about the sources of our funding position in companies and any other factors that might influence our perspectives. Bias in debate over biotechnology is currently too skewed by the clamour of those with much to profit from it.

By: David Suzuki, PhD

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