The fifth in a series of six articles on genetic engineering biotechnology

 5 - Some Ethical Issues

 Robert Anderson BSc(Hons) PhD

4 February 1942 to 5 December 2008

Because scientists can do something, should they? There are many and varied reasons for looking at genetic engineering biotechnology purely from an ethical standpoint. Let us consider a few of these.

What would it be like in the future if your life started with your parents designing your genes? In addition to screening out unwanted genetic diseases, they select for sex, height, intelligence, hair- and skin-colour, etc. You may be engineered to be simply a clone of one of your parents, or of some celebrity whose genes your parents have purchased at enormous price. Many people consider we are simply playing God in a lab coat with this technology. Changing creation simply at the dictate of the scientists. As we saw in article four in this series, human DNA has altered less than two percent in five million years. As the saying goes, “The wheels of God grind very slow, but they grind exceeding fine.” Can we, with impunity, grind faster?

Dinosaurs came and went. Multitudinous plant forms have come and gone. All of these changes have taken place over aeons of time. We now attempt to revise nature and make it fit into our present perceptions.

Let us look along the corridors of time at the future effects of our gene meddling. The use of a simple but naturally occurring toxin ‘built in’ to combat pests. The corn borer is a pest. Imagine, if we could get the plant itself to express the Bt toxin there would be no need to spray, higher yields, more profit, less waste. A cornucopia of advantages spring to mind. Let us do it.

In a short space of time, it became obvious that the corn borer was gaining an immune response to Bt toxin. Farmers had to spray virtually the same as before. The larvae of the beautiful monarch butterfly was being killed by pollen containing the toxin. In some areas, the yields were down. It seems no one had carried out extensive testing to see the effect of having Bt toxin from all parts of the plant in the human stomach. A potential, long-term, adverse effect applies to organic farmers who rely on the Bt toxin as the preferred ‘safe’ alternative when pressed. And so the train of problems continues. The interactive and interdependence of life on Earth is inconceivable to GE proponents. The myopic views of scientists bent on creating a ‘quick fix’ has turned out to frequently be disastrous.

One of the most frightening genetic experiments concerned a bacteria called Kliebesella planticola. This was genetically engineered to turn farmers organic waste into alcohol. On the face of it, an admirable use of GE. Fortunately, one scientist was a little more discerning than most, and tested the product in ‘normal’ conditions rather than the sterile laboratory ones. She found to her horror that the little bacteria killed off many of the nutrient bacteria responsible for the fertility of the soil. The experiment was immediately stopped. In her words: “Had we have released this commercially we would finish up with a world without plants.”

For centuries, the Jewish faith has condemned the eating of pork. How do Jews feel about a pig gene placed in their broccoli, or worse, a scorpion gene in their strawberries. The most ancient scriptures in our world, the Vedic teaching of the Hindu faith, lays down very precise rules for food and its preparation. As vegetarians, those ancient peoples would have been forced to come to grips with all manner of genes spliced into their rice and vegetables.

The answer often given by proponents is that we simply do not understand what a gene is. After all, DNA is common to all creatures and plants. This facile augment is akin to saying that as cyanide and proteins share the same atoms, it does not matter if we interchange them. We do not need a degree in genetics to see the foolishness of this type of argument. The arrangement of the carbon and nitrogen atoms in cyanide are not the same as that in the protein. In exactly the same way, the gene arrangement in an Gorilla is somewhat different to a cabbage.

You are lonely? How about cloning yourself? Laugh not, this is now a real possibility. Here we really enter the realm of the ethicist. A very serious concern is the possibility of engineered offspring. Let us face it, we all want the best for our children so why not give them a real kick start in life. Higher intellect, physically well endowed and all for a price.

With good reason, many people are afraid that prenatal screening will implement a new age of eugenics. Eliminate the faulty and buy into the new designed models. Many disabled people strongly reject that they should be genetically screened and removed because of their impairments. Getting rid of the ‘genetic spelling mistakes’ as it were. All of us have faulty genes. With the advent of genetic screening, biotechnology is beginning to threaten and infringe our human rights. Is it moral to refuse a mortgage to a person because he has a cancer gene? He may never get cancer but we cannot take the risk, will be the banks justification. In the United States, the insurance companies already use genetic test results for increasing their premiums. A new eugenics is in the pipeline. We have witnessed the extreme evil of eugenics under Hitler’s Holocaust. Do we really want to return to this, albeit in a more sophisticated form?

A future such as outlined above is a lot more plausible than you think. By a combination of misplaced, naïve altruism and the myopic quest for short-term corporate profits and power-domination, we could plunge are world into such a nightmare.

Back in the 1950s, there was the great new scientific miracle that was going to make it possible to kill every noxious pest and insect in the world. By so doing, we would wipe out all insect-borne diseases. That miracle was DDT. In the new century, the media is full of information about the advancing wonders of genetic engineering. Claims are everywhere that genetic engineering will feed the starving, help eliminate disease, and so on. The question, of course, is the price tag. Judging by our experience up to now with the likes ot DDT and nuclear energy, the promise of benefit in the short- term is overwhelmed by long-term disasters. The results of flaws in genetic engineering biotechnology can neither be recalled nor fixed, they become the negative heritage to future generations.

The ethics involved in genetic engineering are obscure and involved. Never before in the history of mankind has such a dramatic, dangerous and untested technology been implemented so promptly throughout our world. For me, as a scientist, the problems of genetic engineering is not a crisis of the science as such, but a crisis of human consciousness. What kind of mentality can knowingly perpetrate these dangerous technologies on his fellow human beings that I have detailed for you in these articles? Their response is one of overconfident self-interest. An almost complete inability to see the total picture of the possible devastation which could be the outcome of this out-of-control technology.

In 1976, the Nobel Prize winning biologist, George Wald, said: “Recombinant DNA technology (genetic engineering) faces our society with problems unprecedented not only in the history of science, but of life on the Earth. It places in human hands the capacity to redesign living organisms, the products of some three billion years of evolution. … It presents probably the largest ethical problem that science has ever had to face. Our morality up to now has been to go ahead without restriction to learn all that we can about nature. Restructuring nature was not part of the bargain. … For going ahead in this direction may be not only unwise but dangerous. Potentially, it could breed new animal and plant diseases, new sources of cancer, novel epidemics.”

Also interesting are the comments of the co-discoverer of the DNA code, Dr James Watson, who has consistently ignored the risks of genetic engineering. He said this about possible diseases that may be created through genetic engineering: “I would not spend a penny trying to see if they exist. Until a tiger devours you, you don’t know that the jungle is dangerous,”

Regardless of the consequences, he is prepared to drive ahead. If Dr. Watson wants to put himself at risk, that is his choice, but I fail to see why he should drag everyone else with him. When genetically engineered organisms are released into our environment, they put all humanity at risk, not just their creators. Both of the above statements - both acknowledged, great scientists - clearly show that we should not depend on the high priests of science to make our ethical decisions for us. The stakes are just too high.

The final article in this series will ask the question, What we can expect?

Robert Anderson BSc(Hons) PhD

Robert Anderson was a Quaker, teacher and writer. He was a Trustee of Physicians and Scientists for Global Responsibility (www.psgr.org.nz), a member of Amnesty International, a Theosophist, and a campaigner for peace and disarmament. He believed everyone has the right to equality and respect, freedom of speech and religion He lectured on many subjects to meet the public's right to be independently informed on issues of science, the environment and social justice. He was passionate about making this world a better place for the generations to come. He authored eleven books and regularly wrote for a number of periodicals.

Enquiries about books written by Robert Anderson should be addressed to  naturesstar@xtra.co.nz