APRIL 2000 BROADSHEET - Genetic Engineering and Genetically Modified Foods
There was a packed audience at the St John's Innovation Centre on Thursday 23rd March to hear four expert scientific speakers expounding on Genetic Engineering and Genetically Modified Foods. As was to be expected there were some raised tensions with representatives of Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth present, but on the whole the meeting passed off quietly with very sensible conclusions and a much better understanding of the issues involved.
Alan Williams, MD of a local Biotech company, Managing Resources, opened with definitions of what GM was all about. Early man noticed that the some of the grasses in the Middle East did not shed their seeds. As a result of trial and error these emmer grasses gradually became wheat, a transformation from 14 to 42 chromosomes over several millennia. This development has continued more scientifically at places like Plant Breeding International, but now by gene implantation the process can be enormously accelerated. Whereas breeding had to be via sexually compatible plants, now interaction is possible between all the different forms of life. This is scary and no wonder such epithets as Frankenfood and genetic pollution are being bandied about. Alan gave examples of plants with herbicide tolerance that could be sown without ploughing, not only saving a great deal of time and energy, but completely free from the toxic effects of weed killers and pesticides, which would not then be necessary.
Our second speaker was Dr Doug Parr, Chief Scientific Adviser of Greenpeace UK. His concern was that the risks were unpredictable. Unintended interactions could lead very rapidly to irreversibly malign life forms. Such fears had to have an outlet and inevitably evoked strong emotions. His biggest worry was in the power of the multinationals to override the democratic process. He was not being alarmist, just sensible, and concerned that the government was not implementing strict enough controls on field planting experiments.
He was followed by Dr Jeremy Sweet from NIAB, National Institute of Agricultural Botany and he called his talk "Regulating the Genetic Revolution". Science, as always, is neutral with tremendous potential for good or evil. The genetic revolution has progressed very much faster in USA and Canada because of the different approach to regulation. There the product is examined, whereas in Europe it is the process. (Eg. a non-GM process can lead to a toxic product.) As a result there is a very large experimental sample for us already tested in America with no apparent ill effects. Nevertheless we do need to assess every new product very carefully and we have a plethora of bodies such as the Agriculture and Environment Biotechnical Commission to do this. Jeremy gave more examples of the advantages of GM products: Vitamin A rice which restored this deficiency in some eastern countries; increasing the shelf life of fruits; increasing tolerance to lack of water or even to salt water by introducing a mangrove gene.
Finally we had the academic input from Dr John Barrett, Lecturer at the Department of Genetics, Cambridge University. He pointed out that all was not well with the world prior to GM. Bird populations were down due to pesticides and the active life of barley varieties, for example, was only 3 years due to their adaptation to mildew fungus. GM can cure all this. The main hazard is cross-pollination with their basic species, eg. our breeds of potatoes could get out of control if allowed to seed in their native origins in Peru. But are the effects likely to be that bad? We already had 216 species of superweed, unaffected by any known weed killer!
Questions came thick and fast with not a few experts in the audience adding their views. Cases were quoted of local companies collapsing because activists targeted the venture capitalists supporting them. There was Axis Genetics who were growing vaccines in plants for use on humans. Because the risks were unknown, even if slight, people refused to take them; whereas the high risk of accident when driving a car was accepted because it was known. Others wanted to know whether GM could be used to eliminate harmful plants such as narcotics.
A straw poll taken at the start of the evening did not show much change at the end, which was still an overwhelming vote in favour of GM Foods. Ian Unwin and Giovanni Bisutti are to be congratulated on putting together a really interesting, informative and controversial meeting. The speakers can be contacted as follows:-
Alan Williams Managing Resources Ltd., 01223 566159;
Dr Doug Parr Greenpeace UK, ge@dila.greenpeace.org, www.greenpeace.org/~geneng;
Dr Jeremy Sweet NIAB, 01223 276381, jeremy.sweet@niab.com;
Dr John Barrett CU Genetics Dept 01223 333994, j.barrett@gen.cam.ac.ukAt the meeting the launch of the 2000 Cambridgeshire Small Business Award was announced. This will be held on Tuesday 4th April at Lucy Cavendish College when Robin Saxby will give the address after lunch. Cost £15, lunch at 12 noon, talk at 1.00pm. Tickets from Vandy Massey, Cambridgeshire Small Businesses Group, 19 Church Close, Whittlesford, Cambridge, CB2 4NY, Tel/Fax: 01223 839626
Anyone interested in having a Cambridge student to work for them during the summer should contact the Experience Entrepreneurship Programme that is being run by Ruth Puddick from the St John's Innovation Centre. Full details on www.cue.org.uk/exp.nsf/ , especially the Potential Employers page.
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