There are many advantages and disadvantages to genetic engineering. There are benefits such as easy production of otherwise rare products like human growth hormone or insulin. It could be used to tailor crops to produce high yields in difficult climatic conditions or on marginal land, as well as reducing the need for fertilisers and pesticides. The concerns of these is that perhaps the bacteria may mutate and become dangerous pathogens, and that genetically modified crops may cross with ‘normal’ crops and produce “super weeds” that we could not control.
Also, genetic engineering could be used to insert genes into humans usually by their eggs or sperm. It could prevent deadly hereditary diseases but could also give parents the choice of sex, and give the babies characteristics that are considered to be desirable. A poem written by T.S. Eliot ‘The Cocktail Party’ reminds me of this topic… “…You’ve lost touch with the person you thought you were. You no longer feel quite human. You’re suddenly reduced to the status of an object, a living object, but no longer a person”. The question is, do we dare withdraw the personality from animals and human beings by thinking we have the right to treat them as manipulable objects? Dr. Francis H. C. Crick, winner of the Nobel Prize in 1962 states “Humans probably will not be improved or altered by genetic manipulation in the future; education and environment are more important than genetics”.
Religious groups feel very strongly about GM foods. They want nature to run without human interference and also the feeling that you “shouldn’t mess with what God designed, humans aren’t the creator”. For example, Hindus treat cows as sacred and to Jews and Muslims pigs are considered un-clean, so they would be unable to consume products from these organisms.
There are two extreme views about GM crops. The positive view taken by the government and the GM companies, and the stronger negative view held by the media, the public and environmental awareness companies. The newspapers can now ‘name and shame’ test sites of GM crops. This could lead Greenpeace activists to destroy the sites like on 26th July 1999 when 28 people made a dawn raid on a 28-acre crop. Media can be partly to blame for the hype surrounding GM crops. This is because ethics rather than facts are emphasised as main points in many articles. The media plays a key role in the GM debate. Some papers perceive things in different ways, for example a Telegraph headline reads “Mr Blair says “I eat GM food and its safe”” whilst the Mirror reports on the same story “fury as the Prime Minister says “I eat Frankenstein food and its safe””. The government use the media to portray their messages across the nation. These include reassurances that GM is good and to “keep and open mind… It (GM) has the potential to deliver real benefits to people”. Although the public approve of GM sources to be used in medicine, as a survey shows that 74% of parents in England would let their child undergo gene therapy, the public still prefer not to eat it.
As with most new technologies, genetic engineering is about power. GM crops are being developed by multinational companies with the stated intention of gaining control over much of the world’s food supplies. Patents give companies ‘ownership’ over the new forms of plants and animals they develop, allowing them to charge farmers all over the world for the use of ‘their’ creations. Patents also allow researchers ‘ownership’ of genes, which occur naturally. One US company now ‘own’ the genes which indicate the likelihood of a woman’s developing breast cancer, enabling it to charge hospitals around the world each time they wish to test whether a woman is at risk from the disease. The patenting of human genes has even resulted in companies ‘owning’ genes taken from indigenous people in Panama and Papua New Guinea without their consent. Ron James, a spokesperson for the biotechnology industry is adamant in asserting that patents are not a moral issue because they do not confer a right to do something. They are ethically neutral; they merely exclude others from using an innovation.
The debate could go on and on, and probably will for years to come, but what we, scientists and consumers, should keep in mind is the fact that we humans have a responsibility and a duty not to use organisms as lifeless, valueless, structureless objects. I shall finish with a quote from Jack B. Bresler “Is the human body a sacred vessel of man’s soul and spirit, or is he merely at that position in biological evolution to know that he is a part of evolution and can do something about his own future evolution?”
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Biography
- Keeping the balance; policies on genetic modification- Liberal Democrats
- Tomorrow’s Biodiversity- Vandana Shiva
- Biopiracy: the plunder of nature and knowledge- Vandana Shiva
- Genetically engineered organisms: benefits and risks- J.R.S. Fincham and J.R. Ravetz
- Animal biotechnology and ethics- edited by Alan Holland and Andrew Johnson
- Genetic revolution and human rights- Justine Burley
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Ethics in biotechnology
- A Mirror newspaper headline adapted from ‘Ethics in biotechnology’.
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Andrew Parker BBC online- GM foods, what people think, 8th October 1999.
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‘GM food protests’ Thursday September 21st 2000 – The Guardian newspaper.
- ‘Health implications of genetically modified foods’ – Professor Liam Donaldson and Sir Robert May, May 1999
- ‘A new introduction to biology’ AQA – Bill Indge, Martin Rowland, Margaret Baker.
