Recombinant
DNA technology, or genetic modification (GM), applied to agriculture has yielded
a cornucopia of grains, fruits and vegetables that are resistant to disease,
salt or drought, display enhanced nutritional content or produce higher yield
with lower chemical input and environmental impact. And yet, many countries
have treated recombinant DNA technology shabbily and inappropriately. Debilitating
overregulation, which prevails worldwide, has prevented the wider diffusion
of the technology; politicians, legislators and supermarket chains have stigmatized
transgenic products through gratuitous regulatory requirements, labeling schemes
or boycotts; and activists have ripped up field trials of transgenic plants,
destroying experiments that would better characterize the risks and benefits
of new varieties.
Nowhere has this been more prevalent than in Europe, where in Switzerland
the system of oversight now singles out genetic modification protocols for
futile and risible discussions of the impact of the technology on plants'
'existence' and 'dignity'. And across the border in Germany, the institutions
that are meant to uphold the principles of intellectual openness and exchange
are now capitulating to the demands and threats of activists and organizations
ideologically opposed to experiments with recombinant DNAˆmodified plants,
curtailing the academic freedom of their faculty and students.
The new and bizarre wrinkle introduced in Switzerland–which has completely
banned the cultivation of any recombinant DNAˆmodified plants through
at least 2010–is a federal constitution that prohibits violations of
the 'dignity' of plants. (When I first learned of this, I assumed it was a
belated April Fools spoof.) According to a recent analysis by Switzerland's
Federal Ethics Committee on Non-Human Biotechnology, recombinant DNA modifications
may eventually be permissible, as long as plants' "reproductive ability
and adaptive ability are ensured" and they do not "lose their independence."
In addition, "social-ethical limits on the genetic modification of plants
may exist"–meaning, presumably, no modification would be permitted
that shortens a plant's life, makes its petals an ugly color or otherwise
prevents it from leading a rich and fulfilling existence.
A more serious problem is the destruction of experiments by activists. In
(1) and Germany, in particular, small-scale field trials conducted by researchers
at universities and research institutes regularly have been vandalized by
activists, even though most of these investigations were studying the environmental
safety of growing recombinant DNAˆmodified plants in normal agricultural
environments. A few scientists have continued to pursue their research in
the face of this adversity–despite a lackadaisical approach from criminal-justice
systems–but the coup de grâce may now have been administered by
the recent decision of two German universities to prohibit field trials of
recombinant DNAˆmodified crops.
In April, the rector and external advisory board of Nürtingen-Geislingen
University "urgently recommended" that a faculty member terminate
his field trials, which had begun in 1996, on insect-resistant and fungus-resistant
recombinant DNAˆmodified corn. The university's rector, economist Werner
Ziegler, was quoted as saying "We have always been very critical of this
kind of research....Lately things got out of control. There were e-mail attacks,
vandalism, intimidation and personal threats (2)
Also in April, the Justus Liebig University announced that it would stop its
planned initiation of two small field trials of insect-resistant recombinant
DNAˆmodified corn after protests by activists and local politicians<http://www.nature.com/nbt/journal/v26/n9/full/#B2>
2. Both trials had been approved by the Federal Office of Consumer Protection
and Food Safety and were to be conducted on behalf of the national authority
for agriculture variety and seed affairs. "I am not happy at all with
this decision," said Stefan Hormuth, the university president. "Unfortunately,
we were no longer able to deal with the massive opposition from politicians
and the general public. The university has a reputation in the region that
we cannot risk losing."
Let me see whether I have this right: German universities maintain their reputations
by curtailing the academic freedom of their faculty and students in the face
of demands and threats from ideological bigots?
Germany is the only country in which the universities–which are normally
refuges dedicated to the advancement of knowledge and to the freedom to perform
legitimate research–have fully capitulated to hoodlums. One might expect
such deplorable, dastardly behavior in Russia or Sudan, but in a major Western
democracy it is inexcusable.
Along with France, Germany has experienced consistent and violent vandalism
of field trial sites. But the appropriate response is not to ban the research.
Would British, Canadian or US universities even have considered banning research
using animals in response to threats, intimidation and violence by 'animal
rights' demonstrators?
This capitulation to the vilest sort of antiacademic and antisocial behavior
is grotesque and has dire implications. Violent, antitechnology, antisocial
activists of all sorts will now smell blood. If German universities continue
along this path of circumscribing a kind of Entartete Forschung, 'degenerate
research', and allowing persecution of practitioners of certain intellectual
approaches, such as the use of the most precise and predictable techniques
for genetic modification, the stridency and absolutism of the activists' pronouncements–and
their violent tendencies–will only increase. It is not hard to draw
parallels with some of the excesses of intellectual persecution in the 1930s,
when the regime's objections to Entartete Kunst, or 'degenerate art', drove
out such great minds and innovators as Albert Einstein, Emil Nolde, Max Beckmann,
Marc Chagall, Vincent van Gogh, Henri Matisse, Edvard Munch and Pablo Picasso.
Those who ignore the mistakes of history are destined to repeat them.
But Herr Hormuth has a different take on Germany's past. In an e-mail to me,
he wrote: "If we look at history then we should have also learned that
we have to act responsibly with the results and possibilities of scientific
research and are accountable to society." A quite extraordinary statement.
Given the existing achievements of recombinant DNAˆmodified plants–economic
benefits to farmers, less use of chemical pesticides, more environment-friendly
farming practices–he appears to have a peculiar view of what constitutes
acting "responsibly with the results and possibilities of scientific
research" and being accountable to society. Could anyone argue seriously
that delaying or abandoning a demonstrably safe technology that is environmentally
friendly and enhances food (and potentially, biofuel) production is beneficial
to society?
This time around, the German government is not directly culpable for the current
situation, but it certainly has failed to protect freedom of expression and
the personal safety and property of plant scientists against assaults by antitechnology
activists. (In the United States, such groups have been officially designated
as terrorist organizations.) How have we arrived at a position in the 21st
century where thugs and vandals dictate the research and syllabus of the academic
institutions of a major Western European democracy?
One reason is that policy makers in both the European Union (EU) and in individual
European countries like Germany have consciously and purposefully chosen not
to apply scientific and risk-based regulatory policies to the oversight of
recombinant DNAˆmodified plants. Flying in the face of the scientific
consensus–including the EU's own risk assessments–current EU and
national regulations cast a veil of suspicion over agbiotech by requiring
case-by-case government environmental assessments for field testing with recombinant
DNAˆmodified plants. In contrast, plants with similar or even identical
traits that were created with less precise techniques, such as hybridization
or mutagenesis, are subject to no government scrutiny or requirements (or
publicity or vandalism) at all. And that applies even to the numerous new
plant varieties that result from 'wide crosses' with embryo rescue, hybridizations
that move genes from one species or genus to another; that is, across what
used to be thought of as natural breeding boundaries.
If recombinant DNA–modified plants were treated appropriately—that
is, no differently from other new varieties—their testing would not
need special warning signs or public announcements of test sites. There would
be no way for the vandals to target and disrupt field research that they deem
unacceptable.
There are important lessons here. First, you don't conciliate thugs by capitulating
to them. Second, the problem would have been avoided entirely, had public
policy been crafted intelligently in the first place. And third, when universities
permit intimidation to compromise academic freedom and the safety of their
faculty and students, they become part of the problem.
References
1. Anonymous (September 2007). A tragic GM 'outing'. Nature Biotechnology,
25(9), 950 (2007).
2. Schiermeier, Q. (14.5.08) German universities bow to public pressure
over GM crops. Nature, 453, 263 (2008).
Source:
Henry I Miller (September 2008). Auf Wiedersehen, agbiotech. Nature
Biotechnology, 26(9), 974-5
This article is reproduced with the permission of the author.
<<<back
