We did not inherit the earth from our ancestors - we borrow it from our children
If we do not change our direction, we are likely to end up where we are headed.
- Chinese ProverbWhat we are doing to the forests of the world is but a mirror reflection of what we are doing to ourselves and to one another. Gandhi
Advantages of GE
"Up to now, living organisms have evolved very slowly, and new forms have had plenty of time to settle in. Now whole proteins will be transposed overnight into wholly new associations, with consequences no one can foretell, either for the host organism, or their neighbors.... 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." Dr. George Wald. Nobel Laureate in Medicine, Professor of Biology, Harvard University.
The main objective of genetic engineering is to find improved seed varieties, i.e. varieties with properties such as resistance to or tolerance of plant diseases (fungi, bacteria, viruses) and animal pests (insects, mites, nematodes) as well as to so-called stress factors such as climatic variation or aridity, poor soil quality, crop rotation practices, and the transferring of nitrogen fixing capacity into grains in order to make agriculture more sustainable. The idea of genetic engineering, then, is not to invent freakish hybrids but rather to improve certain properties of important cultivated plants (from Novartis website)
One of the most extravagant claims by the biotech industry is that GE crops will feed the world's hungry. Yet there is no scientific validation for this. First of all there is no single gene that is responsible for enhanced productivity, or nitrogen fixation. It is a characteristic of the plant itself as it is a complex combination of its physical and structural characteristics. Furthermore because you are altering the genetic code that had developed over millions of years most GE products are unstable with unknowable consequences (Concerns). Given the state of the technology it seems unlikely that they will solve world hunger since they are lucky to get a plant that survives let alone thrives.
They claim that since it takes about 12 years to develop a new strain using conventional methods and 5 years using genetic engineering that it will save a lot of time, and time is money. No matter how you slice that one consumer safety should not be thrown away in the interest of enhancing profit.
They also claim it provides growers with a greater diversity of hardy varieties. It may be of interest to note that only 100 years ago we had a huge diversity of plants crops, many of which are now lost forever, due to the effects of monocultures grown from single, large companies rather than the multiple strains carried on generation after generation by each individual farmer. We have lost far more diversity than they will ever create. Also given that cross breeding of GE is highly likely this means that wild species will also lose significant diversity as they are contaminated by the spread of GE.
Proponents claim that genetic engineering and biotechnology can enhance the ability of farmers to grow crops in areas where conditions may be extreme, arable land and fertilizer is scarce. This may be a valid claim. However it has yet to be proven, and as mentioned previously we have already lost so many species by introducing monocultures that GE only threatens to worsen the problem. Furthermore GE plants are entirely unpredictable - lets test them first and prove the claims, prove their safety to the environment and ourselves and then they can make these claims. To date I have seen no evidence of this.
Proponents even claim that the patenting of genes can promote the conservation of genetic diverisity by assigning value to a resource otherwise considered "free". I would not use the word free - without value perhaps. And even there it could not promote gentic diversity because we would still be faced with the same problem we are today - only species (or genes) with some monetary value to humans are given any consideration. We know so little about natural systems that we can hardly expect to know which organisms are more easily sacrificed than others. By the time we were to find out, it may be too late. Furthermore this argument clearly ignores the loss of biological diverisity from cross breeding farm escapees or from the use of a few seed sources to supply the world's agriculture.
Animals can be GE'd to contain human genetic disorders allowing us to do tests on them. And animals can also be used to produce pharmaceuticals such as antibodies for cancer treatment. This, while may sound hopeful, has an immediate consequence, serious enough I believe to warrant its dismissal. That is when we cross different species with humans in any way we open ourselves up to species specific diseases that will be much more likely to cross the species barrier when we blur that barrier by inserting our genes into those of rats, chickens, pigs and monkeys.
Another benefit is that they can improve the shelf life of our food. Yuck! Who wants a tomato that's been sitting out on the shelf for 6 weeks, even if it still looks nice the flavour will likely suffer and the beneficial enzymes and vitamins that are so essential to our health will have been destroyed.
Conclusion
The major problem, as I see it, with every one of these "advantages" (aside from inaccuracies in some of the specific claims and the lack of proof for the rest), is that they make the ASSUMPITION that it is safe. The use of GE crops is based on the assumption that they are substantially equivalent to the organisms they contain. As was just shown in What is Genetic Engineering and in Concerns, this argument is not valid because the unnatural insertion of genes and the intentional dispuption of the genetic code has completely unforeseeable consequences. The industry itself, begrudgingly, will admit this, but they call it a "technology inherent risk" and from this they assume it is an acceptable risk and that the consequences will never outweigh the benefits
In light of the precautionary principle (that we should err on the side of caution when there is scientific uncertainty - and given the huge GE debate there is clearly a whole lot of scientific uncertainty here) this is completely unacceptable. Since we do not know the consequences, and indeed cannot know the consequences we can not approve it on the basis of any form of risk assessment (risk assessment incidently has many, many flaws in itself read the Vancomycin Resistance case study or the one on Particulate Matter Air Pollution for some of my critique on risk assessment).
If they KNEW it was safe then the advantages would have validity, if they were proven to be true, which incidently many, probably most have not. None have proven their safety because our governments do not require it.
