New scientific inventions are often, for good and valid reasons, viewed differently by society and scientists. GM technology is radical and therefore controversial.  The debate about its application to the global food supply is necessary but can only be meaningful if it is recognised that different interest groups perceive issues differently –they ask different questions and arrive at different conclusions.  It is not just up to scientists and politicians to decide whether GM technology is safe. How safe is safe?  How much testing is necessary?  Do the benefits outweigh the risks?  These issues are the prerogative of all of society (This is persuasively argued by S. Mayer and A. Stirling, ‘GM Crops: good or bad?’, in European Molecular Biology Organisation, vol. 5 (2004), no. 11.)

The role of science in society was meaningfully reflected on by James Watson, sometimes called the father of genetic science, when he said:

“This [genetic engineering] is a matter far too important to be left solely in the hands of the scientific and medical communities. The belief that … science always moves forward represents a form of laissez-faire nonsense dismally reminiscent of the credo that American business if left to itself will solve everybody's problems. Just as the success of a corporate body in making money need not set the human condition ahead, neither does every scientific advance automatically make our lives more ‘meaningful’.”  

(Dr. James Watson (1928-), co-discover of the double helix structure of DNA and Nobel laureate.)

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Are people who criticise GM technology anti-science and anti-modernisation? 

Answer:  

It is often claimed by the biotechnology industry that criticism of GM technology is either illogical, or ‘anti-science’ and ‘anti-modernisation’.  Nothing could be further from the truth. No one would reject safe and useful applications of science and technology, but when a technology aims to genetically modify the global food supply people expect credible assurances that the health of their children and the welfare of the environment are not put a risk.  Gene science is not fully understood and yet ‘foreign’ genes are being transferred into our food supply with no testing undertaken to see how this might effect the ecosystem or human health.  GM technology is not precise and predictable and the consequences of genetically modifying food is largely unknown.  It is not ‘anti-science’ to differentiate between dangerous applications of science and technology and those that deliver safe and useful products, nor is it ‘anti-modernisation’ when informed consumers decide to exercise their right of choice.

Will GM technology produce benefits to society?

Answer:

Science and technology have produced many innovations which have provided long term benefits but also many which have produced short term advantages at the expense of the longer term good. This has been the lesson of the technological age. It has taught us that discoveries are not necessarily good because they are new. We now recognise that the more radical and far reaching the technology, the greater the potential for risk. We now understand the imperative of applying the precautionary principle when dealing with fledgling technologies.

Two of the newest technologies, GM technology and Nano Technology are more radical in their nature than any technologies which have preceded them. GM technology aims to re-design living organisms at the genetic level and Nano technology seeks to do the same at an atomical level. They are advertised as capable of providing great benefits. However, given the universal scope of their application and the fact that they are little understood, it is a matter of great concern to many that they are being applied with such haste and in the absence of meaningful testing procedures and regulatory frameworks. A growing number of independent scientists and public interest groups are concerned that industries aiming to harness such technologies for profit and governments seeking to benefit from taxation of those profits focus on wealth creation as a goal worth pursuing almost regardless of the risks. It is a measure of the maturity of a democracy to what extent commercial objectives are balanced against other social imperatives  – like safety – which protect the long term future of cultural development.

Why is GM technology being embraced by some governments in spite of the concerns about how its applications may pose risks to the environment and human health? 

Answer: 

Governments fear being left behind in the race to compete commercially in a globalised world.  The biotech industry advertises itself as the next technological innovation capable of maximising global profits.  Governments find it difficult to impose safety regulations which will either delay the marketing of GM products or decrease their profitability, because they fear other countries will access and dominate the market ahead of them. Where the general public is poorly informed about genetic modification and is not strongly mobilized to pressurize authorities, governments are likely to be less cautious regarding the environmental and consumer safety issues of GMOs. 

Can the risks associated with GM technology be absorbed?

Answer:  

We have become used to hearing risk related products being defended by the words, ‘the risks are small and well within government guidelines’.  The problem is that risk is often accumulative. Risk accumulation is perhaps our most serious modern day predicament. The combination of all forms of pollution resulting from various technologies is threatening the ecosystem and human health.  GM technology is pervasive and powerful and represents risks we cannot even evaluate let alone prevent. Numerous governments and voluntary organisations throughout the world have urged that the precautionary principle be applied until the safety issues surrounding this technology are more carefully scrutinized.

If GM technology has not brought the promised benefits to consumers or farmers and it poses unknown threats to the environment and human health, why is it being promoted by the biotech industry and many governments?

Answer: 

All or some of the following factors may account for individuals, business groups and governmental bodies adopting a pro-GM attitude:

1.    

2.    

4.    

The last factor (number 4 above) identifies a modern day threat to democracy all too evident in many countries where corporations fund political parties to the extent that they are seen to be dictating governmental policy. In this environment, science is no longer an independent endeavour, where new technologies are tested and peer reviewed before being marketed.  Many of today’s new technologies are created by large corporations, who test their products behind closed doors and who seldom submit their scientific procedures for review by independent scientists.  Political parties are heavily lobbied by these multi-international corporations who seek approval (for example in the form of loose regulation) for their new technologies and increasingly ‘co-operate’ with big business in return for large cash donations to their political party.  (Tony Blair has been accused by anti-GM groups for being pro-GM because Lord Sainsbury, - his Minister for Science and a businessman who has heavily invested in several biotech companies in the UK, - is the single biggest financial donor (to the tune of 11 million pounds) to the Labour party.)

In his recent book, Seeds of Deception, Jeffery Smith offers a powerful insight into the collaboration of governments and the biotech industry to promote what he terms as an untested and badly regulated technology. In the forword to this book, Michael Meacher, UK Minister of State for the Environment in 1997-2003, argues that these business-government relations pose a threat to democracy and calls on readers, “to prevent the contamination of the nation´s food supply, but even more to tackle the poisoning of the nation’s decision-making system by the undercover wielding of economic and financial muscle and PR manipulativeness of Big Biotech.” (From M. Meacher´s foreword to: J.E. Smith, Seeds of Deception, Green Books (2004), p. 12.)