The debate over genetically modified foods
Are genetically modified foods safe? No, says the Prince of Wales, as he champions the case against genetically-engineered food. Two days after Monsanto, the Biotechnology Company, launched a £1 million campaign to persuade consumers that their genetically modified (GM) foods are as safe and nutritious as the alternatives, HRH the Prince of Wales threw down the gauntlet to the GM food industry. The Daily Telegraph'sfront-page story of June 8th 1998 said that "The Prince of Wales today attacks multi-national companies for trying to persuade the public that the growing of genetically-engineered crops should be allowed in Britain, probably next year. [He] says he will not eat food made from such produce, nor give it to his family or guests. Genetic engineering "takes mankind into realms that belong to God and to God alone".
His second major assault came at the end of October, speaking at the Organic Food Awards. He asked "whether we need genetically modified food at all" and called for "strong and sustained pressure from consumers to ensure that they keep the right not to eat them" (as reported in the Daily Mail, 30th October 1998).
Most of us are aware that genetically modified foods have been and are being developed. GM Soya is available in large quantities in the US, and consumers may have it as ingredients in margarine, burgers, biscuits, ice cream, chocolate, and bread. GM maize can be an ingredient in breakfast cereals and corn oil. GM tomatoes are sold in puree form and GM rennet can be used to make cheese. Considerable controversy has been generated over GM foods within the European Community, not the least because Monsanto and other large biotechnology companies are refusing to segregate GM products from normal products. Around 150 modified foods are waiting for approval from the British Government before they can be released for commercial farmingand subsequently to enter the shops. About 300 test sites in the UK are said to have been identified for growing GM crops. The Iceland food chain has made a policy decision not to include any GM foods in its branded products, and other food chains are still considering their position. Public opinion is behind the Iceland policy: a recent survey showed widespread concern. Some 85% of consumers wanted GM foods to be segregated from normal foods at source and 95% wanted GM foods to be labeled. The environmentalist pressure groups are calling GM products "Frankenstein foods".
Genetically modified foods are produced using mechanisms that splice genes from one organism into the DNA of the host or target organism. The transferred genes are intended to provide enhanced performance to the host. For example, a gene, which is thought to enable a fish to survive freezing water, has been inserted into the DNA of a tomatoto make it frost-resistant. Another genetic change to tomatoes gives them a longer shelf life. Maize has been modified so that it has a better resistance to disease. Cows have been given genetically engineered bovine growth hormone to boost milk yields. Monsanto's GM Soya bean has resistance to Monsanto's chemical herbicide glyphosate, with the trade name Roundup (a best seller around the world). Farmers can sow the GM Soya bean, spray the developing plants with Roundup and watch everything else except the crop wither and die. This produces enhanced yields for the farmer.
The argument is made by supporters of GM foods that plant breeding has
always sought to develop and enhance desirable characteristics of crops.
New technology merely extends the range of variability that plant breeders
can utilise. Furthermore, farmers have always been looking for ways of extending
their yields and increasing the shelf life of its products, and genetic
engineering of foods continues this emphasis. These arguments, according
to Prince Charles, are unacceptable. He writes: "The fundamental difference
between traditional and genetically modified plant breeding is that, in
the latter, genetic material from one species of plant, bacteria, virus,
animal or fish is literally inserted into another species, with which they
could never naturally breed. The use of these techniques raises, it seems
to me, crucial ethical and practical considerations."
"I happen to believe that this kind of genetic modification takes mankind
into realms that belong to God, and to God alone. Apart from certain highly
beneficial and specific medical applications, do we have the right to experiment
with, and commercialise, the building blocks of life? We live in an age
of rightsit seems to me that it is time our Creator had some rights, too."
(Daily Telegraph, 8th June 1998, p.16)
It is refreshing to hear a national figure promoting the need for ethical standards in science and commerce. It is right to bring to the fore our responsibility to live before God, and not to live as though he has nothing to say to us on these issues. However, having said these things, it is important that we seek to know what God does say to us: it is not enough to know what the Prince of Wales believes God is saying. How do we find out God's will? Our starting point must be the Scriptures, and we must "test all things" by reference to God's written Word.
A Biblical perspective
Our relationship with the world around us is best described by the word "stewardship". Men and women have been entrusted with God's creation. We are responsible for its care and safekeeping. This is not a dominion of exploitation, but of service to God: he is the owner and we are his appointed agents. This principle is the rationale for a Christian involvement in science and industry. When professionals lose this link with stewardship, they become self-centred and making profits becomes the only significant measure of performance.
A further principle to be found in the earliest chapters of the Bible is that of "image-bearing": man was made in God's image. Although the meaning of this term is much discussed, it must mean that in many ways we are to be like God. We speak because He speaks. We are conscious because He is conscious. We are able to exercise creative gifts because God is pre-eminently the Master Creator. One of the early scientists captured this beautifully when he said that his work was a case of thinking God's thoughts after Him. Some plant and animal breeders proceed in the belief that there is innate variability in organisms, and that desirable traits can be developed by a process of artificial selection. All this is consistent with the thought that God has created organisms with the potential to vary, and that selective breeding is a justifiable expression of stewardship. (This is not to imply that all selective breeding programmes are acceptable - some appear to have lost all links with the concept of stewardship) If this argument is accepted, then it is possible to interpret genetic engineering, involving the introduction of genes from other organisms, as an extension of the breeding processwith man acting as an intelligent designer.
Christian concerns about GM foods
The argument developed here is that Christianity does not object in principle to the practice of genetic engineering. However, there are many other aspects of this issue to considerwhich, in my opinion, make the concerns of the Prince of Wales entirely justified.
First, many of the GM plant developments are damaging to the environment. Ecological communities thrive on diversity, but intensive farming, and particularly the production of GM foods, results in monocultures. Not only are other plants and animals excluded from the growth area, there are inevitably high inputs of fertilisers, pesticides and heavy mechanisation. The global trend to environmental degradation and soil erosion, already a serious problem for agriculture, is promoted by such practices.
Furthermore, there are significant concerns that GM plants can produce genetic pollution. At least ten GM crops have been found to transfer their genetic qualities to wild plants. The fear is that "super weeds" will develop which will out-compete their natural counterparts. Dr John Fagan, a molecular biologist from the US, is reported in The Daily Telegraph (7 September 1996) as saying: "Although there is not a danger with every genetically-manipulated food, once you introduce genetically-manipulated plants or animals into the environment you cannot recall them. They soon cross-pollinate or reproduce with their natural counterparts and the genetic manipulation can spread throughout the species".
There is a genuine risk of transferring viral resistance from GM plants to wild relatives. Ecologists know very little about the role of viruses in restricting weed populations, but the research that has been done suggests that viruses may be a significant factor for keeping weed populations in check. In the UK, these unknown risks have limited trials with virus resistant GM plants to potatoesbecause potatoes have no wild relatives in Britain. However, in the US, there is less restraint (Coghlan, A. New Scientist, 12 September 1998, page 21). According to Jeremy Rifkin (New Scientist, 31 October 1998, 34-37) "the liability issue is the industry's Achilles heel. My own bet is that agricultural biotechnology is going to be one of the great disasters of corporate capitalist history. I don't really believe that it will be able to deal with the liability issue over genes jumping. I think that it is likely that we will be plagued by genetic pollution, and that we will look back and see chemical and nuclear pollution as not as significant - even though one brought us global warming and the others waste that we cannot deal with for thousands of years."
Second, the effects of GM foods on the consumer suggest a significant health risk. An early warning came in 1989, when a genetically engineered bacterium was used to produce the food supplement tryptophan. The product killed 37 people and permanently paralysed 1500 more before it was with drawn. Another much publicised case concerned the transfer of a gene from a brazil nut to a Soya bean to improve the protein content of the bean. Unknown to the gen-engineers, something else was transferred and people allergic to Brazil nuts reacted to the Soya beans. A further example involved a GM yeast, produced to achieve an increased rate of fermentation, but which also produced a toxic by-product of fermentation. These problems are occurring because so much GM activity appears to be based on the simplistic notion that each gene controls one character traitwhereas modern genetics shows that genes function in a complex networked system, and the expression of one gene depends on the expression of others. With our present state of knowledge, the outcome appears unpredictable. This is a particular problem, as GM techniques lack the ability to control where the introduced gene is spliced into the host's DNA. Dr Fagan (introduced above) warned: "Introducing a gene into another organism is a Russian roulette processthe position the new gene occupies is not controllable. We are being asked to partake in a nutritional experiment of global proportions".
Third, genetic engineers do not appear to give any weight to the thought that the organisms being manipulated were originally designed by God. The emphasis appears to be that organisms have their complement of genes via chance processes in their past evolutionary history. If chance reigns supreme, then the genetic content of plants and animals is a matter of contingency and there can be no fundamental reason why modification should not be undertaken. However, if the genetic content is a matter of design, then it can be predicted that whilst changes may introduce intended traits, they may also disrupt the balanced operation of existing genes. (This concern is not exclusive to Christians: it is shared by some evolutionary scientists who believe that Darwinian processes can achieve the appearance of exquisite design).
Finally, there is the issue of whether GM foods are actually needed. It is not needed in developed countries, as populations are falling and existing farming practices are sufficiently productive to meet the needs. It is not needed in developing countries, as intensive farming practices have, in the past, led to dependence and environmental degradation. GM foods promise to increase that dependence and to further aggravate the degradation. Indeed, there are strong indications that a major driver for the production of GM foods is the financial return that they offer. Monsanto's GM soya can only be used in conjunction with their herbicide Roundup ? or so they thought! Now it appears that the British company Zeneca has an existing product, Touchdown, which also kills everything except Monsanto's GM soya! The two companies are reported to be locked in a bitter legal battle in the US (Kleiner, K. New Scientist, 12 September 1998, page 5).
The real problem: broken relationships
This not an issue as to whether man has the right to engage in genetic engineering. The real question is whether he has sufficient wisdom to act as a designer, whether he has the competence to make engineering changes, and whether the practice is good stewardshipeither in relation to the environment or to mankind. Our authority for thinking this comes from Genesis 3: the history of the entrance of sin to the world. The created harmony was broken up by Adam's disobedience to God's command. Alienation and feelings of guilt replaced man's happy relationship with God. Adam's partnership relationship with Eve was marred by a blame culture. The judgment of God was expressed by the Edenic curse. The ground over which man was given dominion was to produce thorns and thistles, so that work would become arduous and wearisome. The major themes of environmental damage, health risks, abuse of responsibility and exploitation, noted above, can be traced in the GM food programme, all of which can be related to man's alienation from God, from his fellow man, and from creation.
Public debate
There is clearly a need for this issue to be rescued from the arena of 'commercial exploitation of science'. Public discussion is needed, recognising that for many people, this issue is a highly emotional one. It is very important that Christians contribute to the debate, as nearly all the attention given to it in the media has neglected the spiritual dimension.
Richard Dawkins, whose credentials as an evolutionary biologist and secular humanist are well known, contributed to the GM foods debate in an article for the Evening Standard (19th August 1998). He distanced himself from the environmentalists and Prince Charles by drawing an analogy between artificial selection and genetic engineering and concluding if the first is OK in principle, so is the second. Genetic modification can be good or bad: it must be evaluated on its merits. He went on to identify "a potential problem": upsetting the "balanced set of mutually compatible genes" that normally exists in any organism or ecosystem. This problem broadly equates with the second of the "Christian concerns" discussed earlier. "This is a danger we must think about" says Dawkins. He postulates a scenario of an indiscriminate weedkiller (which he refers to as a poison) and a transgenic crop that is immune to the weedkiller. Dawkins comments: "If the same company patents both the poison and its genetic antidote, the monopolistic combination would be a nice little earner for the company, while the rest of it would see it as a menace. On the other hand, enlightened genetic engineers might achieve an exactly opposite effect, positively benefiting the environment by reducing the quantity of weedkiller required. There is a choice".
Thus, in Dawkins' view, we must evaluate GM developments individually, on their merits.
Whatever common ground we share with Dawkins does not extend to his optimistic perspective of genetic technology. He writes: "Part of what we have to fear from genetic engineering is a paradox - it is too good at what it does. As ever, science's formidable power makes correspondingly formidable demands on society's wisdom." Reference to "formidable power" is misleading! The genetic engineers have an economic agenda and the normal restraints found in the scientific world appear to be overridden by the pursuit of financial reward. The engineers are dabbling - not knowing the genetic systems they are modifying, not possessing tools for inserting genes which have any precision of operation, and not having rigorous routines for evaluating the results of their efforts.
What is society in its wisdom to do? In my view, it should conclude that now is the time for action! The limitations of GM technology and the all-too-frequent reports of newly recognised GM hazards are such that the door to commercial exploitation should be firmly closed (effectively confining GM techniques to the laboratory for the forseeable future). Prince Charles has achieved a far better analysis than most as to where we are as a society and what steps we should now be taking (Daily Telegraph, 8thJune 1998, 16): "Do we need to use GM techniques at all? Technology has brought massive benefits to mankind, but there is a danger, in putting all our efforts into establishing what is technically possible without first stopping to ask whether this is something we should be doing. Is it not better to examine first what we actually want from agriculture in terms of food supply and security, rural employment, environmental protection and landscape, before we go on to look at the part genetic modification might, perhaps, play in achieving those aims? . But we cannot put our principles into practice until there is effective segregation of genetically modified products, backed up by a comprehensive labelling scheme based on progress through the food chain. When consumers can make an informed choice about whether or not they eat products containing genetically modified ingredients they will be able to send a direct and unmistakable message about their preferences. I hope that manufacturers, retailers and regulators will be ready to take on the responsibility to ensure that this can happen".
Christian response
- Exercise informed choices in the purchase of foodstuffs, showing that consumer demand is discriminating (like the House of Commons catering committee - which has banned GM foods in restaurants serving Members of Parliament).
- Promote biblical thinking: particularly regarding God's exquisite design, man's responsibilities as a steward of creation and the real problem of broken relationships. This issue can only be properly addressed when we know why we are here and what our goals in life should be.
- For more on the Prince of Wales' concerns about the environment, please click here.
