Biotech Benefits Not To Be Sneezed At
The Age
Tuesday August 8, 2006
BIOTECHNOLOGISTS must be a frustrated lot. They devote their time to applying the leaps in understanding of genetic and cellular biology to practical advances that can benefit humanity (it is reasonable to suppose that that is the motivation of the majority). Yet the greater their power to do so, the deeper public suspicion. Many people reject genetic manipulation of living things as unnatural, seemingly oblivious of the fact that the rise of civilisation depended on the manipulation, albeit slow and crude, of the genetics of wild species to produce domestic, often distinctly unnatural, plants and animals. The public fears the power of biotechnology, but how do people respond when offered tangible benefits?
Two arbitrary examples, involving grass and ice-cream, challenge a blanket resistance to genetic engineering. Most of the one in 10 Australians who suffer hayfever will benefit from a new rye-grass for use in cattle pastures. Researchers in Victoria's Department of Primary Industries used gene-silencing technology to switch off two proteins in the grass that trigger allergy. That, as Innovation Minister John Brumby said, "will be a very popular initiative indeed". Already popular in the US is a low-fat ice-cream of unprecedented quality - creamier, better tasting and less affected by thawing - thanks to a protein cloned from a fish. The ocean pout survives in Arctic waters because the protein stops ice crystals forming in its blood. The protein is now being produced using genetically engineered yeast.These examples do not mean all biotechnology is safe or ethical, but do illustrate another historical fact. New technology often inspires hope and fear in equal measure. It becomes more acceptably ordinary once the public enjoys the benefits. That suggests a basis for how biotechnology should be assessed, weighing up risks and ethics of every application against any public good. That requires close scrutiny, but also an element of trust in science, which has driven so many advances. Enjoying better, healthier ice-cream on a sunny, hayfever-free spring day: do we want to say no to that?
© 2006 The Age