Biotechnology Biotechnology: An Activist’s Handbook. 1991. Published by the Vermont Biotechnology Working Group. $2 from Rural Vermont, 15 Barre St., Montpelier, VT 05602. Agriculture’s chemical revolution promised higher yields and fewer pests. But yields have reached a plateau. Insects and diseases evolve resistance to the pesticides. Increased use of pesticides and chemical fertilizers deplete our soils, pollute our waters and poison field workers. For the sake of short-term profit, practices that could preserve the land for future generations are forsaken. The Handbook makes it clear that Biotechnology’s agricultural promises may disguise even more subtle and dangerous economic and ecological unbalancing effects than the chemical revolution’s. Biotechnology is a collection of related techniques, each based upon the successful simulation of basic biochemical and genetic processes. Some of the techniques, like test tube fertilization of eggs, are less dangerous than genetic engineering, the splicing of genetic material. Science can provide no exact means of predicting the reaction of a given natural system to genetically altered organisms, since it actively maintains complex equilibria. What kind of damage will occur before genetic engineering is carefully regulated? But more to the point, why take a technocratic approach to providing food when basic social problems, such as maldistribution of land, lie at the heart of modem hunger and population growth? Even before the advent of direct genetic manipulation, introduced species had proven their ability to wreak havoc in native ecosystems. The disturbances are only rarely solved through the introduction of known predators, since they too react unpredictably to the new environment, and to human distribution. So what human agency could judge the safety of a totally new, genetically altered organism, one whose special-purpose genes will migrate and mutate into the entire biosphere? One of biotechnology's most profitable products will apparently be herbicide-tolerant plants which allow increased herbicide use for weeds, without killing the plant itself. Combined marketing is intended for bioengineered seeds and pesticides that will not effect the resulting plant, making farmers even more dependent on chemical companies than they are today. Herbicide-tolerance may transfer, via cross pollination, into weedy relatives of the crop plants. The gene pool of untampered-with natural plants will become more shallow as resistance-engineered flora dominate the agricultural landscape. Perhaps a more familiar biotech product is Bovine Growth Hormone (also known by its generic scientific name. Bovine Somatotropin). Daily injections of BGH into a cow, and into its high-energy feed, will increase milk yields 10-25%. The cow’s immune system weakens, her fertility decreases, her mammary glands become painful and inflamed (mastitis), there is increased stress on her body structure from extra udder weight, irritation at the point of injection, increased lactation failure and a proliferation of veterinarian bills. The calves she manages to birth have increased deformities. In the booklet one Minnesota farmer using BGH on his cows says, “See how thin she looks? She’s working off all that flesh to produce milk.’’ Approximately 200 to 4(X) herds in eleven states are testing BGH and are marketing the milk and meat, from these almost purposely diseased animals, without warnings to consumers. No long term studies on the human health effects of the milk has been done. The altered nutritional quality of the milk (increased fat, decreased protein) and the increased levels of cell-stimulating factors, which could promote cancer in adults and premature growth and breast stimulation in infants, points at least to the need for regulation and labeling. The similar Porcine Growth Hormone decreases a pig’s back fat, making leaner meat. But the animals must be raised indoors or they’ll be chilled. Indoor confinement increases the spread of disease and consequently antibiotic use. The maintenance costs are very high. Small farmers can’t compete with big business using these technologies: it’s just too expensive. The Handbook states that regulations for releases of Genetically Engineered Organisms into the environment ‘ ‘have weak public information requirements and current laws lack standards for protection of workers or environmental monitoring.’’ There have been cases of unsanctioned, illegal releases in Montana, Nebraska, South Dakota, Texas and several in California. Engineered organisms from “noncommercial” laboratories are exempt from regulation. Medical biotechnology is touted as the means for solution of humanity’s most difficult medical problems. Yet, medical biotechnology has little to offer in the majority of the world’s health problems, which stem not from missing designer hormones but from poor diets, polluted water, lack of basic education and lack of medicine for treatable infectious diseases. In fact, the existence of a biotech economy hinders such basic health programs, since these cannot easily make the profit that biotech does, and so cannot find funding or capital. Biotechnology has produced a few products for a few people, such as the “first wave” which used bacteria to synthesize well-understood active substances such as insulin, blood clotting factor and human growth hormone. But often natural versions were available and comparably priced. And there is inevitable risk in genetically altered bacteria synthesizing human-designed hormones whose effect on people is less well understood than human-discovered ones. The environmental, health and ethical problems related to biotechnology need to addressed by government and by the people, via increased education and regulation. The Handbook is a great start and covers, in addition to what’s above, biotech labs in low-income neighborhoods, biotechnology resisters, and municipal action. Rain Winter/Spring 1992 Volume XIV, Number 2 Page 51
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