These days, governments, industry and experts seem to be putting biotech
forward as a solution to almost everything. The mantra has changed from
biotech simply providing cures for disease in developed markets to
larger, more global problems. Biotech is now the solution to feeding
developing nations. It is the answer to a renewable supply of energy. Or
it is a means of reducing the carbon footprint and global warming.
Although biotechnologies can certainly help solve these problems,
ramming that message down people's throats is hardly likely to convince
the doubters. And in the long r un, it might even turn out to be
counterproductive.
Take a recent case in point: the Biotechnology Industry Organization's
(BIO) slogan for its annual meeting held in San Diego in June was "Heal,
fuel, feed the world." On no count is this equivocal or faltering or
modest. Of course, perhaps that should be expected of an industry lobby
organization whose job it is to proselytize the potential of its
members' technology and products. But the problem is the slogan just
isn't very realistic.
There are hundreds of thousands of acres of genetically modified (GM)
crops being grown around the world, but they are not at present
addressing key agricultural problems for poor farmers, such as salinity,
desertification and drought. Nor are they addressing problems such as
malnutrition (although with Golden Rice, they could). For the moment at
least, there are only a handful of GM strains available for food staples
(other than corn) widely cultivated in developing countries. Many
nations in Africa have a ban on GM seeds.
As for biofuels, such as ethanol, these are being generated from maize
in the US and from sugarcane in Brazil. Neither of these approaches has
much to do with biotech. Biotech is just one part of the set of
technologies and approaches that will be needed to make cellulosic
ethanol a reality, among several other alternative renewable energy
sources.
And although biotech has addressed a few orphan diseases, produced new
therapies in infectious disease, cancer and autoimmune disorders, and
recombinant versions of biologics for diabetes and growth disorders, it
hasn't delivered on the promised 'cures' of genetic therapies or even
the wide adoption of molecularly targeted medicine. Certainly, it hasn't
done much to address disease and malnutrition among the world's poor.
This journal champions biotech research, so we are not downbeat on its
prospects to, one day, generate products that will heal, fuel and feed
the world. That is, nevertheless, an outrageous act of faith bordering
on the religious. And the fact is tha t biotech approaches must be used
in the context of other technical and nontechnological solutions. Thus,
reason dictates that proponents should be very careful about overhyping
what biotech can do now and overpromising what it can do in the future.
In biotech, the new 'thing'-whatever it has been at the time
(interferons, antisense, sepsis therapies, antibodies, genomics,
functional genomics, structural genomics, proteomics, RNA
interference)-is constantly put forward as the 'solution' (usually with
a concurrent stampede of startup activity and investment). Genomics and
other 'omics were vaunted as solutions to the need for personalized
medicine, a need that was poorly defined. Protein drugs were offered as
wonder molecules, targeting diseases specifically and finally. GM crops
solved concerns about the environmental consequences of intensive
agricultural pesticide and herbicide use, they solved developing
nations' food security and they replaced fossil fuel energy.
This pushy, solution-based approach elicits opposition instantly. The
emergence of bioethanol and biodiesel as viable 'green' energy sources,
for instance, has served to orchestrate a backlash against the approach.
This has gained some ground following a series of reports from the
Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development that point out
that most of the biofuel policies in the developed world are narrowly
focused-they stimulate the production of one or two types of fuel using
one or two types of technology to process the excess agricultural
production of just a few (and usually just one) crop types. Public and
political opinion on biofuels swung rapidly from a rather gung-ho
attitude in 2007 from almost everyone (farmers, car drivers,
industrialists, politicians and even environmentalists) to antipathy in
2008.
It is time for biotech communication to be done right. And it is time
that the industry and its lobby organizations learnt that pushing
one-dimensional hype about biotech solutions is counterproductive.
A much more successful approach for encourag ing the politicians and the
general public to get on board the biotech bus would be to let them come
to their own conclusions about the solution to the problems that society
faces. This will mean outlining the problems accurately: in the fuel
versus food debate, for instance, it is almost undeniably true that we
will need more food (to feed 9 billion people), more energy (for 9
billion, most of whom want a higher standard of living) and more
protection of biodiversity (by conserving natural habitats)-all within
changing climatic conditions.
But it isn't necessary to finish the sentence by saying that biotech or
GM is the solution. If that is said, then anyone with resistance to
globalization, industry (and science), intensification and any other
ignorance-based biases will-true to form-resist.
Biotech's proponents need to try less hard. The majority of people will
eventually join their own dots and see that biotech and genetic
modification are worth backing. And ultimately, they will recognize that
biotech has its place as one-and in some cases the best-solution to some
of the world's most pressing problems. After all, this is simple
psychology. It generally is a good thing to allow other people to think
that your good idea was theirs all along.
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