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 that biotech approaches
must be used in the context of other technical and non-echnological
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 encouraging 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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