Bio-terrorism and the Gill rDNA trajectory
Natural Law Party Wessex 15may01
| "It's
time for biologists to begin asking what means we have to keep
the technology from being used in subverted ways,"
Professor Matthew Meselson |
Ben Gill enjoys a particularly poor relationship with many environmentalists on account of what is seen to be his misplaced enthusiasm for genetic engineering (hence the moniker 'Biotec Ben'). His controversial remarks on foot-and-mouth were made during a trip to Australia.
It is ironic, therefore, that by the end of the week it should be the Sydney Morning Herald [1] which featured an article on how genetic engineering is running the distinct risk of placing enormous power in the hands of international terrorists with the eventual prospect of powerful - yet relatively cheap to build - bioweapons proliferating across the planet.
One thing that should have been learnt from the foot-and-mouth epidemic in the UK is that the consequences of losing control of our agricultural biology can be immense. Can it be hoped, then, that Ben Gill will begin to reflect a little more deeply on where the recombinant DNA (rDNA) genetic engineering paradigm in general is leading humanity; and on what the downside of pursuing that trajectory is?
Foot-and-mouth (a non-fatal disease from which most animals make a full recovery) is but a minor irritant compared to the biological catastrophe that is capable of emerging out of the genetic engineering tool shed before too long. The more this technology is developed, the more diverse the applications; the more it becomes impossible to regulate; and the more diverse the hands into which its methods legally or illegally fall.
Whilst some may hope for more productive sustainable agriculture from genetic engineering (even though there is scant scientific evidence for this [2] ) the scope for creating new plant and animal diseases both intentionally and unintentionally is real and immense. No Star Wars missile defence system - however expensive - has any relevance in this context.
Alarmist nonsense? Well, even the UK's normally conservative Farmers Weekly has run hair-curling copy on the subject of genetic engineering and biological warfare in both human and agricultural contexts. The creation of new biotech generated diseases targeted at a nation's agricultural production is no longer simply a matter of speculation as its report on 12 November 1999 indicated:
A good, if somewhat disturbing, question. Is there, for example, a connection between these developments - or indeed the release of GM crops - and the arrival of new mysterious corn viruses in the US ? [3] Well, nobody knows (or is saying) - but to use the phrase deployed by an NFU spokesman to defend Ben Gill's foot-and-mouth bio-terrorism suggestion:"A panel of experts in plant diseases and terrorism revealed how vulnerable agriculture is to bio-terrorism - the use of pathogens to cause a food crop epidemic or contaminate the food supply.
The risks are very real, according to plant pathologists, the FBI and the international intelligence community gathered at the American and Canadian Phytopathological Society symposium in Montreal's Palais de Congres....The .... Cold War and advances in the biological sciences led to the creation of weapons engineered to infect people.... The 1972 Biological Weapons Convention was supposed to end the race to develop even nastier bio-weapons.
But in 1992, a senior Soviet Union biomedical research scientist Kanaatjian Alibekov, now known as Ken Alibek, defected. He told a stunning tale about his career in the Biopreparat, his former nation's massive biological weapons programme.
Now documented in his book 'Biohazard', it makes clear the USSR's military production of large quantities of advanced bio-weapons, including anti-crop bioweapons, right into this decade.
Although now disbanded, the question remains as to where have the thousands of Biopreparat scientists and technicians gone and what are they doing, Christopher Davis, a former British intelligence officer wrote in the May 29 issue of 'New Scientist'..."
"It is one of many possibilities that cannot be ruled out".
Meanwhile the scientific journal Nature reports this week that
In this context those who encourage the proliferation of the development of recombinant DNA technology, and the inevitable abuse of the so-called 'knowledge' that goes with that development, are likely to have considerably more to worry about in the future than the management of a relatively harmless farm animal disease and the protection of the British tourist industry."government agencies are already working on methods of detecting disease outbreaks caused by genetically engineered organisms." [4]
If you fly too close to the sun eventually your wax wings will melt. 'Apocalypse now' or 'apocalypse soon'?
rDNA is no respecter of natural law, and terrorism is no respecter of man-made law. No regulatory system, however well-intentioned and complex, can possibly deal with this combination. Only an entirely new paradigm for the biosciences and global security can guarantee 'apocalypse never' [5, 6].
We should pursue it.
Footnotes:
1. 'Mutant bacteria biowars threaten apocalypse now'
www.smh.com.au/news/0105/17/world/world3.html2. 'Will GM crops deliver benefits to farmers?'
www.btinternet.com/~nlpwessex/Documents/gmagric.htm3. 'Georgia Unknown'
www.btinternet.com/~nlpwessex/Documents/NewUScornviruses.htm4. 'The bugs of war'
www.nature.com/cgi-taf/DynaPage.taf?file=/nature/journal/v411/n6835/full/411232a0_fs.html5. 'Lifesciences Breakthrough for Sustainable Health and Agriculture'
www.btinternet.com/~nlpwessex/Documents/biosciencefrontier.htm6. SAPRA - 'Security and political risk analysis'
http://www.subcontinent.com/sapra/military/m_1999_05_01.htmlNATURAL LAW PARTY WESSEX nlpwessex@bigfoot.com www.btinternet.com/~nlpwessex
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