Gene transfers linked to dangerous new diseases 

Gabriel Roth / Tucson Weekly 15apr99

• Mae-Wan Ho and Terje Traavik, "Sowing Diseases, New and Old," Third World Resurgence, no. 92.
• Mae-Wan Ho, Hartmut Meyer and Joe Cummins, "The Biotechnology Bubble," the Ecologist, May-June 1998.

AT LEAST 30 new diseases, including AIDS, ebola and other deadly viruses, have emerged in the past two decades. Existing infectious diseases, such as cholera, malaria and tuberculosis, are returning in force. And more and more bacteria are developing resistance to antibiotic treatment.

Despite this mounting public health crisis, one contributing factor has gone largely unconsidered by the media and the international health establishment: the emerging genetic engineering industry.

Biotechnologists invent new plant and animal species by inserting genetic material from one species into another. To combine genes from species that can't interbreed, they have to break down the defense mechanisms that inactivate dangerous foreign genes. In doing so, they may be increasing the spread of antibiotic-resistant genes.

While the biotechnology industry risks increasing the prevalence of infectious diseases, regulators are stepping out of the way. The Food and Agricultural Organization and the World Health Organization have forbidden countries from banning imports of genetically altered foods that conform to WHO's lax standards. And the European Commission is giving generous grants to scientists to promote public acceptance of biotechnology.

Meanwhile, the scientific and economic assumptions on which the field is founded are beginning to collapse. Genetic engineering is a dangerously imprecise science: When you insert a foreign gene into an organism, you never know exactly what the effect will be. Animals engineered for strength and size have turned out blind or unable to breathe. Genetically altered crops have produced substandard yields. And most disastrously for the industry, very few genetically engineered lines reproduce properly.

The biotechnology firms that have invested billions in these new technologies are desperate to recoup their losses. In Europe, industry group EuropaBio hired crisis-management specialists Burson Marsteller to refurbish its image. San Francisco apparently isn't worried: last year the city handed over Mission Bay to the University of California for a biotechnology research center.

source: http://desert.net/tw/04-15-99/feat.htm