To: [log in to unmask]
Dec 6 2000

       There's a piece in my paper today, copied from the Orlando Sentinel,
but the headline is probably the work of the San Francisco Chronicle:
"Gene-Altered Food Safe to Eat, Needs No Label, AMA Panel Says."  I'd like to
make 2 points about this.  First the easy target:
       "Altman [leader of the panel] said people's concerns may be assuaged
with more information, if they can get past their initial reactions," the
article says, and then quotes the good doctor, "There's this feeling that
it's not such a good idea to mess with genes."
       Well, savvy about genes and about ethics are two different things
entirely, and using the medical podium to say that those who have a little
more information no longer need to have that feeling that it's not such a
good idea to mess with genes comes across as very arrogant.  (Arrogant
doesn't necessarily mean wrong, but it's not a good place to start a
discussion involving ethics and the future.)
       Second target: making this issue one of whether present GE'd foods are
safe to eat is too limiting.  For instance, we in the Sierra Club are opposed
to putting these altered genes up into the wind as pollen, putting them into
your next lawn or your next pet, putting them into fish and trees.  We're
worried about the consequences of allowing companies to hack the genome for
private profit.  We certainly hope the American Medical Association can also
take a longer term view.  It should review the health consequences of
antibiotic and herbicidal markers, of putting new promoter genes into new
places with no assurance that they won't switch on the wrong metabolic
pathways in some future generation, perhaps when meeting up with yet other
engineered genes.  It should consider the risks of horizontal gene transfer
and the ethical implications of contaminating life, which is the very stuff
of all wealth and meaning, with manufactured, unrecallable genes.  It may be
safe to eat that potato chip, but it isn't safe or ethical to have such a
limited perspective.
             Jim Diamond MD

-
Robt Mann
consultant ecologist
P O Box 28878   Remuera, Auckland 1005, New Zealand
                (9) 524 2949