Ongoing Debate Over Terminator Technology, The

Georgetown International Environmental Law Review, Summer 2007 by Caplan, Richard

III. AS DNA SCIENCE MATURES, SCIENTISTS CREATE GENETICALLY ENGINEERED FOOD

Scientific discoveries revealing the inner workings of all living things, as well as ways to manipulate and create new life in ways previously unimaginable, began to unfurl with great rapidity. Along with the progress in knowledge, however, scientists and government officials sought to rush experiments and commercialize products without a full evaluation of safety risks. In addition, we now know that fundamental assumptions underpinning some of these advances had flaws.

A. THE SCIENCE AND POLITICS OF DNA

The understanding of genetics, both in general and as applied to agriculture in particular, took an enormous leap forward with the discovery of the deoxyribonucleic acid ("DNA") double helix by Francis Crick and James Watson in 1953. Watson and Crick "proceed[ed] from the premise that this molecular structure is the exclusive agent of inheritance in all living things. . . ,"13 Known to molecular biologists as the "central dogma,"14 the premise assumes that an organism's genome-its total complement of DNA-should fully account for all of its inherited traits.15 Since Crick proposed it forty-four years ago, the central dogma has dominated biomedical research.16

Crick hypothesized a clear-cut chain of molecular processes that leads from a single DNA gene to the appearance of a particular inherited trait. The explanatory power of the theory is based on the proposition that DNA genes have control over the totality of inheritance in all forms of life. This original conception of the "central dogma" of DNA has been proven false in part through research into the Human Genome Project.17 Based on the number of inherited traits, it was assumed human DNA consisted of 100,000 or more genes.18 That prediction proved to be an enormous overestimate, as the Human Genome Project discovered only about 30,000 genes, results understandably termed "unexpected."19

Almost twenty years after the discovery of the DNA helix, the first recombinant DNA ("rDNA") molecules were generated at Stanford University in 1972.20 Never before had scientists been able to isolate fragments of DNA from one organism and join it with DNA from a completely different organism. The process of introducing genes in this way is done through a limited number of relatively crude methods resulting in haphazard placement that lacks precision. Scientists cannot control the location where the gene is inserted into the host's genetic code, determine how many copies of the gene are inserted, or guarantee stable expression of the gene in the new genetically engineered organism.21 As a result, genetic engineering raises a host of ecological and human health concerns that have not been adequately addressed.

In 1975, scientists from around the world gathered at a conference to discuss genetic engineering and the risks involved. These scientists declared that self-regulation of genetic engineering research would be sufficient to mitigate any risks of this emerging technology.22 However, it now appears that this effort was as much a public relations strategy as it was a scientific endeavor. Evidence unavailable to the public at the time reveals that government researchers in 1976 decided to conduct a public relations campaign aimed at persuading the public that hazards of genetic engineering were exaggerated. One scientist, describing the misleading ways scientists were communicating the potential risks of genetic engineering research to the public, said the goal was to make "this public thing go away. . . . It's molecular politics, not molecular biology."23