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GM Crops & Food Biotechnology in Agriculture and the Food Chain

ISSN: 2164-5698 (Print) 2164-5701 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/kgmc20

Genetic engineering applied to agriculture has a long row to hoe

Henry I. Miller

To cite this article: Henry I. Miller (2018) Genetic engineering applied to agriculture has a long row to hoe, GM Crops & Food, 9:1, 45-48, DOI: 10.1080/21645698.2017.1378840

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/21645698.2017.1378840

© 2018 The Author(s). Published with license by Taylor & Francis© Henry I. Miller.

Accepted author version posted online: 21 Sep 2017. Published online: 12 Oct 2017.

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Genetic engineering applied to agriculture has a long row to hoe

Henry I. Miller

Stanford University, Hoover Institution, Stanford, CA, USA

ABSTRACT. In spite of the lack of scientific justification for skepticism about crops modified with molecular techniques of genetic engineering, they have been the most scrutinized agricultural products in human history. The assumption that “genetically engineered” or “genetically modified” is a meaningful – and dangerous – classification has led to excessive and dilatory regulation. The modern molecular techniques are an extension, or refinement, of older, less precise, less predictable methods of genetic modification, but as long as today’s activists and regulators remain convinced that so called “GMOs” represent a distinct and dangerous category of research and products, genetic engineering will fall short of its potential.

KEYWORDS. Asilomar, GMO, genetic engineering, genetic modification

At this year’s annual meeting of the Inter- national Consortium on Applied Bioecon- omy Research (ICABR) there were many presentations about the regulatory require- ments in various countries for so-called “GMOs,” or genetically modified organisms. Because that term circumscribes an arbi- trary, bureaucratically-determined, non-cate- gory devised by government officials and activists,

1 the criteria for what should be

included and require case by case review by regulators were extremely heterogenous. Some focused on the mixing of DNAs from different sources, or in combinations that are

unlikely to exist in nature, while many were more concerned with the technique(s) used. Largely ignored was the most important fac- tor: the function of the genetic modification, or its effect on the traits of the plant, animal or microorganism.

The focus on the technique(s) has caused no end of mischief. It has turned on its head the fundamental principle of regulation— proportionality–which dictates that the degree of scrutiny should be proportional to the perceived degree of risk. Ignoring this principle has led virtually everywhere to systematic over-regulation of the newest,

Correspondence to: Henry I. Miller; 434 Galvez Mall, Hoover Institution, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305-6010, USA; Email: [email protected]

Received September 05, 2017; Revised September 06, 2017; Accepted September 07, 2017. � 2018 Henry I. Miller. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-

NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which per- mits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way.

45

GM Crops & Food, 9:45–48, 2018 Published with license by Taylor & Francis ISSN: 2164-56982164-5701 online DOI: 10.1080/21645698.2017.1378840

most precise and predictable techniques of genetic engineering; astronomical R&D costs; blunted innovation; superfluous label- ing of products; endless dithering about concepts like “coexistence” of organisms crafted with different genetic techniques; and widespread confusion among non- experts. Countless conferences have dis- cussed the equivalent of whether a Lexus radio installed in a Toyota creates a new “category” for regulatory purposes.

The focus on genetic technique for regula- tory purposes dates back to a historic 1975 meeting of scientists, ethicists, and members of the press held in Asilomar, California, which resulted in a temporary moratorium on research using the prototypic technique of molecular genetic engineering–recombinant DNA tech- nology–and, ultimately, in the creation of highly restrictive, unnecessary regulation.

The 1974 article in the journal Science that led to the Asilomar meeting urged that “scientists throughout the world join with the members of this committee,” which was comprised of a handful of eminent biologists, to halt recombinant DNA experiments – even in laboratories – “until attempts have been made to evaluate the hazards and some reso- lution of the outstanding questions has been achieved.”

2 And the official “Summary State-

ment of the Asilomar Conference on Recom- binant DNA Molecules” concluded: “Even in the present, more limited conduct of research in this field, the evaluation of potential bio- hazards has proved to be extremely difficult,” because “[t]he new techniques, which permit combination of genetic information from very different organisms, place us in an area of biology with many unknowns.”

3

It is remarkable how similar these porten- tous sentiments were to those of plant breeder pioneer Luther Burbank: “We have recently advanced our knowledge of genetics to the point where we can manipulate life in a way never intended by nature. We must proceed with the utmost caution in the appli- cation of this new found knowledge.”

4 That

was in 1906. Stanford University biochemistry profes-

sor Paul Berg was a prime mover in the

Asilomar meeting and remains one of the staunchest defenders of its outcome. In a 2008 essay in the journal Nature modestly titled, “Meetings that changed the world: Asilomar 1975: DNA modification secured,” he recalled that at the time the greatest con- cerns were “that introduced genes could change normally innocuous microbes into cancer-causing agents or into human patho- gens, resistant to antibiotics or able to pro- duce dangerous toxins.”

5 But what many

have forgotten is that the research commu- nity was far from a consensus on the ques- tion of whether a moratorium was necessary at the time; indeed, many in the scientific community did not regard the hiatus as a success, either scientific or intellectual.

In fact, the Asilomar cabal misunderstood and exaggerated the potential risks of recombinant DNA technology, modern bio- technology’s core technique; gave rise to a lengthy, damaging research moratorium; and induced the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) to draft and promulgate overly restrictive “biosafety” guidelines which have survived to the present day.

If the presentations at the ICABR meeting are any indication, regulators worldwide appear to be en route to repeating or at least perpetuat- ing that seminal blunder.

During the Asilomar conference, Stanley Cohen, James D. Watson, and Joshua Leder- berg–all Nobel Laureates, as is Berg–argued publicly (and others privately) “against the forming of any official guidelines that spelled out how we should work with recombinant DNA.”

6 In the words of science historian Jos�e

Van Dijck, “In the politicized mood of the 1970s, genetics got annexed as an environmen- tal issue; this new configuration manifested itself in changed images of genetics, genes, and geneticists,”

7 which were no longer altogether

altruistic, or even benign. By 1978, the regulatory obstacles slowing

research in many fields and labs induced Wat- son to dismiss the handwringing as “senseless hysteria” and to observe that “everyone I know who works with DNA now feels the same and the mere mention of ‘DNA Guidelines’ or ‘Memorandums of Understanding’ makes our

46 Miller

mouths froth.” 8 (As a laboratory scientist at

NIH at the time, I shared that sentiment.) Those technique-based NIH guidelines,

which were focused on the use of a single technique instead of on the actual risks of experiments, have plagued genetic engineer- ing research and development ever since. By assuming (incorrectly) from the beginning that recombinant DNA-modified organ- isms—which, as mentioned above, have come to be commonly known as “genetically modified organisms” or GMOs—were a high-risk category that needed to have sui generis regulation, the NIH guidelines cre- ated significant duplication of oversight for many products that were already sufficiently regulated if they posed unreasonable risk.

Worst of all, they reinforced the miscon- ception that recombinant, or “genetically modified,” organisms are a meaningful “category.” Although NIH gradually pared back the scope and stringency of its guide- lines, stultifying process-based, technique- focused approaches to regulation of this non- category (defined in different ways) have remained intact there and at other federal agencies, including the Environmental Protec- tion Agency, the Food and Drug Administra- tion, the Department of Agriculture, and in many foreign countries. And excessive gov- ernment regulation perpetuates the misappre- hension on the part of many non-experts that products or activities that are stringently reg- ulated must, ipso facto, be high-risk.

Overregulation’s toll on innovation is incal- culable. As University of California Berkeley agricultural economist David Zilberman and his colleagues observed, “The foregone bene- fits from these otherwise feasible production technologies are irreversible, both in the sense that past harvests have been lower than they would have been if the technology had been introduced and in the sense that yield growth is a cumulative process of which the onset has been delayed.”

9

What does the future hold for genetic engi- neering? Will regulation be rationalized at long last? Will public skepticism abate?

“A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making

them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new genera- tion grows up that is familiar with it,” phys- ics Nobel Laureate Max Planck observed in 1936.

10 But this does not seem to be happen-

ing in the case of the molecular techniques for genetic engineering: In spite of an extraordinary record of safety and benefits, both economic and humanitarian, new gener- ations are being indoctrinated by activists and self-interested competitors with the idea that there is something fundamentally differ- ent, and deserving of concern, about the newer techniques, and over-regulation only reinforces those misapprehensions. We are not moving along the learning curve, and there no happy resolution is in sight.

DISCLOSURE OF POTENTIAL CONFLICTS OF INTEREST

No potential conflicts of interest were disclosed.

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