New Challenger To The Devil We Know
Sydney Morning Herald
Tuesday June 6, 2000
The leaps and bounds made into genetic engineering have been compared with the significance of the splitting of the atom. It's an ironic comparison as both technologies have the propensity to undermine the security of the world's population.
Our fear of nuclear holocaust through nuclear proliferation is again reaffirmed by the agreement between Russia and the US in regard to reducing stockpiles of plutonium and hence nuclear weapon capabilities (Herald, June 5). Genetic engineering has the capability to create weapons of destruction that work more efficiently than nuclear weapons; they can design bacteria or viruses that are specific to a particular ethnicity in other words target a particular race and leave other inhabitants unscathed.
The greatest fear is the availability of the raw material to make biological weapons, both by hostile countries and terrorists.
So I find cold comfort in the reassurance that two aging super powers make token gestures to create a subterfuge of world security when the real concern is the technological advances in genetic engineering that have created the next ``atom bomb".
C.M.Woodley, June 5 Bondi.
In reply to Glenn Meeves's letter (Herald, May 31), nuclear reactors produce one sixth of the world's electricity, more electricity than the world produced in 1960.
Meeves should study the 1991 report of the senior expert symposium on electricity and the environment which concluded that nuclear was safer for occupational and public health than all the other technologies for electricity generation. If this is unpalatable, I suggest that Meeves discuss it with the WHO, the International Energy Agency, the UN Environment Program and the other eight international bodies which participated.
When you switch on a light or a heater tonight you can take comfort in the knowledge that hundreds of coal miners die in the Ukraine every year and, if my memory is correct, the Herald reported recently that 3,464 Chinese coal miners died (accidents only) in the first nine months of 1999.
Eliminating poverty? This is a classic example of putting words in somebody's mouth.
My mother will be 93 in November, 31 years after her blood cancer was diagnosed. She has had 29 years of radiotherapy and when they stopped it she had a major relapse.
Every year hundreds of thousands of Australians and millions of people around the world benefit from ``those isotopes" in the diagnosis and treatment of disease.
Those scientists (and engineers) really do look after us and it is time for Meeves to remove his or her blinkers.
Jim Brough, June 3 Cronulla.
No, Colin Sutherland (Letters, June 3), it's not only the community and government which have inflated expectations about the benefits of science. As someone with a thorough grounding in science, I have met and heard scientists who themselves have inflated expectations, often about their own work.
The ivory tower of the research lab is a highly controlled environment which can never be wholly replicated in the open systems of the natural world.
Many scientists forget this. The natural world cannot be controlled in a way that makes growing GM food safe. GM research is not about speeding up selective breeding within a species. It's about transplanting DNA across species and even kingdoms.
Already large tracts of GM rapeseed crops are being pulled up in Europe because of unpredictable and uncontrollable consequences. DNA from bacteria transplanted into rapeseed plants found its way into bees. This is cause for grave concern. Where will the DNA go from there? What are the consequences for the bees and their ecosystems, of which humans are ultimately a part? No-one knows and this is the point. This finding was tucked away at the back of the Herald (June 1) when it should have been at the front.
Whatever the consequences, those scientists involved bear equal responsibility to any government or private corporation funding their research. The misuse of certain scientific knowledge creates risks that far outweigh any promising benefits. Genetic modification as practised today is one such misuse. It is simply outrageous that scientists and other groups opposed to GM foods didn't get equal representation in the glossy government brochure that Glenn Meeves (Letters, May 31) picked up from his local supermarket.
A. Wroe,June 3 Kings Langley.
© 2000 Sydney Morning Herald
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