Gene-Splicing, Inc.—A Risky Business?
“IT WAS an action rarely precedented in science,” marveled Science News magazine. In 1974, just as scientists were beginning to develop the basic techniques of gene-splicing, an urgent warning was sounded concerning possible hazards of their experiments. What was so unusual about that? Those issuing the warning were not ill-informed alarmists but the very scientists in the forefront of genetic research.
Their concerns were expressed in what became known as the “Berg letter,” named after Paul Berg, a Stanford University scientist who shared a 1980 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his gene-splicing work. Another prominent signer of the “Berg letter” was James D. Watson of Harvard, who became famous in 1953 when he helped figure out the structure of DNA (for which he also received a Nobel Prize).
Berg, Watson and nine other distinguished scientists were concerned that gene-splicing might lead to “the creation of new types of infectious DNA elements whose biological properties cannot be completely predicted in advance.” In other words, what if somebody created a new germ and it got loose and caused a terrible disease epidemic? The letter called for a moratorium on certain types of experiments and for the development of guidelines to make sure all future experiments were safe. The “Berg letter” resulted in an elaborate set of guidelines on gene-splicing issued by the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
Meanwhile, it was becoming obvious that, risky or not, gene-splicing was a potential gold mine for business. Could bacteria make a cheaper, more reliable insulin? As biology professor Jonathan King points out, “the sale of insulin to diabetics is a $100-million-a-year-business.” Could better genes in plants improve crop yields, or reduce the need for fertilizer, or create plants that are more nutritious? Imagine the market for such plants. “Agriculture is still the world’s largest business,” notes biology professor Bonner of Caltech.
These possibilities have led to the rapid formation of new types of businesses specializing in genetic engineering. One such company, Genentech, was cofounded in 1976 by a professor who had signed the “Berg letter.” The professor put up $500 for his share of Genentech, but when the company’s stock went on public sale in 1980, his shares were suddenly worth $40 million! Obviously, people who buy stock think gene-splicing is going to be a big business. “This work is broader in importance than anything since the discovery of atomic particles,” boasts one drug company vice-president.
In the last few years, numerous small firms such as Genentech have been started, and giant corporations like Standard Oil of California, Monsanto and Du Pont are spending millions on genetic research. Last June the Supreme Court of the United States created a stir by ruling that genetically altered forms of life could be patented like any other invention.
The smell of money is in the air, and, not surprisingly, scientists have recently been spreading the word that perhaps gene-splicing is not so risky after all. They point out that the strains of bacteria used in most experiments cannot survive outside the laboratory. In general, they say, altered DNA creates organisms that are genetic “cripples” and therefore less dangerous to man than the wild variety. Dr. Watson perhaps typifies the new attitude when he now calls his signing of the “Berg letter,” “the silliest thing I did in my life.”
Do scientists have strong scientific evidence for this new opinion? No, admits Dr. Berg. “There isn’t a whole lot more data,” he says. “It’s just that we’ve thought about it a bit more; we’ve come down on the other side of the fence with much the same data.”
Dr. Berg further observes that, “although there are a lot of confident statements on the record, the people making them all have a clear vested interest in the field.”
Similar concerns are raised by science historian Susan Wright, who notes that at least one decision to relax the NIH guidelines “is not based on empirical data but on the opinions of scientists.” The trade publication Chemical and Engineering News admits that, while gene-splicing has a good safety record so far, “a handful of critics, however, say that the case for judging recombinant DNA work to be safe is far from convincing, and that a kind of steamroller effect is smashing any remaining doubts without really answering still open questions.”
The question of safety is especially important now, because small experiments do not make money; massive production facilities do. “Now that the technology is moving out of the laboratory into large-scale commercial production facilities the need for protective regulations is increased enormously,” warns George Taylor, a safety expert for the AFL-CIO. Obviously, there is a big safety difference between having a few bacteria in a petri dish and having large vats full of bacteria pumping out commercial quantities of insulin, interferon, or any other protein.
Yet the guidelines from NIH were intended for laboratory research and were implemented on a voluntary basis. Those guidelines are steadily being relaxed and there is no mechanism to enforce even the relaxed guidelines on industry. Biologist King complains that “the guidelines have now been so weakened that rather than protecting public health, they in fact protect those engaged in the technology from public inquiry and regulation.”
Could man’s haste to exploit this new technology lead to a biological Three Mile Island?
Another question that needs to be asked is, Can gene-splicing really do what scientists claim it will do? It is hoped, for example, that genetically altered plants will be able to fix their own nitrogen from the soil, doing away with much fertilizer and the expense and energy needed to produce it. Could such plants be engineered?
Scientists know that certain plants, such as soybeans, do not need extra nitrogen because they have bacteria living in their root systems that fix nitrogen for them. The bacteria, in return, get food from the plants. This symbiotic arrangement suits both the soybeans and the bacteria, and was apparently designed by the Creator. Scientists would like to improve on the arrangement.
But there are problems. First, it is not nearly so easy to get foreign genes to function properly in plants as it is to get them to work in bacteria. There are no plasmids to help out, and plants are more complicated than bacteria.
But if the genetic problems can be overcome, an even bigger problem of basic chemistry remains. Nitrogen atoms are naturally stuck together in pairs. Before a plant can use the nitrogen, those pairs have to be “pried” apart. This takes a great deal of energy, regardless of whether the nitrogen atoms are pried apart by man in the manufacture of fertilizer, by bacteria, or by the plant itself. “The energy cost that the plant must pay to have that process is not a small cost,” concedes a plant scientist. The lost energy would likely result in smaller plants with much lower yields per acre.
Evidently, then, the Creator’s idea was not so bad after all.
True, gene-splicing can make bacteria produce chemicals men desire. But does it make them better bacteria? No. To the extent that these tiny “factories” are turning out products worthless to them, they are wasting energy that could be used to make them grow faster or stronger. From the bacteria’s point of view, the gene-spliced variety are really inferior.
If man cannot improve on the design of the lowly bacterium, can he truly expect to improve on the design of far more complicated plant or animal cells? Scientists marvel at the flight of the aerodynamically “impossible” bumblebee, the navigational instincts of migrating birds, the long-range communication of whales, the geometric and architectural perfection of bone tissue. Are they really prepared to improve on the Creator’s designs? A young child may have learned to take his father’s pocket watch apart, but does that mean he could design a superior watch?
So it is with modern scientists. They have taken a few simple organisms apart, and they admit they do not fully understand what they have found inside. Since scientists do not understand the function of long stretches of DNA, they claim that such DNA is “vestigial,” or “nonsense.” (Doctors used to talk that way about the appendix and the tonsils, before they learned better.)
There is nothing wrong with intense curiosity about how living things work. If men use their inborn curiosity to learn humbly from the designs of Jehovah God, they will profit. But if they greedily and arrogantly seek to redesign God’s creation radically for material gain, they will ultimately come to grief.
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What if somebody created a new germ and it got loose and caused a terrible disease epidemic?
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The smell of money is in the air, and many scientists have decided gene-splicing isn’t so risky after all