Life of the Land's Genetically Engineering Campaign
Life of the Land's Position
Genetically Engineering is a very young field of study (3 decades), and
the terminology, techniques, and risks are undergoing rapid change.
Reasonable regulations are trailing badly. Proponents are hiding behind
terms like ''life sciences''. Some positive actions have occurred
(creating cheap insulin in labs), however, the money is in experimental
research, not in safety or risk analysis. Focusing on the money that
can flow into the state and not the risks that the public will face is
short-sighted.
Hawai`i should adopt the Precautionary Principle for all genetic
engineering projects. The Precautionary Principle places the burden of
proof on the proponent of new technologies. The requirement is to
demonstrate, not absolutely but beyond reasonable doubt, that what is
being proposed is safe.
Background
Genetically engineered insulin using recombinant DNA technology was
approved for use by diabetics in 1982. The first transgenic
domestic animal, a pig was created in 1985. The gene that is
responsible for cystic fibrosis was found in 1990. The
Human Genome Project to map the entire human genome was launched in
1990.
Risks
Scientists at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have
successfully reconstructed the influenza virus strain responsible for
the 1918 pandemic.
(www.cdc.gov/od/oc/media/pressrel/r051005.htm). The Spanish Flu
Pandemic (La Grippe Espagnole, La Pesadilla) affected 1 billion people,
killing 50-100 million people in 1918-19. More people died from the
Spanish flu than the Black Death Bubonic Plague (1347-51) or from World
War I (1914-18).
Hawaii regulates the importation of microorganisms and their movement
between regulated labs, but not their creation in unregulated
facilities. In Hawai`i it is legal to genetically engineer the avian
bird flu and other deadly diseases. State laws pre-date genetic
engineering, and policy-makers encouraging genetic research do not want
to send any ''wrong'' signals by regulating this new technology.
Questions That Need to be
thought about
What is genetic engineering?
Is co-existence of GM and non-GM crops possible?
How have genetically engineered insulin and other drugs transformed
society?
How does unlabeled gene insertions affect religious dietary
restrictions?
Can dinosaurs be resurrected?
If a species DNA is in electronic form, can it be extinct?
Should laboratories using genetic manipulation techniques be regulated?
Who should be held responsible for mistakes?
Are we Playing God?
What laws and regulations are needed?
Should DNA testing of evidence be required for prisoners claiming to be
innocent?
Can companies discriminate based on a person's genetic tendencies?
Can the avian bird flu be created in a lab?
Is stealing genetically engineered bacteria a crime?
If bones from saints can be found, can man recreate cloned saints?
Can man genetically engineer the Venus fly trap to kill larger animals?
Do we need mistakes in order to pass legislation?
When is a plant-animal hybrid a plant and when is it an animal?
Should using genetically engineering bacteria to produce heroin be
regulated?
Should we find unique microorganisms and genetically manipulating them
to convert biomass into ethanol?
Can the biotechnology field replace fossil fuel products (detergents,
plastics) with bio-based chemicals such as Polylactic Acid (PLA)
and Polyhydroxybutyrate (PHB)?
Should we make clothes and shoes from skins of genetically engineered
animals?
Should the DNA sequences of all life forms be catalogued and
computerized?
Who should hold patents on DNA on life-forms including people?
Animal-Human
Hybrids Spark Controversy
by Maryann Mott (National Geographic News, January 25, 2005)
Scientists have begun blurring the line between human and animal by
producing chimeras—a hybrid creature that's part human, part
animal. Chinese scientists at the Shanghai Second Medical
University in 2003 successfully fused human cells with rabbit eggs. The
embryos were reportedly the first human-animal chimeras successfully
created. They were allowed to develop for several days in a laboratory
dish before the scientists destroyed the embryos to harvest their stem
cells. In Minnesota last year researchers at the Mayo Clinic
created pigs with human blood flowing through their bodies. And
at Stanford University in California an experiment might be done later
this year to create mice with human brains. But creating
human-animal chimeras—named after a monster in Greek mythology that had
a lion's head, goat's body, and serpent's tail—has raised troubling
questions: What new subhuman combination should be produced and for
what purpose? At what point would it be considered human? And what
rights, if any, should it have? There are currently no U.S.
federal laws that address these issues.
What's caused the uproar is the mixing of human stem cells with
embryonic animals to create new species.
Human Born to Mice Parents? For example, an experiment that would raise
concerns, he said, is genetically engineering mice to produce human
sperm and eggs, then doing in vitro fertilization to produce a child
whose parents are a pair of mice. Last year Canada passed the
Assisted Human Reproduction Act, which bans chimeras. Specifically, it
prohibits transferring a nonhuman cell into a human embryo and putting
human cells into a nonhuman embryo.
Irv Weissman, director of Stanford University's Institute of
Cancer/Stem Cell Biology and Medicine in California, is against a ban
in the United States. "Anybody who puts their own moral guidance in the
way of this biomedical science, where they want to impose their
will—not just be part of an argument—if that leads to a ban or
moratorium. … they are stopping research that would save human lives,"
he said.
Mice With Human Brains. Weissman has already created mice with brains
that are about one percent human. Later this year he may conduct
another experiment where the mice have 100 percent human brains. This
would be done, he said, by injecting human neurons into the brains of
embryonic mice.
Of Mice, Men and In-Between
Scientists Debate Blending Of Human,
Animal Forms
By Rick Weiss, Washington Post (November 20, 2004; Page A01)
In Minnesota, pigs are being born with human blood in their veins.
In Nevada, there are sheep whose livers and hearts are largely human.
In California, mice peer from their cages with human brain cells firing
inside their skulls.
These are not outcasts from "The Island of Dr. Moreau," the 1896 novel
by H.G. Wells in which a rogue doctor develops creatures that are part
animal and part human. They are real creations of real scientists,
stretching the boundaries of stem cell research.
Biologists call these hybrid animals chimeras, after the mythical Greek
creature with a lion's head, a goat's body and a serpent's tail. They
are the products of experiments in which human stem cells were added to
developing animal fetuses.
Chimeras are allowing scientists to watch, for the first time, how
nascent human cells and organs mature and interact -- not in the cold
isolation of laboratory dishes but inside the bodies of living
creatures. Some are already revealing deep secrets of human biology and
pointing the way toward new medical treatments.
But with no federal guidelines in place, an awkward question hovers
above the work: How human must a chimera be before more stringent
research rules should kick in?
Chimeras (ki-MER-ahs) -- meaning mixtures of two or more individuals in
a single body -- are not inherently unnatural. Most twins carry at
least a few cells from the sibling with whom they shared a womb, and
most mothers carry in their blood at least a few cells from each child
they have born.
Recipients of organ transplants are also chimeras, as are the many
people whose defective heart valves have been replaced with those from
pigs or cows. And scientists for years have added human genes to
bacteria and even to farm animals -- feats of genetic engineering that
allow those critters to make human proteins such as insulin for use as
medicines.
But chimerism becomes a more sensitive topic when it involves growing
entire human organs inside animals. And it becomes especially sensitive
when it deals in brain cells, the building blocks of the organ credited
with making humans human.
How Human?
But what about experiments in which scientists add human stem cells not
to an animal embryo but to an animal fetus, which has already made its
eggs and sperm? Then the only question is how human a creature one
dares to make.
www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A63731-2004Nov19
Human-Animal Chimeras
Some
experiments can disquietingly blur the line between species
By John Rennie. Scientific American.
Stem cell science has become notorious for obliging society to consider
again where it draws the line between human embryonic cells and human
beings. Less well known is that it also pushes us to another border
that can be surprisingly vague: the one that separates people from
animals. Stem cells facilitate the production of advanced interspecies
chimeras--organisms that are a living quilt of human and animal cells.
The ethical issues raised by the very existence of such creatures could
become deeply troubling.
There are currently no international standard governing chimera
experiments. Canada's Assisted Human Reproduction Act of 2004 banned
human-animal chimeras. The US has no formal restrictions, but Senator
Sam Brownback of Kansas proposed legislation in March that would outlaw
several kinds of chimeras, including ones with substantial human brain
tissue. Some institutions that supply human stem cells set their own
additional limits about what experiments are permissible.
Stolen GE
Bacteria
Federal authorities are investigating the disappearance of genetically
altered bacteria fatal to pigs that appear to have been stolen from a
research laboratory at Michigan State University. Authorities Probe
Case Of Missing Bacteria By Gary Fields, Wall Street Journal
(September 19, 2002)
Na Maka o Hawai `i Nei
Life of the Land is currently part of a hui called Na Maka o Hawai `i
Nei - The Eyes of Our Hawai`i - and we filed a petition with the state
seeking to overturn the June 28, 2005 vote by the Hawai`i State Board
of Agriculture approving the importation of seven strains of
genetically engineered algae to be grown at the Natural Energy
Laboratory Authority (NELHA) on the Kona Coast. This alga, Chlamydomous
reinhardtii, reproduces itself every five hours, is genetically
engineered to contain human antibodies, has never been grown in this
mass quantity before, and has never been tried anywhere else in the
world.
Na Maka o Hawai`i Nei has been growing daily. A recent survey of
Hawai`i people revealed that over 95% of respondents believe that it is
important to protect Hawai`i's unique environment and are willing to
pay to do it! The hui is evidence of the strong feelings put into
action as more and more people want to raise their voices for Hawai`i's
natural and culture resources that cannot speak for themselves.
The petition for the contested case hearing was submitted in the name
of Na Maka o Hawai`i Nei, who filed as a single entity. Henry Curtis
and Kat Brady agreed to represent the hui in this administrative
process.
We have been concerned about genetic engineering for the last decade,
and have been co-sponsoring conferences and workshops, researching the
latest science, and testifying on these issues. The biotech industry's
dis-information campaign and their use of Orwellian language such as
'life sciences' have made it a challenge to organize and educate people
on these important issues. But, for some reason, this vote by the Board
of Agriculture has really resonated with the people of Hawai`i. They
are outraged at the state's lack of due diligence regarding the science
on this subject and at the state's total disregard for the community['s
concerns. We must be ready to seize every opportunity that presents
itself and this Board of Agriculture vote is a golden organizing
opportunity to build strong and reasoned opposition to inept analyses
and political decisions that may not be in the best interests of the
community.
The proposal to import genetically modified algae is now on hold
because a judge ruled, in a separate lawsuit, that an Environmental
Review is required under state law.
Biotechnology Conference
Life of the Land's Henry Curtis was the only community member to attend
the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO) Pacific Rim Conference on
Industrial Biotechnology and Bioenergy held at the Hawaii Hilton
January 11-13, 2006. Our entrance fee was $250.00
Hawai`i is the open field test site capital of the world for
genetically manipulated crops. We have four growing seasons, we are the
most isolated archipelago in the world, and we have an administration
that sees genetic engineering as a cash cow. Hawai`i's laws were
written for a pre-genetically engineered scientific world. Hawai`i
regulates the importation of dangerous microorganisms, but not their
creation in laboratories.
Life of the Land is concerned with the big picture: the threats posed
by creating genetically modified organisms for food, clothing, and
industrial applications; open field testing; bioprospecting; and
biopharmaceuticals.
Life of the Land's efforts include monitoring the biotech industry;
interfacing with the policy-makers, industry and activists; providing
support and know-how to new activists and anti-genetic engineering
groups, and increasing media attention on this crucial issue.
Ethanol
Multinational Corporations are aggressively supporting growing
monocropped genetically-engineered energy crops to produce ethanol,
which they state will be used to replace oil. The reality is very
different. Fossil fuels are used in every part of the energy crop
process including the use of pesticides (petroleum), fertilizers (gas),
and powering farm vehicles (diesel). Then the crop must be harvested
and converted into biomass. Maui Ethanol proposed to the Hawai`i
Department of Health that they be allowed to build an ethanol plant on
Kauai. For each gallon of ethanol created from biomass, 4.18 pounds of
imported Australian coal would be needed. HECO proposes that the
biomass be converted into ethanol for their proposed new power plants.
Using fossil fuels to convert biomass (a fuel) into ethanol (another
fuel) seems like a method to waste fossil fuels.
Genetic Terminology: stem cell
research, cloning, biopharming, DNA fingerprinting, The Innocence
Project, genetically modified (GM) foods and organisms, bioprospecting
and genetic contamination, bioenergy, genetic drift. bioenergy, Central
Dogma, Bioprospecting, biopiracy
Life of the Land is a
Hawaii-based, Hawaii-focused
environmental and community action group. Founded in 1970, the mission
of Life of the Land is to preserve and protect the life of the land
through sustainable land use and energy policies and to promote open
government through research, education, advocacy and, when necessary,
litigation. We believe that people are part of the environment. We are
known for research, research, research. We cover complex issues such as
genetic engineering, climate change, and quality of life issues. LOL is
a 501(c)3 charitable organization. We do not attend fundraisers,
testify for/against political and/or administrative candidates, nor do
we rank candidates. We work on issues not people.
Contact: Life of the Land, 76
North King Street, Suite 203, Honolulu, Hawaii 96817, Email:
lifeoftheland@hotmail.com Executive Director: Henry Curtis,
henry.lifeoftheland@gmail.com * Assistant Executive Director: Kat
Brady,
katbrady@hotmail.com
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