Ag Biotech Minus the Genetic Modification Part

Not all agricultural biotech involves genetic modification.

Check out this press release from Genome British Columbia, about a research project based at my alma mater, the University of British Columbia, that will use biotech tools to attempt to develop a molecular test for fecundity (egg-laying capacity) among females of a species of predatory mites that is used to control another species of mites that feeds on commercial crops:
Genomic tools will help facilitate the shift to greener crop protection

Pesticide-free crops are one step closer to reality with the launch of a Genome BC research project that will test the egg-laying capacity of predatory mites as a method of standardizing and improving biocontrol programs.

Two-spotted spider mites are a continuing plague to growers in BC and around the world, where they feed on and damage greenhouse vegetables and ornamental flowers and plants. But current biocontrol methods for controlling spider mites, though widely diverse, are not fully meeting the needs of growers.

Synthetic pesticides are losing popularity among ecologically conscious consumers and growers alike. Alternative methods rely on the use of predatory insects and mites - natural enemies of spider mites.

The predatory mite, P.persimilis, (Pp) is the most frequently released natural enemy of spider mites used for the control of these pests on greenhouse and outdoor crops. Although they have been commercially produced for many years, the batch-to-batch quality of Pp populations, as defined by their egg-laying potential, remains inconsistent.

Some individuals and groups claim to be anti-biotech quite generally: they think all biotech is a bad idea. But such a position runs aground on the sheer diversity of ways in which the basic tools of biotech can be applied.

Monsanto, Dole, and NON-Genetically-Modified Foods

One key complaint about GM foods is that, so far, none of them has been engineered to have any properties that consumers much care about. Mostly they've been engineered to be herbicide-resistant, drought-resistant, and so on — all of which stands to benefit farmers, and thus holds the potential to lower food prices, at least in theory. But so far there's been nothing that really brings the benefits of the biotech revolution to my dinner plate.

So this announcement of a partnership between Monsanto and Dole might have been thought of as changing all that. But for better or for worse, it doesn't.

From the Globe and Mail: Tastier broccoli, spinach?

Monsanto Co. and Dole Fresh Vegetables Inc. are formalizing a partnership to breed broccoli, spinach and other vegetables that would be more attractive to consumers.

The five-year collaboration, announced Tuesday, will focus on creating variations of broccoli, cauliflower, lettuce and spinach, the companies said in a statement.

The focus of their efforts is to breed more colourful, tastier vegetables that are less susceptible to bruising and have a longer shelf-life.

“If I buy broccoli on Saturday or Sunday and try to cook it on Wednesday, it'll get wilty,” Monsanto spokeswoman Riddhi Trivedi-St. Clair said of one of reasons for the program.

She also stressed that these new variants will not be genetically modified like the company's corn seed and soybean products....

Maybe I should be posting this on a non-biotech-ethics blog. Because it's about food that is not — I repeat not — genetically modified. Nope, not this food. No GM here. Nothing to see, folks. Move along, move along....

Cities and States Bet Big on Biotech

I wonder sometimes: is biotech is just too sexy for governments to turn down? I mean, setting aside the qualms some people have about some kinds of stem cell research, biotech is just cooler than cool. It's new. It's hip. It promises cures for the diseases that afflict us and for vexing environmental problems. What sane politician wouldn't want to invest public money in a technology like that?

Check out this story, from the NY Times, on public investment in biotech: Despite Odds, Cities Race to Bet on Biotech

Where a textile mill once drove the economy of this blue-collar town northeast of Charlotte, an imposing neoclassical complex is rising, filled with fine art, Italian marble and multimillion-dollar laboratory equipment. Three buildings, one topped by a giant dome, form the beginnings of what has been nicknamed the Biopolis, a research campus dedicated to biotechnology...

At a recent global biotech convention in Atlanta, 27 states, including Hawaii and Oklahoma, paid as much as $100,000 each to entice companies on the exhibition floor. All this for a highly risky industry that has turned a profit only one year in the past four decades....

One of the questions in biotech ethics that is least talked about (outside of academic circles) is the question of what economists call "opportunity costs." Every dollar invested — wisely or foolishly — in biotech is a dollar not invested in something else. Now, public investment in business ventures is not exactly unique to biotech. Even prior to the obvious recent example of General Motors, governments at all levels have for many years — centuries, in fact — invested in business ventures they've seen as contributing to the public good. Sometimes that's a good idea, and sometimes it's not. Even a fan of biotech has to wonder whether the governments mentioned in the NY Times article are really doing the calculations carefully.

Biotech: A Serious Energy Source?

I don't know much about biofuels, but I'm usually skeptical when I hear it proposed as a really significant source of energy. Could biofuel be produced on a scale similar to the production of petroleum-based fuels? I usually picture a gushing oil well, spewing thousands of gallons of crude oil, and then try to imagine a factory fermenting biomass to turn out biofuel at a similar rate. Hard to picture.

Maybe my pessimism was unjustified.

Here's a bit of info about the potential for producing biofuels in large quantities, in a story from Cleantech Group, LLC: Biorefineries alive and well, say experts.

...ZeaChem plans to break ground on its first biorefinery in eastern Oregon by the end of the year, and has a contract with Portland, Ore.-based GreenWood Resources to provide a dedicated crop of poplar trees (see ZeaChem starts work on first biorefinery).

The company’s first commercial facility, expected to open in 2013, plans to generate 25 million gallons of ethanol per year, with larger follow-on facilities pumping out 100 million gallons per year, Eggeman said. ZeaChem plans to sell the ethanol to petroleum companies to blend directly into fuel.... [emphasis added]

Some quick online research suggested that a traditional oil well might produce something on the order of a few million gallons of crude per year (I don't know how much actual gasoline that would be reduced to.) So at least the numbers cited above, if accurate, suggest that my knee-jerk skepticism was unwarranted.

"Skeptically Speaking" Interview

Last Friday, I did a 45-minute live interview on CJSR's Skeptically Speaking, ("the world’s only skeptical talk show" — FM88.5 in Edmonton, Alberta). The topic was ethical issues in biotech. The conversation covered ethical issues personal genomics and gene patenting, as well as whether biotechnology is pushing us toward the realization of the dystopia envisioned in the movie Gattaca.

Here's the webpage with the podcast of the interview: Biotechnology Ethics. Thanks again to my wonderful hosts, Desiree and Sean.

Illumina: Whole-Genome Sequencing, But Only By Prescription

Barriers to access to your own genetic info is a big issue right now, and likely to get bigger.

From Genomeweb's Pharmacogenomics Reporter: Illumina’s New DTC Sequencing Service Addresses Ethical Quandary by Requiring Prescription

In launching its consumer whole genome sequencing service this week, Illumina will involve the physician much more directly in educating and advising its customers than other direct-to-consumer genomic firms currently do.

Debuting the service here at the Consumer Genetics conference, Illumina said that it will charge $48,000 to analyze patients' DNA by whole-genome sequencing. But unlike DTC genomics firms, which allow customers to order gene scans over the Internet and receive sample collection kits in the mail, Illumina’s service will require a prescription from their doctor or from a physician in Illumina’s Personal Genome Network before obtaining their genomic-risk data....

Some will wonder: Why make it harder for people to buy your product? Illumina is really just trying to stay ahead of the regulatory curve, here. Lots of people are worried — rightly or wrongly — that consumers are likely to misinterpret genetic information, and maybe to make foolish choices based on what they fail to understand.. People like Ron Bailey like to argue that people just don't need to be protected from that info. How many documented cases are there of people be hurt by genetic info? Any?

Food for thought: should we think of this in terms of barriers to individuals gaining information, or in terms of limits on a commercial transaction under conditions of information asymmetry? Does the difference in framing make a difference? Or is that a false dichotomy in the first place?

Genetic Discrimination (Maybe) in Canada

From CTV News: Some Canadians suffering 'genetic discrimination'

With medical advances, Canadians can now learn whether they carry the genetic risk for devastating diseases. But that knowledge could come at a price, suggests a study that looked at the growth of "genetic discrimination."

The study from researchers at the University of British Columbia looked at Canadians at risk of developing Huntington's disease, a degenerative brain disorder for which there is no cure or treatment to slow it.
...
They found the respondents reported discrimination most often in insurance settings. A full 29.2 per cent said they had experienced discrimination because of their genetic risk from life insurance, long-term disability, or mortgage insurance companies or agents. The discrimination came in the form of insurance rejection, premium increases, or requests to take a predictive test....

Interesting study...though it's worth pointing out that the study does not really provide evidence that genetic discrimination goes on. First, the study was based on self-reported discrimination, rather than documented discrimination. Also, the word "discrimination" is loaded. The word can just mean "differentiating between kinds or cases", but in common usage it means to treat different cases differently in an unfair way. And you simply can't rely on self-reporting when it comes to identifying unfair treatment: just because I feel that I've been treated unfairly doesn't mean that I have been. That's not to say that the results of this study aren't interesting and useful; it's just to point out the limits and assumptions of this sort of research.

PatientsLikeMe & 23andMe: Community-Based Personal Genomics

What happens when 2 of the world's hottest technologies — social networking and personal genomics — come together?

Dig this press release, via Marketwire: PatientsLikeMe Teams Up With 23andMe to Help Parkinson's Patients Health 2.0 Pioneers Work Together to Accelerate Research

PatientsLikeMe, the first community-based personalized medicine platform for people with life-changing conditions, and 23andMe, the world's leading personal genomics company, announce a partnership today to help people with Parkinson's disease. PatientsLikeMe is teaming with 23andMe on its effort to recruit 10,000 people with Parkinson's for a massive study of the disease, and give patients a way to learn more about their personal genetics....

PatientsLikeMe is a social networking site, but it's also one that physicians and researchers can get access to, to gather information. Now add to that 23andMe's ability to generate genomic data, the significance of which (and the significance of the sharing of which) will often be poorly understood by customers/members. The combination raises at least the worry that people will let their guards down — PatientsLikeMe is a community, after all — and make poor decisions, either about participating in research or about sharing potentially-sensitive genetic information.

Here are the Wikipedia pages for PatientsLikeMe and 23andMe.

Foreign Policy on Human Engineering

From Foreign Policy: The Next Big Thing: A New You, by Juan Enriquez.

As countries and industries grow increasingly overwhelmed by wave after wave of bankruptcies, layoffs, restructurings, botched contracts, and embarrassing bonuses, they might lose sight of a second, much larger set of tsunamis gathering force over the horizon. While the economy is melting down, technology is moving forward at an even faster rate. The ability to adapt to the accelerating pace of change will determine who survives.

To use the current bailout jargon, at least three major technologies are shovel-ready: the programming of tissues, the ability to engineer cells, and robots. As these breakthroughs and others converge, we are going to see a massive restructuring of global economic power....

How is this playing out, internationally?

Over the past few decades, the ability to code digits created an unprecedented burst of wealth, a large-scale restructuring of industries, and the rapid rise of once poor countries (Ireland, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, and some regions of India come to mind). Something similar is occurring in life-literate countries. What began in the mid-1990s as an obscure subspecialty related to pharmaceuticals has become a key component of national development plans....

Clearly, Enriquez is not a man who's shy about making grand predictions. And absent from his analysis is any hint that there might be risks — let alone that the risks related to any particular technology could conceivably outweigh the benefits. As readers of this blog may have noticed, I'm generally optimistic about the future of biotechnology. But that's not the same as believing in it uncritically. But yes, exciting times, to be sure.

Biotech Firms and Electoral Politics

Not all biotech ethics stories are about biotech.

From the Denver Post: Biotech ad draws fire from Colorado lawmaker

A newspaper advertisement that commends Democratic Gov. Bill Ritter for pushing biotech industries rankled a Republican lawmaker who says he thinks the piece should have been labeled a campaign ad.

"This is just a big, wet kiss for Bill Ritter," said Sen. Shawn Mitchell of Broomfield.

He asked an ethics group to investigate whether the ad violated campaign finance laws.The group's director later said no violation occurred....

This is a good example of why it's a bad idea for biotech companies and industry associations to think only about bioethics.

(Another note: the story quotes Ken Johnson of PhRMA as saying that he's promoting biotech because we're not going to cure cancer with "$4 generic drugs." We're certainly not going to do so with the generic drugs currently available...but not at all clear that cheap generics won't ever play an important role. Plus it seems politically unwise, shall we say, to be mocking affordable healthcare products.)

Risks of Sharing Personal Genetic Info

From BusinessWire: Risks of Sharing Personal Genetic Information Online Need More Study, Stanford Bioethicists Say

With just $399 and a bit of saliva in a cup, consumers can learn about their genetic risk for diseases from breast cancer to diabetes. Now, thanks to social networking sites set up by personal genomics companies, they can also share that information with family, friends and even strangers on the Internet.

Bonding over a similar genetic background sounds relatively harmless. But according to bioethicists from the Stanford University School of Medicine, sharing genetic information online raises a host of ethical questions.

“Genetic information is unique in that it’s not only relevant for the individuals who receive the information, but also for their family members, their children and even their children’s children,” said Sandra Soo-Jin Lee, PhD, senior research scholar at the school’s Center for Biomedical Ethics.

Because genetic information applies to more than one person, issues of privacy and consent become complicated....

...recommendations will be published in a special double-issue of the American Journal of Bioethics on June 5....

Here's the link to the American Journal of Bioethics. (That issue of AJOB includes a paper called "Research 2.0: Social Networking and Direct-To-Consumer (DTC) Genomics" by Soo-Jin Lee and her co-author LaVera Crawley, along with a bunch of commentaries on it, one of which I co-authored myself. In our commentary, Nancy Walton and I point out among other things that Lee & Crawly propose to investigate the democratization/empowerment promised by personal genomics, without recognizing that democratization and consumer empowerment are in fact very different ideas. If we're going to understand the impact of personal genomics, we need to start by not conflating key concepts.)

Is Genetic Info A Dangerous Commodity?

Ronald Bailey, writing for Reason Online: You Can't Handle the Truth: Do genetic tests need more federal regulation?

Worth reading in its entirety, but here are some key bits:

But does such direct-to-consumer (DTC) genotyping need to be regulated—or banned? Last month, Germany banned direct-to-consumer genetic testing. In 2007, the Genetics and Public Policy Institute found that 24 states limited or restricted direct-to-consumer genetic testing in some ways. Last year, both New York and California heightened their regulatory scrutiny of genotype scans such as those done by 23andMe, deCode, and Navigenics. The good news is the genotype scanning companies obtained licenses from California authorities, and so can now still offer their services to California residents. Several companies are still navigating through New York State's regulatory maze. Last year, the American Medical Association adopted recommendations opposing direct-to-consumer genetic testing, stating that a health care professional should be involved with any genetic testing.
...
There may well be some inaccurate tests and there will certainly be people who mislead customers about the meaning of certain tests. But do we really need additional federal regulation to weed out bad actors? Most evidence suggests that the current tests are fairly accurate, and that customers are not being misled by the results that are reported. All new technologies involve a societal learning process in which some early adopters try it out, explain to others how it works, and find out its flaws—which newer innovators then fix.

In fact, the way the genetic testing industry will evolve is that the companies that tease out and explain useful information about disease risks and pharmaceutical interactions will be the ones to succeed. The bigger risk is that increased federal regulation will slow down beneficial genetic testing innovations....

One note: Bailey focuses on accuracy, but accuracy isn't the whole issue. The other key issue is whether the tests actually tell consumers anything useful. Selling something just for its entertainment value is not ethically problematic — as long as consumers know what they're getting.

(I've blogged about the ethics of marketing personal genomics, something that might be thought of as a not-very-useful product.)

Regulating Genetic Testing in Europe

From Genomeweb Daily News: European Genetics Group Offers Draft of Genetic Testing Oversight

The European Society of Human Genetics has issued a draft version of proposed recommendations for regulating and managing genetic testing and will be accepting public comments about its proposals until the beginning of July.

While some of the expectations raised by the arrival of the genomics era have yet to be realized, new studies about genes and their interaction with the environment offer promise for medicine, ESHG said.

The proposals were developed over three meetings over the past two years by ESHG's Public and Professional Policy Committee, by the EU-funded Network of Excellence Eurogentest, and by the Institute for Prospective Technological Studies.

Currently in Europe the regulatory framework does not cover an independent evaluation for genetic tests before they are marketed, and the general public has access to genetic susceptibility tests that are offered on the internet, according to ESHG. The society also is responding to varying definitions for genetic susceptibility testing and screening, and to new discoveries of genetic variants....

Here's the website for the European Society of Human Genetics.

Canadian Groups Opposing GM Wheat

From Grainews: Ag groups push back against biotech wheat

A bid by a number of Canadian, U.S. and Australian growers' groups to help clear the regulatory road for gene-altered wheats has run up against equally opposed groups from the same three countries.

"In light of our existing experience with genetic engineering, and recognizing the global consumer rejection of genetically engineered (GE) wheat, we restate our definitive opposition to GE wheat and our commitment to stopping the commercialization of GE traits in our wheat crops," 15 farmer, consumer and "civil society" groups said in a joint release Monday.

Canadian groups putting their names to the statement include the National Farmers Union (NFU), Canadian Biotechnology Action Network, Union Paysanne, Union Biologique Paysanne, Reseau Quebecois contre les OGM and the Saskatchewan Organic Directorate....

And in the other corner:

Canadian groups on board to support wheat biotech approvals included the Grain Growers of Canada, Western Canadian Wheat Growers Association and Alberta Winter Wheat Producers Commission.

U.S. supporters included the National Association of Wheat Growers, U.S. Wheat Associates and North American Millers' Association, while Australian groups involved included the Grains Council of Australia, Grain Growers Association and the Pastoralists and Graziers Association of Western Australia....

For more information about the anti-GM-wheat effort, see also, from the Canadian Biotechnology Action Network: Stop GM Wheat - Join the Global Action.

Industrial Biotech & the Environment

Is biotech the best thing, or the worst thing, that's ever happened to the environment?

Check out this article from the Times, which points to biotech as a source of environmentally-friendly products: Industrial biotechnology sales soar

The demand for plant-based chemicals, which are used in everything from skin cream to car tyres, is growing so fast that the industry could generate sales of as much as £12 billion in the UK and £360 billion globally by 2025, according to research.

Industrial biotechnology — manipulating the cells of plants and other biological resources to create chemicals — is increasingly used to make ingredients that have traditionally been generated using oil and other fossil fuels.

Goodyear is working on a bio-based alternative to isoprene, a chemical compound derived from petrol that it uses in the production of synthetic rubber for its tyres.

Boots teamed up with the Centre for Novel Agricultural Products at the University of York last year and created a hand cream that incorporates fatty acids from hemp plant oil....

Many opponents of biotech object on environmental grounds. Those objections come in 2 main flavours: a consequence-based objection that suggests that something bad (e.g., ecological disaster) will result from the use of GM crops, and a principle-based objection that suggests that it's "just not right" to fiddle with nature, to 'play God', etc., independent of the consequences of doing so.

Those environmental objections are normally pitted against other kinds of values — things like economic development, the convenience of pesticide-resistant plants for farmers, etc. But the article above suggests significant environmental benefits from biotech. Advocates of GM foods also point to the idea that at least some GM food crops may bring environmental benefits. For example, crops engineered to be pest-resistant should reduce usage of chemical pesticides, and crops engineered to be drought-tolerant stand to reduce water usage. Those whose objections to biotech are rooted in the potential negative consequences will have to consider whether the pros outweigh the cons. Those whose objections are rooted in non-consequentialist principles will need to consider whether, and how, those principles are to be balanced against consequences both good & bad.