Abstracts, Papers &

Resources

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Legislation & RegulationPlant & Animal Breeding

Engineering animals: ethical issues and deliberative institutions

Sheila Jasanoff and Stefan Sperling

Publication date: 07/03/2007

Many public discussions about cloned and genetically engineered (GE) food animals have focused on questions of the regulatory authorities that may govern such animals, but few have considered the impacts of ethical or moral concerns. While ethical issues can be equally as or even more important than safety and regulatory issues to many people, there is currently no established venue where these issues can be fully addressed.

Representatives from federal agencies, biotech companies, food companies, consumer groups, animal welfare organizations, agricultural groups, non-U.S. regulatory agencies and universities gathered in October 2006 to consider what options are available for continuing discussions regarding the moral and ethical aspects of genetically engineering and cloning food animals and how those discussions might shape the future development and commercialization of such animals.

This report is the synthesis of that meeting.

Resource type: Adobe Acrobat (.pdf)

Plant & Animal Breeding

Organic agriculture requires process rather than product evaluation of novel breeding techniques

E.T. Lammerts Van Bueren. et al

Publication date: 09/02/2007

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In organic agriculture the use of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) is banned.

Recently, two novel breeding techniques have been developed, i.e., cisgenesis and reverse breeding, both of which are based on gene technology but should raise less moral concerns from the public. Whether the products of these breeding processes are classified as GMOs depends on the interpretation of the relevant EU regulations.

In cisgenic plants, the genes introduced through genetic modification are from a crossable donor plant so that the source of the genes is considered to be of the same nature. In reverse breeding, the recombinant genes, essential to the breeding process, are no longer present in the product resulting from the entire breeding process, and thus the product as such is not transgenic. Should varieties obtained through cisgenesis or reverse breeding be allowed in organic agriculture?

The answer to this question depends on whether the product or the process of breeding is taken into account. Assessment based on the product implies a choice of an ethical approach that only considers the extrinsic consequences of human action by making a risk-benefit analysis. It neglects so-called intrinsic, ethical arguments related to the applied technology (the process] itself. The organic movement uses the intrinsic argument of ‘unnaturalness’ against genetic engineering. We therefore conclude that products of cisgenesis and reverse breeding should be subject to the current GMO-regulations in organic agriculture and should thus be banned from organic agriculture.

Resource type: Adobe Acrobat (.pdf)

Citizen StakeholdersScience & Technology

Are scientists right and non-scientists wrong? Reflections on discussions of GM

Jan Deckers

Publication date: 30/09/2005

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The aim of this article is to further our understanding of the “GM is unnatural” view, and of the critical response to it.

While many people have been reported to hold the view that GM is unnatural, many policy-makers and their advisors have suggested that the view must be ignored or rejected, and that there are scientific reasons for doing so. Three “typical” examples of ways in which the “GM is unnatural” view has been treated by UK policy-makers and their advisors are explored. These are the Government’s position (DEFRA Report), the account of the Nuffield Council on Bioethics, and the position of Nigel Halford, a scientist with an advisory role to the Government. I show that their accounts fail to mount a convincing critique. Then, I draw on an empirical research project held during 2003–2004 at the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne in the north east of England.

Scientists met with non-scientists in a range of facilitated one-to-one conversations (“exchanges”) on various environmental issues, one of which was on GM. Our findings show that some scientists who rejected the “GM is unnatural” view struggled to do so consistently. Their struggle is interpreted in terms of a conflict between a so-called “scientific” worldview, and a different worldview that underlies the concerns of those who held the “GM is unnatural” view. This worldview is explored further by an examination of their concerns. What distinguishes this worldview from the “scientific” worldview is that the instrumentalization of the nonhuman world is questioned to a larger extent.

I conclude that, because the underlying concerns of those who held the “GM is unnatural” view were not with GM as such, yet with a worldview that was considered to be problematic, and of which many GM applications were held to be expressions, policy-makers and their advisors should reflect on the critical worldview of those who claim that GM is unnatural if they want to engage seriously with their concerns.

Main link goes to the pay per view abstract. The author’s .pdf version can be found here.

Resource type: Web page URL

Legislation & RegulationScience & TechnologySustainability

Late lessons from early warnings: the precautionary principle 1896-2000 (vol 1)

European Environment Agency

Publication date: 09/01/2002

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Late lessons from early warnings is about the gathering of information on the hazards of human economic activities and its use in taking action to better protect both the environment and the health of the species and ecosystems that are dependent on it, and then living with the consequences.

The report is based on case studies. The authors of the case studies, all experts in their particular field of environmental, occupational and consumer hazards, were asked to identify the dates of early warnings, to analyse how this information was used, or not used, in reducing hazards, and to describe the resulting costs, benefits and lessons for the future.

Resource type: Adobe Acrobat (.pdf)

Plant & Animal BreedingScience & Technology

Foom farm to fork: the regulatory status of non-GMO plant innovations under current EU law

De Jong P, et al

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In April 2017, the Scientific Advice Mechanism (‘SAM’)presented its explanatory note on ‘New Techniques in Agricultural Biotechnology’ to the European Commission (‘the SAM Note’). The SAM Note provides a detailed description of the nature and characteristics of so-called‘plant breeding innovations’ or ‘new breeding techniques’(‘NBTs’), and how they are similar to or different from conventional breeding techniques (‘CBT’, such as crossing and selection, or mutation breeding) and established techniques of genetic modification(‘GM’, such as the use of recombinant nucleic acids).

According to the SAM Note, the term ‘NBTs’ refers to a wide range of new breeding methods, some of which are substantially different from established transgenic approaches in their way of introducing traits to an organism.Whereas some NBTs amount to a refinement of CBT and integrate genetic material that is derived from a sexually compatible species, some nevertheless are used in combination with established GM techniques. Some NBTs result in organisms that contain only point mutations and are practically indistinguishable from varieties bred through CBT. The NBTs that have attracted most attention in recent years (and are, presumably also for that reason, currently subject to a preliminary reference to the Court of Justice of the EU or ‘CJEU’) are the so-called genome editing techniques.The present article focuses specifically on those genome editing techniques

Resource type: Adobe Acrobat (.pdf)