Suman Sahai
It's a pleasure to be here especially since it is not very often that you get an opportunity to discuss science and technology at a gathering like this. I particularly appreciate that INDlA TODAY has put together this agenda. Michael Specter of the New Yorker has just laid before you very comprehensively, and in great detail all the classical arguments that are put out in defence of genetic engineering and genetically-engineered crops. There are some things that I agree with and there are many I don't. As a practicing laboratory scientist trained in genetics myself, there are a few things I would like to clarify.
The oft-repeated phrase that genetic engineering is
very precise is not true. Genetic engineering as we use it today is actually a
very imprecise technology. We can neither guide the gene to where we want it go
nor can we get the number of copies of genes that we want. If I want to put in
two genes I can't. I shoot in genes into a cell and I wait for something to
happen. So there is great randomness to this technology.
This is all right provided you take on that
randomness on board and then work with the fact that it is not a precise
technology. Therefore, you have to work with the fact that you will have to
deal with safety testing. On the question that there are the starving millions,
hungry hordes, the growing population and that genetic engineering is necessary
to address this problem, there is no evidence so far.
Whether genetic engineering will also play a role in
solving the problem of hunger will be seen in the future. Today, the technology
is very restricted, its application is wide but its offer is very restricted.
Unfortunately though, the mythology of genetic engineering is replete with
claims that are not substantiated by fact and reality. If we talk about hunger,
we need to look at the number of things that are happening to cause it and all
the solutions that may be available.
“Genetic engineering is a regulated technology and
it has to be regulated cautiously.-
Hunger happens when a person does not have access to
productive assets like land or water to grow food or does not have a job and
enough money in his pocket to buy food. Today, in this country and in many
other countries in Asia, we have many potential solutions for hunger. There is
a tremendous amount of genetic potential locked up in the crop varieties that we are unable to translate into big
harvests, because farmers can't afford
enough fertilisers, soil health is poor and potential yield is not translated
into real yield.
Again on the question of hunger, look at India and
see how much of India is irrigated. Sixty to seventy per cent of Indian arable land (where crops
can grow) is not irrigated but dependent only on the monsoon. So, before you
get into a technology fix, all that you need to do to double and triple food
production, in the country is bring water to these un irrigated areas. When you
bring water to the areas which are growing only one crop a year today, you can
grow two or three crops in a year. You will not just double food production,
you will probably triple it.
Technology can play a role in improving the
situation but to give credence to a technology beyond what the technology has
so far shown is perhaps misguided.
On Mr. Specter’s contention that to ban Bt brinjal
was a misguided decision, I differ. I think the government should have banned
Bt brinjal, because of all the things that had gone wrong with developing and
regulating it. Violations cannot be condoned.
Genetic engineering
is a regulated technology and it has to be regulated cautiously. It is
scientists who have acknowledged that there are safety concerns. Regulation was
asked for not by political leaders, not by civil society, not by NGOS, but by
scientists. We must take the matter of safety of these products very seriously.
Bt brinjal went through a series of processes. There were grave and outstanding
questions about the way it had been regulated. This country has a policy on
mandatory labelling of GM foods. This is the policy we represent in all of the
meetings at Codex Alimentarius.
The Regulators wanted to give permission for the
release of Bt brinjal, but the country has not yet got the labelling,
infrastructure or mechanism in place. We are in violation of our own rules. We
don't have a law on Liability and Redress nor is there a law nor mechanism to
grant compensation if something goes wrong. Many questions have been raised
about the nature of the safety tests and the careless and inadequate manner in
which they were done.
This is not to attack the technology, it is to
attack the atrocious regulatory systems that governs it. To say that the
decision on Bt brinjal can't be defended is incorrect. It's a decision that
should have been taken at least on account
of the failure of regulation and the paucity of evidence on safely of
the product. People ask how much testing is needed. Testing has to be done till
it is clear that the product is safe or otherwise.
The golden rice issue was raised but I want to put
before you the fact that India and countries like India have a huge genetic
variability in the crops that they grow. There are rice varieties rich in iron
, zinc, vitamins and so on.
Golden Rice may or may not pan out finally but we
don’t need it. We have golden millets,
golden sweet potatoes, and other Vitamin A rich foods. If you really want a
Vitamin A fix, you don't have to genetically engineer rice, you have many kinds
of rice that are nutritious and also other kinds of staple foods that will
deliver vitamin A ( and many other nutrients ) and deliver it in much more cost
effective ways. I am not shutting the doors on technology but to say that GM
technology is central or even exclusive to solving our problems of hunger and
malnutrition, is frankly ridiculous. -
“Just as science can do a lot of good, its
application can also do a lot of bad. “-
GM technology may play a role one day but today
there are just two genes on offer: the Bt gene and the HT (herbicide tolerance)
gene. Neither of them has any connection to hunger, nutrition or improving
livelihoods.
You must think after all this that despite being a
geneticist, I am firmly anti-science or anti-technology. I am not and I can't
be. I have been trained in science and it has been the best part of my life,
but I have to put before you the fact that neither science nor technology
operates in a vacuum. Just as science can do a lot of good, its application can
also do a lot of bad.
You have heard about Einstein's theory of
relativity, but how many people know that the GPS in your car and in your phone
is actually derived from the Theory of Relativity. That's how easily you can
adopt sophisticated science for human applications and derive benefit from it.
That's the same GPS that's used in drone airplanes that bomb the hell out of
places. When Enrico Fermi did his
experiments on nuclear fission on the sports field in Chicago and started
understanding the nature of fission, it led to the nuclear reactor, to the
Manhattan Project, to the bomb and then to Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
There is a purity about science that I am for but
there may not be a purity in the application of science, when science turns
into technology. When you look at genetic engineering, it comes from very
straight forward work by an Austrian priest called Gregor Mendel. In 1860, when
we were roughly wrapping up our first War of Independence against British rule,
an Austrian priest was working on the principles of heredity and this Austrian
priest laid the foundation of genetics, of understanding heredity which has
been of crucial importance in understanding human disease.
We have understood how to make family pedigrees to
see the transmission of disease. We have understood how to tackle disease but
we have also understood genes and heredity and have developed amniocentesis,
sex determination and the killing of girl foetuses. Atrocious gender ratios,
like 750 females per 1,000 males, exist in many parts of our country and
outside. -
“We can create new life forms in the laboratories
using synthetic biology. “-
Therefore, science and technology do not operate in
a vacuum. The onus is on us to take
science and technology and to make them work for the betterment of humankind.
You think we have a seen a lot of genetic engineering? How many of you are
aware of the new science, synthetic biology, which is just five or six years
old? What happens with synthetic biology? You can actually construct new life
forms with synthetic biology. You can take the DNA which is essentially a
chemical. You can buy it off the shelf and paste it together in the lab and
create a new life form. In fact, Craig Venter, who is a brilliant scientist,
has created an artificial bug called Mycoplasma laboratorium and what Venter's
group did was to strip a bacterium called Mycoplasma genetelium and pack it
with completely new DNA and he created an artificial organism called Mycoplasma
laboratorium. Before that the Centre for Disease Control in the US had
reconstructed the virus that causes Spanish flu which incidentally killed 100
million people in 1918 after the World War-I. This is the brave new world of
science.
“The
precautionary principle is an important cornerstone of all negotiations in the
world of science.”-
As a practicing laboratory scientist, let me tell
you, accidents will happen. Test tubes will break, petri-dishes will break,
solutions will spill and, however, technically well organised your laboratory
is for safety, accidents will happen. Murphy’s Law operates and therefore it is
important to realise that not all risks can be contained. So what does this
mean?
When you have an artificial organism like the one
created out of synthetic biology what can you get? Think of bio-warfare. If you
have an anthrax attack what will happen? It will kill some people and then you
will quickly deploy an antidote. But you don't know what Mycoplasma
laboratorium can do because it has no pedigree. It comes from nowhere. This is
novel genetic material that you have put together, but you don't know how it
will interact with the environment. You don't know what damage it can do to
human health. You have no idea how to control it or destroy if it turns out to
be dangerous.If you have bio-warfare with anthrax, you know what to do with it.
But should you have a bio-warfare with an organism like that, you are
completely at sea as to how to control this organism.
And - as against physics and chemistry, the brave
new world of biology replicates. Bugs have babies, humans have babies, genes
have babies, they all replicate.
If you put a transformer out here or a glass out
there, it will sit there for the next 3,000 years and it will not have babies.
But if you put out a dish with a cell culture, the cells will proliferate,
spill out and go places. Therefore, when you are tinkering with biology, then
you must step back a bit. It is famously said that the 21st century will be the
century of biology. It will be. All the breakthroughs are going to happen in
this field. This field is already giving us transformative technologies like
genetic engineering, nanotechnology,
synthetic biology etc. Transformative because they are going to
transform the way we live, the way we eat our food, the way drugs are delivered
to us and also the way environment will be. So what do we do when we confront
this situation? Do we step back and say no science, no technology? No, of
course not. Rather we ask ourselves which science, which technology?
After destroying the planet to the extent that we
have, I think we should have learnt some lessons. And we need to make a
distinction between science and its application in the form of technology. The
crucial and deciding factor is human greed. Today, as we look and see the
potential of science and what it has to offer, let us step back with a little
modesty. Let us agree that it is sufficient to optimize profits not necessarily
to maximise them. Nature has a very tolerant and benign presence, you lean on
her, you hurt her a bit, she takes it. You cut down some trees, the forest will
come back. But if you push her, if you knock off entire forests, if you release
fiddled bugs, if you destroy the climate, if you ravage bio-diversity, then
nature will hit back. We need to remember this. Nature will give you leeway but will hit back if you go too far.
“Nature has a very tolerant presence. It gives you
much leeway, but it will hit back if you hurt it.”
So what are the lessons for the application of
science? We should certainly forge ahead it but with three words I will leave
you with - Ethics, Regulation and Precaution. There is a whole field of
bio-ethics that is developing, not as fast as it should but it is there. And it
is scientists who have laid some restraints on themselves. When genetic
engineering started, scientists converged at Asilomar for a conference in 1975.
They got together and said this technology can go places, also where we don't want it to go, so we must
exercise control and have regulation. We have self-imposed bans on human
cloning, on human germ-line therapy, on human embryonic stem cell, so it is not
that scientists don't think about it but when science leaves the laboratory and goes into the field of technology and
application, other factors, most notably money, come into play.
You have probably heard of the maverick scientist
trying to clone the human embryo then having it implanted in a women and about
people trying to fool around with germ line therapy in humans which is
extremely dangerous since you don't know what the outcome will be. As we
confront the brave new world of science, we need to look at the Ethics,
Regulation and Precautionary Principles.
The precautionary principle is now becoming a very
important cornerstone of all negotiations and transactions in the world of
science. If there is insufficient evidence and you are uncertain, step back and
exercise caution. Don't rush in where fools fear to tread. I think the way
ahead is progress but with intelligence, maturity and responsibility. We must
work with the approach that we hold this Earth only in custody for our
children. In legal terms, this is defined as the principle of
“Inter-Generational Equity”. We are
bound by a moral responsibility to hold the Earth and pass it on to our
children in as intact a form as possible. I submit before you that the
sentiment alone should guide the pursuit to science and technology.
Questions &
Answers
Ms Sahai raised the issue of ethics, regulation and
precaution. But Mr Specter, you didn't seem to agree with it. Is it really
right to give science a free hand without caring too much about?
Michael
Specter- I like ethics and
regulations but there are a couple of things which I disagree with. For
instance, the idea of making 1918 flu virus from scratch is a bad thing. It is
extremely dangerous. Do you know how we make vaccines in the world? We make
them today the way we made them in 1930s. When we grow vaccines in the 19th
century traditions, we will die the 19th century way as well. After the
precautionary principles, here are a couple of things we wouldn't have if there
was too much regulation. We wouldn't have airplanes, x-rays, antibiotics,
vaccines, televisions or radios and we wouldn't have nuclear power which I
think is a great solution to one of the Earth's most pressing problems. So,
precaution. Yes, apt but let's not confuse the greed of a company with the
ability of science to accomplish things because I should say synthetic biology
to me is not only a brave new world, it is the most exciting thing to happen in
human history so I guess, we disagree on it.
Q. Ms Sahai,
you mentioned that if water is provided then land, where only one crop is
cultivated, two or three crops can be grown but Mr Specter mentioned that on a
daily-basis 10,000 people are becoming middle-class right now. How do we cope
up with it? The percentage of farmers is getting lower by the day. What do you
suggest?
Suman Sahai- You have to grow crops because you need food. We
can't say the middle-class is increasing and we can't say there is growing
hunger. If we have growing hunger and if we have growing population as well,
and we need to feed them, then we need to grow crops and an important input to
grow crops is to get water for irrigation. If you have a GM crop in an area
that doesn't have water, then it will not grow. The defining lacuna is water.
Water is important for growing food.
Q: Mr Specter,
you spoke of the ban on Bt brinjal. As a layman what I understood is that the
minister after public hearing found that out of some 22 tests that were
supposed to be done, only eight had been completed. What was more appalling was
the fact that most of these tests were done not by independent bodies but
entirely by the manufacturers. Therefore, they have now asked to complete the
tests and then do a review.
Specter- I dispute those facts. Thousands of independent
tests were done and there were thousands of independent studies elsewhere too.
There is a clear safety profile in the question. It is legitimate to ask if the
benefit is good enough to let the risks exist. I don't think those are always
clear answers but in this case, I think it is pretty clear. As I said, it is
something like soyabean or corn. It is not to improve the quality of life for
people but there are dozens of new products about to come in the market that
will help with drought resistance environments. I couldn't agree more about
water but getting water to the places where we need it is really tough. It
could be done but it can't be done easily and I think we need to look at other
solutions and this is one of those solutions.
Q. The points raised by you Mr Specter are political
and fair, sometime the arguments are not rational, they are more emotional. Ms
Sahai, if we buy seeds from Monsanto, we would then be submitting ourselves to
a new form of colonialism. The fact that all farmers will have to buy from a
single source and then they would have monopolies, I mean these are issues that
need to be addressed and Ms Sahai, would you like to speak on this matter?
Sahai- Sure, I think that as the debate progressed on
genetically engineered crops, there was a lot of incorrect information going
around. When you are taking a serious view, you are sifting the wheat from the
chaff. On the question of control over seeds, I would say that it is a
socio-political aspect not an emotional one. Who ever controls the seeds, will
control to a very large extent the kind of agriculture and the kind of cash
crop that will be cultivated.
Let me tell you something else-who is entitled to a
patent, who is entitled to that control? Here is a new variety of seed that has
been created, how many steps does it take to make this new variety? Let us say 100 steps , of which 80 to 90 steps have been
contributed by farmers and later by a number of
scientists. It is only the last 5 or 10
steps of sticking in genes or taking out a genes that the molecular
biologist does . The patent on the entire 100 steps is claimed by those who
have contributed the last 5 to 10 steps! That is what a patent on seed is all
about and that is why it is essentially incorrect, unethical and unjust.
Patents cannot be granted to the corporates because they are not the real inventors.
They have added just the tail end. I
would want to put things in perspective and say that there is a question of
control on seed if you have a weak legal framework, if you do not have
sufficient training in filing for intellectual property and your scientists and
lawyers are not trained to play that game, then the playing field is not level
and it is not fair. It is not really possible to grant patents on biology.
Biological materials derive from nature and are constantly changing. The patent
game is about using words and playing politics. Give me a patent on biology and
I will tell you how to crack it.
“There cannot be patents on seeds because there are
several contributors to a seed, a variety. “
Q. Would you have accepted Bt brinjal if we did not
have a patent issue associated with it and like the Internet, the technology
and the processes were thrown open to public use.
-
“We neither have laws for labelling and liability
nor any verification of the test protocols.”
-
Sahai- It is not about patents but about biosafety.
There are a few things that we need to know. Was the Bt approach to control the
so-called pest of brinjal necessary? The answer is no. The Bt gene controls a
pest called caterpillar borer. That's all it does. The main pest of brinjal and
the brinjal family to which tomatoes, and chillies also belong, is not
caterpillar borer, it's a disease called bacterial wilt. If you really wanted
to control the brinjal pest, you should have found a solution to bacterial wilt
not the caterpillar. You don't have a
law for labelling, you don't have a law on liability, you don't have any
independent verification of the tests, biosafety protocols are still fairly
Neanderthal, test protocols for food safety are very elementary. These are the things that are going wrong. Pointing this out does not
make you an opponent of science.
I think science and technology must go back to the
lab when there are open questions and
research must continue till you find answers, till you come to the
situation where you can confidently say, yes, this will work or no, we can't
get the wrinkles out it will not work. The CSIRO in Australia worked for years
on peas trying to make a transgenic pea to control a pest. They were not able
to make a safe transgenic pea. When they
tested it for food safety, there were health issues like serious inflammation in test animals. Finally, CSIRO
decided this is not going to work so they shut the door on it and that is what
honest science should do. Test till you are fairly confident that your product
is safe and if you can't get the wrinkles out, shut the door.
Suman Sahai - India Today Conclave 2010
Suman Sahai - India Today Conclave 2010
Suman Sahai - India Today Conclave 2010
