Volume 5, Issue 1
by Kristen Hessler, bioethics outreach coordinator
It is said that all's fair in love and war-but what's fair in biopharming? Like many ethical questions about biotechnology and its applications, this question is complex and can be approached from a variety of angles.
Researchers, industry groups, and producers interested in the new technology want to be held to fair standards of risk management. Producers who want to grow conventional crops are concerned that their crops might be contaminated by nearby test plots of pharmaceutical crops, with potentially serious financial consequences. Food processors worry that they will bear the costs of dwindling consumer confidence if pharmacrops end up in the food supply.
These are all legitimate concerns, and they should be treated as such. But given the wide variety of perspectives, is it possible to arrive at a policy on biopharming that is fair for everyone?
Answering this question requires some idea of what would constitute a fair policy. Sometimes it is tempting to think that we should make policy decisions by simply adding up the net benefits and costs for society as a whole. However, the value of fairness requires us to consider not only whether a particular policy would produce more benefits than harms, but also how benefits and harms are distributed and how decisions are made.
One way to focus on fair policy options is to require each party in the debate to propose and defend only those policies that those with differing viewpoints could reasonably accept. This principle asks everyone involved to put themselves in other people's shoes, and from that perspective to think about what would be reasonable for those people to accept. Policies, then, can be developed and proposed that are consistent with the interests of all parties. In that sense, this strategy contrasts with strategies that take advantage of others' lack of knowledge or decision-making authority.
How might this apply to biopharming?
Researchers and industry groups sometimes express frustration at the lack of scientific understanding in the general public. Some assert that this lack of scientific understanding may lead people to overestimate the risks of biotechnology and unfairly constrains research in biotechnology and commercial opportunities for biotech products. However, if we think of the issue from the perspective of people who lack a scientific understanding of biopharming, it may be reasonable for them to reject risks they don't understand, especially when they see no prospect of benefit to themselves. Many consumers do not see how biopharming might benefit them personally, yet they understand the possibility that pharmacrops might end up in their food supply. Even if they overestimate the adverse consequences of this possibility, it is not unreasonable for them to oppose policies that favor biopharming given their knowledge of the distribution of risks and benefits.
But what about the researchers and industries that want to be held to fair standards of risk management rather than standards dictated by uninformed skepticism? In this case, the strategies dictated both by fairness and practicality converge: Address people on their terms and offer them reasons they can accept. Perhaps the most effective step that can be taken to breach the gap between the skeptical public and biopharming advocates is to ensure the existence of independent, consumer-oriented authorities with no appearance of any conflicts of interest. In policy deliberations, it would be reasonable for citizens to consult these sources rather than to make decisions under the uncertainty imposed by their own lack of expertise.
This kind of relationship can already be found in society. Regulatory agencies and land grant universities, for example, are able to accumulate and disseminate specialized expertise without the special interests that one might expect in business or political organizations with similar expertise. At the same time, however, both regulatory agencies and land-grant universities face serious challenges in fulfilling this role. For example, land-grant universities must be able to balance their interest in pursuing cutting-edge scientific research with a concern for the people and communities impacted by that research, and to convey to the public that they have achieved such a balance, in order to safeguard their status as independent sources of information.
Much of ethical importance is at stake in the development of fair policies that respect citizens as equally deserving of concern and consideration. Against this background, ISU's role in generating and conveying scientific information is a high calling indeed.
The need for an ethical understanding of biotechnology innovations brought more than 40 ISU faculty and Extension personnel together in January.
The precautionary principle was the framework for discussion about how to analyze the ethical considerations of the development of pharmaceutical crops. The precautionary principle suggests that events or developments involving uncertain consequences should be examined with the goal of encouraging thoughtful and deliberate consideration of potential consequences before acting on them. The principle has been widely used in environmental and public-health initiatives since its development in the 1980s.
Keynote speaker Carl Cranor, from the University of California, Riverside; and Carolyn Raffensperger, Executive Director of the Science and Environmental Health Network, discussed the implementation and potential uses precautionary principle. GianCarlo Moschini, ISU professor of economics, discussed the principle in the context of economics.
A panel presentation in the afternoon addressed various perspectives of the implementation and potential effects of planting transgenic and pharmaceutical crops. Panel members were Doug Getter, executive director of the Iowa Biotechnology Association; Laura Krause, biology teacher at Cornell College and organic farmer; and Kan Wang, ISU professor of agronomy.
Getter discussed the strengths Iowa has for biotechnology development and goals for the state to become a leader in biotechnology industry. Krause talked about her experience as an organic farmer whose business is threatened by the presence of GMOs in her crops. Wang presented information about the history of vaccines and their future in transgenic plants and showed examples of her field and laboratory research with transgenic plants.
Following their presentations, participants asked the panel questions about the benefits and risks of pharmaceutical crops from the diverse perspectives. Questions raised included how much money could be made in Iowa through biotechnology; the fate of wild animals that eat transgenic crops, and the humans that may eat those animals; and who should be held responsible for contamination of GMOs in organic crops.
The retreat ended with participants forming breakout groups to discuss how the precautionary principle could be applied to pharmaceutical crops. Many of the groups suggested that transgenic crop technologies have been implemented too widely to make significant use of the precautionary principle, but they were in favor of taking wider precautions in further development. Precautions suggested included not commercializing pharmaceutical crops until more is known about risks, using crops that are not openly pollinated to avoid cross-pollination, and not growing transgenic corn with pharmaceuticals in Iowa to avoid widespread cross-pollination of one of the state's major crops.
"The retreat speakers and participants were dynamic, and I was pleased with the quality of discussion about the ethical considerations of pharmaceutical crops. I hope the participants left the retreat with a better understanding of the precautionary principle and the ethical issues surrounding the development of this and other new technologies," said Kristen Hessler, bioethics outreach coordinator for Iowa State University and coordinator of the retreat.
Thursday, February 20, 2003
8:00 p.m., Sigma Xi Lecture, "Can Values Be Good for Science?" Helen
Longino, Professor of Philosophy and Women's Studies, University of Minnesota,
free , Campanile Room, Memorial Union, 515-294-9934.
Tuesday, February 25, 2003
8:00 p.m., Lecture, "Visual Thinking Process in Design: The Viewpoint of
A Person with Autism," Temple Grandin is austistic and an assistant professor
of Animal Science at Colorado State University, free , Sun Room, Memorial Union,
515-294-9934.
Tuesday, March 4, 2003
8:00 p.m., Lecture, "New Social Challenges in Science, Engineering, and
Technology," Neal Lane, University Professor at Rice University in the
Department of Physics and Astronomy, free, Sun Room, Memorial Union, 515-294-9934.
Monday, March 10, 2003
4:10 p.m., Entomology, "Agricultural Biotechnology: An Industry Perspective,"
Bill McCutchen,
Published four times per year
by the ISU Office of Biotechnology
and the Bioethics Program.
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Editor: Dena Huisman
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Last Update 05/23/03
