Wendy Russell
In March this year the first Australian Consensus Conference took place at the Australian Museum in Sydney. The conference was described as "democracy in action". The involvement of a team of 14 lay people, from various parts of Australia, and from varying backgrounds and walks of life, who began with no particular interest in Gene Technology in the Food Chain, set the scene for a democratic process.
The commitment of the lay panel to arriving at a balanced position, taking into account a range of perspectives, was impressive. However, the acid test of this democratic process, a first for Australia, is in the action which results. For the process to be truly successful, the lay panel’s report must inform decision-making and policy in the area of Gene Technology (GT). Otherwise, it will remain, as another participant remarked afterwards, "a cry for democracy".
The Consensus conference and the report arising from it are timely. The government has recently outlined proposed changes to the regulation of gene technology in this country and is undergoing a consultative process to develop new legislation in this area. One of the difficulties has been the fragmented nature of existing policies affecting GT regulation, which have been drawn from diverse bodies such as the Australia New Zealand Food Authority, the National Registration Authority for Agricultural and Veterinary Chemicals, and the Therapeutic Goods Administration. The only body specifically assigned to the regulation of gene technology in Australia is the Genetic Manipulation Advisory Committee, which does not have statutory power. A Gene Technology Office with statutory clout is already on the government’s agenda. A contentious issue which was highlighted at the Consensus Conference is the choice of government department which would be responsible for this statutory body.
Concerns raised by expert speakers related to the separation of interests and objectives. Discussions have been lead so far by the Department of Industry, Science and Resources (DISR), which set up a Biotechnology Task Force in 1998. The aim of this task force is to "develop an internationally competitive biotechnology industry in Australia". In this context, an emphasis is likely to be placed on the benefits of gene technology, especially economic benefits, rather than the impacts or risks. Similarly, there is a push for regulation of GT in the food chain to move into Agriculture, Forestry & Fisheries, Australia. Indeed, the Minister for AFFA, Mr Mark Vaille, officially opened the Consensus Conference. The Agricultural ministry clearly has a focus on agricultural production, and Australia’s position in international agricultural trade, and may place this above a concern for public health and safety.
Responding to calls from public health experts, John Coveney and Shawn Somerset, and the consumer representative, Mara Bún, the lay panel recommended that regulation of GT should be the concern of Health and Environment Departments. They stated that the existing regulatory bodies (notably GMAC and ANZFA) "are currently not serving community interests" and that the narrow focus on scientific analysis of risk needs to be broadened to encompass other social, cultural and ethical concerns.
A recurrent question of the lay panel was What is an acceptable risk? In response, a number of speakers suggested that one should judge whether risks outweigh benefits or vice versa, and decide based on this judgement. Yet such a judgement is not a simple equation. It is simplified by the use of economics, the balancing of costs with economic gains, with obvious problems. As with many new technologies, the costs are often borne much later than the gains, and often by a different group in society. Bob Phelps, of the Gene-Ethics Network, suggested that corporate profit should not be balanced against public risk.
The lay panel were clearly concerned about the issue of liability: Who pays for environmental disasters or problems down the track? And how will these down-stream costs be monitored, especially if GM foods are not segregated from conventional ones? Their recommendation of a licence fee for commercial releases of GMOs, contingent on compliance with a set of safety regulations, was partly to address this issue. In addition, they recommended that a comprehensive labelling system and an Adverse Reactions Register be instigated, to allow monitoring of the effects of GMOs, as well to facilitate informed choice (see below).
Peter Wills, a physicist from the University of Auckland, spoke of the hazards of making fundamental changes to organisms within complex ecosystems, without an understanding of the effects on the ecology and evolution of these systems. There is little evidence for such hazards, and this has tended to weaken these arguments, even though it is not expected that such hazards would arise until numerous GMOs have been released into the environment for an extended period. Jim Peacock, of the CSIRO, pointed out that agricultural systems are not natural ecosystems, and that most crops do not participate in evolution, as they are subject to farmer, rather than natural, selection. While this is currently true, many of the moves towards sustainable agriculture involve more complex, integrated farming systems. If gene technologies are to contribute to this trend, rather than simply providing short-lived technological fixes to problems of conventional practices, then the impacts of genetically altered organisms on complex biological systems is an issue that must be addressed, as is the issue of escape of GMOs into the environment. It requires long term attention, and the cooperation of scientists from different disciplines, including molecular biologists, population geneticists, ecologists and environmental scientists. Until processes are in place to ensure an ongoing and broad assessment, and until scientists are more open in talking about uncertainty, the public is unlikely to feel confident in the face of these potential hazards.
It is also important to consider the social balance of risks and benefits. For example, if there is even a small risk that a product could cause a serious health effect in a small proportion of the population, would this be acceptable balanced with benefits to other groups in society? What if these benefits included reduction in the use of a toxic chemical which was causing health problems in the community in which it was used? More broadly, GT products may increase Australia’s export income, but what if the increased profits contributed to concentration of interests in the agricultural sector, pushing small farmers out of business?
These are difficult questions, and clearly require a case-by-case treatment, taking into account potential hazards and uncertainty about them, as well as broader social and economic impacts. Technologists and farmers can’t be expected to assess the new technologies in this comprehensive way, which is why a regulatory system is so important. Moreover, the regulatory system, and the bodies which oversee it, must have both the capability, and the will, to thoroughly assess risks and benefits, and to balance them appropriately. This requires that the process extends beyond a purely scientific base, and involves ethicists, sociologists, political scientists and economists in decision making.
The lay panel recommended that an independent, academic peer review system be established for GMO research. Peer review processes already exist in the publishing of results from this research, and in the approval of planned release proposals by GMAC. However, articles in molecular biology journals are reviewed by experts in the field. Similarly, the majority of members of GMAC are molecular biologists. Obviously, in order to assess the technology, a background in it is desirable, but it does narrow the perspective which is brought to bear in this assessment. Broader issues, including environmental, economic and social concerns, may not be given due consideration. Perhaps a two-tier system could be introduced, in which approvals by the current scientific committees must then pass through another senate-like panel, which includes environmental scientists, ecologists, ethicists, political scientists, economists and consumer representatives.
The foremost concern of the lay panel, and arguably of the public generally, is the issue of information provided about GT. Considering issues of health and safety, and environmental risk, members of the public are demanding enough information to make their own judgements and informed choices. The lay panel recommended the establishment of a Gene Technology Information Office which would provide information from various perspectives. There is clearly a need for analysts who take the middle ground on GT to provide this information. In the current climate, the public are unlikely to be satisfied with information provided by those who have interests in the commercial success of the technology.
There has also been a very loud cry for full labelling of GM foods. The initial concerns of the lay panel in relation to labelling were about the safety of the food, notably to human health. Geoffrey Annison, of the Food and Grocery Council, pointed out that "substantially equivalent" GM foods were not detectably different from non-GM foods and often contained no new DNA or proteins, such as in the case of processed products like sugar and oil. He and other expert speakers considered them completely safe. The lay panel, not entirely convinced by these arguments, went on to point out that the public was not only concerned about the composition of food, and related health effects, but also had an interest in the process of food production. While Annison considered it unprecedented to label foods with other than composition or public health information, others pointed to examples such as organic food and products made in Australia in which informed choice was based on process. The panel called for a comprehensive labelling system, including information about the reasons for genetic modification. Acknowledging some of the difficulties, they recognised that "more discussion involving all sectors will have to take place". They did, however, "reject the use of the term substantial equivalence in relation to GMO foods".
The lay panel recognised the importance of non-GMO alternatives and that a substantial market for non-GM foods exists globally. They recommended that non-GMO options be assessed in relation to political, cultural, financial & environmental impacts on the industry, producers, and on Australia’s international trade.
A major alternative discussed at the conference was Organic farming. According to Scott Kinnear, of the Organics Federation of Australia, organic produce represents 2% of production and consumption in the US, and 10% in Austria and is expanding by 20-30% each year. The objections of the Organics movement to GT are partly based on the grounds that it breaks with natural processes of reproduction and that GMOs may cause hazardous imbalances in the complex environments of organic polyculture, as well as other environmental problems like pest resistance. Scientists involved in GT research, such as Rick Roush, do not consider GT incompatible with organic farming. He considers the GT options currently available, like GT in cotton, and others which show potential for the future, as infinitely more desirable and less environmentally damaging than the current use of toxic pesticides. He emphasised that GT was only applicable to certain crops and certain problems, and would ideally operate together with other approaches, including organic methods. He would be hard pressed to get the organics movement to agree on that, however. It is the politics of GT, and its links with agribusiness, which has spurred the vocal opposition of the Organics movement.
Suspicions about the agenda of the Biotechnology industry were voiced most strongly by Bob Phelps. He suggested that GT was dreamed up in the 1930’s by the Rockefeller Foundation, whose wealth was founded on the petrochemicals industry. Several large companies, including Monsanto and AgrEvo, have come to dominate the industry. Phelps believes it is no coincidence that, among all the promised applications of GT in agriculture, over half of the commercialised products from GT are plants resistant to the herbicides sold by the same company that developed or acquired the technology. Concerns about this domination by large companies were manifest in the lay panel’s recommendation that the Australian Consumer and Competitive Commission (ACCC) take a pro-active role in investigating and preventing multi-national monopolies in the food industry.
Public opposition to GT, especially in Europe, has put a spanner in the works of the commercialisation of GMOs. Monsanto are currently involved in a PR nightmare, having underestimated the demand of the European people for information about GT products. The soothing platitudes appearing on the company’s web site and promotional material back-fired as suspicion about the company and its technologies rose. This climate of public concern may create imperatives for GT companies to prioritise public health and safety and provide comprehensive information about products, allowing the informed choice of consumers. In addition, public concern has overflowed into concerns about the environment, ethics, and the social impacts of new technology.
Those involved in the development of GT are upset that this technology is coming into the spotlight in a way that previous technologies they see as less benign (notably chemical-based agriculture) never did. Yet, this is clearly a function of the history of developments in food production. GT may simply have arrived at a bad time, when public tolerance for technological packages that are "good for them, their families and the environment", but which are handed to them by the same interests which brought them previous environmental and social problems, is at an all-time low.
Minister Mark Vaille, in his opening speech, referred to the important benefit of gene technologies in providing food for hungry people. This theme was repeated throughout the conference, notably by industry and farming representatives. Rod, a lay panel member, wondered whether food companies, once they’d increased productivity using GT, were going to give the food to hungry people. This represented a fundamental difficulty with the use of the "feeding the world" argument in justifying GT research and development. A thorough investigation of this argument requires consideration of food distribution, economic relations betweens nations and individuals in relation to development and use of GT, and the political economics of the GT industry. Such an assessment is beyond the scope of this article. However, the persistent rhetoric that technological advances in Australian agricultural will necessarily feed the world, and particularly, that this is one of the aims and justifications of this work, must be questioned. This rhetoric is particularly inappropriate when used to influence public opinion about gene technologies. As the Ethiopian representative to the international Biosafety protocol indicated (quoted by Mara Bún): "There are still hungry people in Ethiopia, but they are hungry because they have no money, no longer because there is no food to buy...We strongly resent the abuse of our poverty to sway the interest of the European public"
The Consensus Conference has highlighted a need for more experts to move away from their positions of either whole-hearted support or outright opposition to GT and to begin to assess the merits of these technologies on a case-by-case basis, and not only from the point of view of safety. It is unfortunate, as was acknowledged by lay panel members in the ABC forum which followed the conference, that members of GMAC and ANZFA were not officially invited to answer criticisms against them. This was apparently a result of mistrust the lay panel held for government bodies. These bodies, particularly ANZFA, which came under heavy criticism, must clearly lift their game, both in their process and transparency. Whether their bias is real or perceived, the community can not have confidence in a regulatory process if it does not trust the regulatory bodies responsible.
The lay panel has called for a follow-up to the Consensus Conference one year on, to look at what has resulted from the recommendations they have made. As well as involving Conference participants, they suggest that public participation experts could attend and comment on ways to improve the process. If this conference has opened the way for public participation, and if this is supported by public concern in the issue, it may provide the impetus for genuinely consultative processes, which may contribute to the shaping not only of GT regulation, but also GT research. We may then achieve outcomes and products which are not only safe, but also beneficial and desirable, to the whole community.
More information is available from the Australian museum, or on the ABC science web-site: http://www.abc.net.au/science/slab/consconf/
No new commercial releases or unlabelled importation of genetically modified (GM) foods, both whole or processed, be allowed in Australia unless and until the following are established:
Wendy Russell is a lecturer in Biological Sciences at the University of Wollongong, and is a member of the BELSA (Biotechnology - ethical, legal and social aspects) research group.