The ethical ambiguities surrounding genetic engineering were discussed at a genetic engineering forum held Wednesday at ISU.

Jay Marcus, third district congressional candidate for the Natural Law Party, moderated the forum. He opposes the marketing of genetically- engineered foods.

Two of the speakers, Dr. John Fagan, professor of molecular biology at Maharishi University of Management, and Dr. Gary Kaplan, an associate professor of clinical neurology at New York University School of Medicine and at Cornell University Medical College, argued against genetic engineering practices and policies that exist today.

Dr. Clark Ford, associate professor of genetics at ISU, and Dr. Gary Comstock, professor of religious studies at ISU, argued in favor of genetic engineering.

Opponent views

Fagan questioned the proposition that genetic engineering is just a natural extension of what is already done in traditional plant breeding.

“It uses methods that are quite artificial compared to the normal reproductive methods used in traditional breeding,” he said.

He said many of the risks of genetic engineering come because when things of such a diverse nature are integrated one can’t predict what the consequences will be.

The introduction of new genes into the organism can lead to increases in toxins and allergens produced by the organisms and can decrease the nutritional value of organisms used for food, he said.

“These are all unpredictable and uncontrollable results of genetic engineering,” Fagan said. “We are not saying that every genetically- engineered food is going to kill, we’re saying that because there is this uncontrolled characteristic to the process of genetic engineering, there is a risk that any given genetically-engineered food is going to contain allergens, toxins or be reduced in nutritional value.”

Horror stories?

Fagan said that in one case, a bacteria was engineered to produce the amino acid tryptophan, for mass production of the dietary supplement. As a result, the bacteria produced a small quantity of a very toxic substance, which scientists were not aware of when the product was marketed.

“Within two or three months, 37 people had been killed and another 1,500 were permanently disabled by this product,” Fagan said. “Here we see an example of how genetic manipulations do not give rise to reproducible, reliable results, but to unexpected side effects. If genetic engineers can’t predict the outcomes of these manipulations when applied to simple single-celled organisms, why should we trust them to alter virtually every plant and animal that produces the foods that we eat?”

Fagan said genetically-engineered foods will be available at grocery stores in a few years. Current regulations do not require that such genetically-engineered foods be labeled. Natural foods will sit alongside genetically-engineered foods and consumers may have no way to know the difference, he said.

Kaplan has seen patients who have suffered the ill effects of genetically-engineered tryptophan.

“The health lesson I think we can learn from this particular case is that whenever we change the genetic code of the organism in such a way, in order to produce an amino acid or protein, we should expect that this alteration will have other unexpected effects on what the organism produces,” he said.

He said genetic engineering of the food supply does not appear to serve a useful role in promoting the health of the consumer.

Proponent views

Ford, who has coordinated a number of bioethics symposia at ISU, said genetically-engineered foods offer great advantages to agriculture. An example is chymosin, a product used in cheese production.

Before genetic engineering, the enzyme was isolated from the lining of calf stomachs, but the gene has since been engineered into yeast, and can be mass produced.

Another area where genetic engineering has been beneficial is in insect resistance in crops, Ford said. A bacterial gene called the BT gene, produces a toxin which is only toxic to certain pest caterpillars, and is not toxic to beneficial insects or to animals or humans.

Research is being done to genetically engineer food crops for drought and freezing resistance.

“Our food supply is not necessarily all that great just because foods are natural,” Ford said .

He said genetic engineering is analogous to other types of engineering, and provides similar benefits.

“Humanity has benefited greatly from the engineering of roads, transportation, communication, agricultural production, housing, clean water, sewers and sanitation,” he said.

He said engineering and genetic engineering are artificial, performed by humans, but are not unnatural, because humans are part of nature.

“If there’s a great cosmic plan that has resulted in the natural order, then this plan also resulted in the natural human creative spirit that seeks to solve material problems,” Ford said.

Traditional reproductive plant breeding methods have been around for 10,000 years and that seems to be natural, he said.

As far as the dangers of eating genetically-engineered foods, Comstock gave the example of the birth control pill.

He pointed out that there are side effects from its use, but also advantages.

He questioned whether there were boundaries set up by nature that we, as humans, should not cross. Some religions proscribe that certain foods not be mixed in the same meal, such as milk with meat. Genetic engineering might create some moral paradoxes for strict religious proscriptions of this kind.

Comstock said if foods are to be labeled, they should not be labeled as genetically-engineered because that is too general. He said they should be labeled accurately such as: ‘This tomato contains a gene from a fish.’