Jason

TechNyou

TechNyou

Running parallel to the discussion happening inside the Science Exchange last week was a Twitter blow-by-blow account and series of alternative discussions taking different tangents to those in the physical space.  Apart from TechNyou there were nine in the Twitter discussion – Full discussion found here

Some of the key points raised and being tossed around in the Tweet-a-sphere were the following:

1. Is GM all that different to traditional plant breeding? as traditional breeding still involved gene manipulation its just not technical.

2. GM is proposed as a way to help feed developing nations, but how do they access the crops or the produce, is it better for it the grown in situ or distributed?

3. Does the aim of GM make a difference as to whether its acceptable? for example the audience appeared to be far more accepting of the idea of drough tolerant wheat a opposed to rice enriched with vitamin A. which leads onto the question is this a wealthy western issue, we can afford to be disciminatory but many people can’t.

4. Why does GM present such a problem when people quite happily eat artificial products, like sweetners and flavouring. Why are GM product such a concern when artificial products aren’t?

5. What concerns people more, GM meat or GM plants?

6. The importance of labelling, who is responsible, how much disclosure is required.

Online forum happening now

Some of these discussion points will appear on the event online forum happening now

TechNyou

Would you eat meat grown in a Petri dish? Growing meat in large vats of culture is just one solution proposed in a series of 21 papers published by the Royal Society investigating the issue of food security – all rather timely considering our public forum last week on just this issue, though we focused on what, if any, role the transgenic technologies might play in helping solve this problem.

The summary

An overview of the papers was published in the Guardian

The detail

The papers are published in the open access journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society.  The papers cover the agronomic, social and scientific perspectives and add some context to our limited forum on the topic.

Only a bit of yuk factor

And if you are wondering if people really would eat lab-grown meat – check the posts to this very question when some Dutch researchers claimed they had gone someway to making this a reality.

Personally, the primal instinct of wanting to knaw on a bone at a BBQ – fingers were made before forks – is going to be hard to simulate.  And can they do steak medium-rare?  And can anyone tell me how to spell knaw? I  can’t find it in the dictionary

The views of Monsanto are unsurprising. What intrigued me, to some extent, was how distinct the polarisation of views was, which is in contrast to previous public engagement activities I have run on this topic.

Science very Alive

Me and a colleague from the Australian Centre for Plant Functional Genomics at the University of Adelaide have just spent three days at Science Alive, one of Adelaide’s biggest science-based events for the public. At the end of it my feet were sore and my voice was wilting faster than the potted wheat plants we had on display.

It was a showcase of science and science-based activities.  It was aimed squarely at the kids, but there was no shortage of adults elbowing their children out of the way to also have a play.

Food for thought

We had our booth – Food for thought – in the fray.  Our main focus was to engage with people about transgenic technologies and how they can be used in crop development. Specifically, we wanted to find out how acceptable they found the use of GM (transgenic) technologies is to generate three different crops: Rice that could make Vitamin A or Iron; drought-tolerant wheat; and wheat that required less nitrogen fertilizer.  Punters got to vote on a scale of 0 to 5, with 0 being a really bad idea and 5 being a splendid idea.  They did this by putting sticky dots along scale next to each crop – giving a visual presentation of trends.

Each of these crops, with the exception of Vitamin A rice, is part of active research projects in the University of Adelaide and the University of Melbourne.

The vote

In effectively every workshop I have run on this topic, the majority of people tend to change their acceptability of a GM crop according the trait or use the crop has been designed for. It was common for people to move from a zero to a five or visa versa, depending on the crop.

At this event there was a distinct, tightly grouped set of dots jammed against the zero rating and a relatively dot-free space until you got to 3 on the scale.  From three to five the dots got progressively thicker.

Those who voted zero voted zero for all three crops. It was rare to find someone that voted a zero for one crop and anything higher for the others.  At the other end, this was less evident, but there were still more people than I expected that voted close to five for everything.

Why?

The reasons for the zero ratings were nearly all based on the perception (real or otherwise) that GM crops were unnatural; a complete distrust of Monsanto, though for some people you could accurately insert “hate” here. Mingled with this was a dislike of their monopolisation of  our food  (no other big company was mentioned); and GM crops/foods are dangerous or we have no idea about the long-term effect to human health.

The group hovering around the three mark were largely there because they felt they needed more information.

At four and above people seemed to find the risks acceptable and simply said the applications were needed and that they were potentially of great value to society – or at least specific sections of it.  Some people did express concerns, but thought in the cases we presented that the risks were acceptable.

It seemed, if you voted 0 you were dead against the technology, no matter where or how it was used.  For everyone else the technology was less of a concern and it was the applications that were being judged.  The one thing in common among nearly all voters was a complete distrust of Monsanto. And I am placing a large bet that Syngenta, BASF and the other large ag-biotech companies involved in GM research are happy that Monsanto is taking all the heat, leaving them relatively anonymous.

And the winner is….

It was not a competition, but in the spirit of the political election we are being traumatised with, it was a close race. Those voting 4-5 were only marginally greater in number than those in 0-1.

The caveats

Although all adults we spoke to, with the exception of one, said they were aware of GM foods and many of the associated arguments flying around, we were unable to assess how informed they were, nor did we try. Having said that there were many that were reluctant to vote because they felt they didn’t know enough.  So, for a significant proportion of the voters it was an intuitive vote rather than an informed vote. The other caveat is that in the 3-4 minutes we had to engage with people, we were aware that our intro involving a quick explanation to clarify how a GM crop is created and the purpose of the three GM crop examples, it was potentially sounding like positive PR spin.  We had to be careful to point out there were risks with this technology and that people were worried about it for a reason.  We asked them if that wanted anything clarified before they voted and in some cases this led to lengthy discussions before any votes were made. But ultimately this is a quantitative exercise gathering people’s perceptions and all adults except one said they were, to varying extents, aware of the arguments surrounding GM crops. So we made the judgement that our intro would have had minimal influence on people’s vote.

Are teenagers less risk averse when it comes to technology?

As a contrast, the Friday was students’ day – mostly year 10 and 11.  A large majority of the votes for this age group were grouped around the 4-5 end of the scale, for all three crops. Unlike their older counterparts, however, a large proportion (probably close to half) of students said they had not heard of GM foods.  Of those that had, they knew almost nothing about them or the associated issues.

Full analysis to come

This is only an anecdotal appraisal of the voting and discussions we had with people.  I will give you a more accurate picture down the track once we get a chance to do a more thorough analysis.

Jason

TechNyou

TechNyou is running a National Science Week public forum on 18 August in Adelaide to probe one aspect of this problem, namely the potential role GM (transgenic) technologies can play.  So with exemplary timing Nature has just put published a series of features, editorials and opinions on how to feed a hungry world.

In a nutshell

Technically, it will be a cinch to feed an extra 3 billion people. The question is what costs are we prepared to incur to achieve it?

It is made clear that there are solutions requiring technology and other more elemental ones such as improved agronomic practices and the development of the ecosystems to support them, that will be required to feed all these people. And a number of views suggest the cost needn’t be all that great.  Of course, there is the cynical view that politics, big business, corruption….and so on will continue on the same and circumvent any good intentions to find ways of feeding 9 billion people. My cynicism wavers.

The science being done

The articles cover research underway worldwide to find ways of growing more food in the same space.

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development says we could double the existing crop land — mostly from Latin America and Africa — without stuffing the environment or impinging on our urban lifestyles. But the consensus seems to be on intensification of existing land, but in a sustainable way, though, I find the definition of sustainable a slippery beast.  It is a bit like religion, there are many interpretations of the same word, and people can usually find a way to make it work in their favour. See Food: a growing problem

On the topic of the multi-nationals, the article by Natasha Gilbert, “Inside the hothouses of industry”, provides an insight into the public good research these guys are doing in the form of a public-private partnership, which seems to becoming popular these days. Much of this research is focussing on the African nations. But this is still a tiny proportion of the multi-national research budget. And the lack of research progress in areas that would help developing nations is being held back, in part, by the stranglehold the private sector has on intellectual-property rights to crucial technology.  The cost to access this technology places it out of reach of many public research institutions.

In these articles and elsewhere, the regulatory system is also blamed for delays and the high costs of developing a transgenic crop.

Aussie research

A plant’s root system is apparently neglected with regard to our understanding of its role in plant physiology.  The article by Virginia Gewin, An underground revolution,

investigates some Australian research to rectify this, which will hopefully lead to higher yielding crops.

CSIRO have been studying the roots of wheat plant and found they come in all sorts of sizes: deep, wide and spready, or fine and tangly.  The CSIRO team are now field testing 400 new wheat lines in India and Australia that have fast-growing and deep roots they hope will make them more tolerant of drought.

The Australian Centre for Plant Functional Genomics at the University of Adelaide has teamed up with Arcadia Biosciences – another of these public-private partnerships – to commercialise a method that tricks roots into taking up nitrogen from the soil more efficiently.  ACPFG have more on this on their web site

The solution

There is lots of optimism that feeding 9 billion will be done.  The debate happening is how to achieve it.  Probably the one consensus is that industrialised agriculture can’t continue as it has and although there is a lot of mention about intensified sustainability I don’t think anyone really knows yet what that means.

Would you like some gene tech with that?

For anyone going to be in Adelaide on 18 August, a lot of this will be discussed in more detail at the forum – Would you like some gene tech with that?  The event’s web site has full details and how to register.  It is a free event and all are welcome, but registration is essential as numbers are limited

see www.genetechmenu.com

Jason

TechNyou

What is the appropriate thing to do here? We have the technology to do this and create a child, so why not? The ethical consensus at the time was to deny the father his wish, mostly, it seems, because of the lack of consent from the dead spouse.  This implies that if there had been agreement between the husband and wife before her death to allow egg collection the medical team may have granted his wish.

Yuk factor

I tend to agree with the medical team in this instance, first because there was that lack of consent, but also because of that creeping yuk factor that I have mentioned in previous posts.  This is the factor that means intuitively I think it is wrong, but I can’t explain why. I have this position, of course, without having any first hand experience of what the husband above is going through.

There has been some interesting commentary on this case, but the problem I see is that courts have allowed sperm from dead husbands to be collected for insemination. In fact children have been born from dead man’s sperm. Born from a dead man’s sperm, Bruce Springstein – ah, no more yuk factor emerging… In some, if not most cases, this has been without the dead husband’s consent.  So what is the difference between eggs and sperm?

See commentary

American Journal of Bioethics blog

An Aussie perspective

There was an Australian (QLD) case a few years ago which went against the woman seeking permission to retrieve a dead fiance’s sperm. The judge ruled there was no precedent for ruling in favour of the woman. In Queensland, it is a criminal offence to “interfere with the body of a dead person without lawful justification” and “lawful justification” requires consent prior to death for “specific use of body tissue”.

Merle Sprigg, an ethicist at the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute comments on this case and ultimately argues that from an ethical perspective there should be no cause to refuse a woman the right to retrieve a dead partner’s sperm. She suggested the legal position in this case was based on strict and predictable precedents and rooted in outdated values and ethical standards.

Other related articles here

This case is the exception for the male gametes as there are plenty of cases where the woman has successfully got hold of their partner’s sperm.  All of this makes my yuk factor reasoning, and especially from lack of consent reasoning, seem a bit lame, as by all reasonable pondering if all parties (apart from the dead one) are happy and nobody is harmed, society itself is not diminished in any way, then why my inability to capitulate in favour of the living?  I am prepared to drop my lack of consent argument, but the the yuk factor lingers. Why, I can’t answer that. It is how it is.

I do however like John Harris’ rationale about why a dead man’s sperm should have fewer ethical complications. This is from the Merle Spriggs article linked above:

John Harris describes concern for the destiny of male gametes as an ‘‘overly precious attitude’’ not ‘‘reflected in custom or practice’’ given that ‘‘men are notorious for leaving their gametes behind in all sorts of places, some of which may well result in the creation of life’’. And, they ‘‘almost always’’ do this without ‘‘counselling, formal consent, and time for reflection, and usually without missing them…’’.

Men, whoda thought.

I guess it is harder for women to leave their gametes behind, consciously or otherwise. So on Harris’ rationale maybe eggs should receive greater ethical/legal scrutiny?

More info

The case for the request for the dead woman’s eggs was reported in the New England Journal Medicine, 15 July 2010, Vol 363 (3)

News article from Fierce Healthcare

More ethics in the Journal of Medical Ethics

Jason

TechNyou

I was recently involved in running workshops for a small number of Australia’s women farmers (with one or two blokes on occasion) on biotechnology in agriculture. Workshop participants did some kitchen chemistry and explored the technologies used to develop novel crops, with specific focus on the GM (transgenic) technologies.

Each participant completed a pre- and post-workshop evaluation that rated the quality of the actual workshop and also delved into participants’ thoughts about the acceptability or otherwise of GM crops in Australia’s agricultural systems. We made the latter part of the survey available online for those unable to come to the workshops.  The difference in survey results between the workshop participants and those that did the survey online is striking; striking enough to question whether the results are reflective of real farmer attitudes toward GM technologies.

It definitely has nothing to do with the content of the workshop as this part of the survey was completed before the workshop started. As alluded to already, I suspect a strong passion toward a topic drives one to act.  Less passion; less action. See below for a deeper analysis of the data.

A summary of the workshops and evaluation can be found in the latest Molecular Plant Breeding CRC newsletter. The complete workshop report was sent to all key groups that participated in the workshops, but TechNyou has a copy it can send to anyone who wants it.

Conflicting results

Overview

Women attending the workshops were given the survey to complete, at the beginning of the session. No information on biotechnology was given prior to the surveys being collected to avoid bias. This means that both the online respondents and workshop attendees had the same amount and type of information available to them prior to completing the survey.

A total of 134 women farmers completed the survey. Of these, 59 completed the survey online, and 75 participated in workshops.  Of course, we have no way of telling if the people who did the online survey were women, but we’ll assume they were.

Online surveys

There are stark differences between the results of the workshop participants and the online respondents. The following extracts from the report will give you the general idea:

55% of online respondents rated themselves as having high or very high understanding of GM technologies. 69% associated a high or very high level of risk with their use and this was closely linked with 70% of respondents indicating the level of benefit they associated with use to be very low or low.

In contrast, only 21% of workshop attendees self-rated their understanding of GM technologies as high, with the 41% majority indicating they would rate their understanding as very low or low.  49% of workshop respondents indicated they associated a very low or low level of risk with use, and 68% rated the level of benefit associated with use as high or very high.

Respondents were asked to rate whether they agreed with a series of statements about GM technology. 52% of online responses indicated they strongly agreed with the statement “Plants and animals should only be changed through traditional breeding methods, not GM”, compared with only 9% of workshop attendees.

This ties with the over 60% of online respondents who indicated that they strongly disagreed with the statement “we should accept some risk from GM technologies if it enhances Australia’s economic competitiveness”, compared with 15% of workshop attendees.

Why is there such vast discrepancies between the two groups and what conclusions can we draw, if any, about farmer attitudes toward transgenic technologies?

One more table of figures made me go back to the raw data and dig a bit deeper. The table below show big differences in the primary crops grown by the online participants and the workshoppers, namely fruit/vegetables, pasture, wheat and barley.

Who are the onliners

Specifically, I wanted to know who were the farmers growing fruit/vegetables and pasture.

This following information is from the sample of 32 farmers that completed the survey online in the final two weeks before the survey closed. So it ain’t the full picture, but the report’s author said it is a fairly complete list regards the farmers who listed fruit/vege or pasture as their primary crop.

Of these 32 farmers, 27 rated the risk associated with the use of GM technologies as high or very high (nearly all rated it as very high).  As expected the same group said the benefits associated with GM technologies were very low; that plants and animals should only be changed through traditional breeding techniques; and they strongly disagreed with the notion that we should accept some risk with GM technologies.  Twenty-four of these 27 farmers grew fruits/vegetables or had pasture as a primary crop linked to cattle, dairy or sheep. Of these, 14 identified their information sources about GM technologies coming from anti-GM groups (MADGE, Network for Concerned Farmers, Genethics), or from organic/biological farming organisations or groups (Biodynamic Research Institute, Biological Farmers Association, and groups linked to organic dairy farmers and organic/biodynamic food and farming groups). The Soil Food Web Institute was also mentioned, though this isn’t an anti-GM group but its research is important for the biological farming industry.

In contrast, of the five farmers that thought the opposite to the above 27, three were strictly cereal farmers (wheat, barley, canola, lupins), one had a cherry orchard, the other was a beef cattle farmer.

The 27 definitively opposed to anything associated with GM technologies had common themes in their reasons for this stance that included many references to the destruction of the organics industry; a lack of independent testing/research; that GM technologies were unnatural; unknown long-term health risks; lying/cheating/greedy big industry running the show…and so on.

A piece of their mind

If nothing else this group was passionate. Some of their comments below to the following questions say it best, though all 27 gave comments with similar sentiments:

• Do you think GM technology could benefit your industry? In what ways?
• What do you see as potential barriers to your use of GM technologies? How do you think these issues could be addressed?
• What suggestions do you have for the future direction of GM technology research in Australia?

I haven’t bothered to correct grammar/spelling, but I am sure you get the picture.

“By being honest and reveal that the tests show otherwise. corrupt scientists especially now after this climatgate scientists are a joke now.”

“They are artificial and designed to make money, not to improve essential quality.”

“I see GM as a dangerous and insidious infiltration of conventional and traditional seed varieties only for the benefits of chemical companies”

“IT IS AGAINST OUR NATURAL HEALTH”

“No truth, no independent testing, what company sells a product knowing it is lying to the consumer”

“No. It will destroy existing farming(conventional and organic) businesses by the lack of regulation to protect our right to farm without having to pay some multicorporation their licensing fees for seed that they have no right to claim as theirs. Also they are damaging the world with their round up ready chemicals that are dangerous to us and to all flora and fauna. Monopolies create these problems. Diversity has been eroded.”

“Matter of principle using something unnatural and dangerous”

“Take your product back to where it came from. We don’t need it here.”

“Stop wasting government money on multinational shareholders who are the only ones benefitting from this rubbish.”

The other five farmers were somewhat reserved by comparison. Certainly, any passion was hard to detect in their judgment of GM technologies. Generally they suggested GM technologies have a place in agriculture depending on how it is used.  Drought, frost and salinity tolerance were high on their list of traits they thought acceptable for GM technologies to help solve.

My conclusions

I doubt if the online survey results are representative of the general farming community, if for no other reason that it is out of sync with pretty much every other similar survey of farmer attitudes to this technology. The caveat, of course, is that this is a small survey and hardly random, so regardless of the results they need to be treated with caution.

From the above data, however, it appears that a passionate few closely linked to the organics or biological farming community or simply totally opposed to the technology have found out about the survey and rushed to tell a few like-minded friends about it and consequently skewed the data. There is nothing wrong with this, nor is there anything wrong with the views this group express.  But, assuming my assumptions are remotely correct, it makes it difficult to draw any meaningful conclusions from the data. What it might indicate is that organic farmers or those opposed to GM technologies are driven, passionate and consequently act on those passions. In contrast those not completely opposed or cautious about GM technologies (which in most surveys are the majority) are, for whatever reasons, less inclined to act or fuss or get on their soapbox and voice opposition – or fill out online surveys.

Workshop rationale

Women farmers are strong decision-makers on the farm, yet when it comes to workshops and committees, they are under-represented. Recognising this, the Molecular Plant Breeding Cooperative Research Centre (MPBCRC) earlier this year held a series of workshops focused on recognising the role of women farmers in decision making. TechNyou tagged along to help by facilitating an interactive exercise exploring the ethics of GM technologies.

The workshops were part of a grant from the Australian Government Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry through its Farming Future initiative. The workshops were free for participants. Part of the funding involved undertaking a survey of women farmers on their attitudes towards biotechnology and their perceived barriers to the uptake of such technologies.

The workshops were overall poorly attended and there are probably many reasons for this, but we have since had a few requests from farmer groups to run similar workshops specifically for them.

All survey participants indicated that they would like more information and education about the technologies.  In particular, there was a high interest in drought tolerant varieties and potential solutions to this problem.

Women who attended the workshops were positive about the use of workshops such as these to increase involvement in decision making, with comments including the following:

• “More of this sort of independent information sessions and open forums”
• “Offer sessions like these.

So stay tuned

Jason

TechNyou

These are your bog standard skin cell or any other adult cell that scientists have learnt to reprogram to have similar abilities to embryonic stem cells.  That is, they have the ability to become pluripotent, or turn into any cell in the human body.

Yes there are issues with the fact iPSCs are genetically engineered to enable the reprogramming, and yes it appears likely there other issues surrounding their real ability and safety, but these are technical issues rather than ethical issues such as those that surround the use of embryonic stem cells.

The ethics

Sitting in on a workshop at the recent Australian Science Teacher conference I was listening to Dr Andrew Laslett from CSIRO when almost anecdotally he mentioned that another issue with iPSC is one of privacy.

For example, one day the possibility might exist for me to grab a few cells from a person, let’s say Angelina Jolie, (Dr Laslett used Brad Pitt as an example, but insert appropriate hero/villian here), re-program them into pluripotent cells and then direct them to become sperm or egg cells and use them for nefarious purposes.

It is total speculation that our knowledge will enable us to do this … or is it.  See this story from Science Daily

Yuk factor

But just because we can or might be able to apply such knowledge this way it is a long way from reality if nothing else because of the technical issues mentioned above, but possibly a bigger hurdle will be the yuk factor.  By that I mean society’s intuitive repulsion to something even though they may be unable to explain why that repulsion exists.  This is why we invented psychology, philosophy and ethics so we could create employment for those that like to analyse, rationalise and define such repulsion, among other important things.

My gut feeling is the yuk factor in this situation won’t be as dramatic as human reproductive cloning, but it will have an affect on the research, its applications and regulation.

Stem cells for teachers

By the way, the workshop I was in was run by the Australian Stem Cell Centre who were promoting and getting some feedback on a splendid new teacher resource on stem cells.  I will give a proper appraisal of this resource down the track, but the resource will be launched during National Science Week next month, so teachers stay tuned.

Jason

TechNyou

Previous TechNyou blogs at:

http://tinyurl.com/29398zb

http://tinyurl.com/2def9ta

Avoiding the challenge

As his intro paragraph asks, “What do people do when confronted with scientific evidence that challenges their pre-existing view? Often they will try to ignore it, intimidate it, buy it off, sue it for libel, or reason it away.”

The research Goldacre was talking about suggested that these natural biases also influenced a person’s trust or perception of science as a whole. The following is from his post: “People whose pre-existing stereotypes about homosexuality had been challenged by the scientific evidence presented to them were more inclined to believe that science had nothing to offer, on any question, not just on homosexuality, when compared with people whose views on homosexuality had been reinforced.”

Is science broken?

This might help explain one of the challenges to my job. I am constantly trying to circumvent the ‘he says-she says’ debate that surround many of the controversial technologies – gm foods, nanoparticles, synthetic biology….a situation I have blamed to some extent on these natural biases.  If this evidence in Goldacre’s post stacks up I might also be contending with those that think science is pointless – or as Goldacres suggests, “That when presented with unwelcome scientific evidence, it seems, in a desperate bid to retain some consistency in their world view, people would rather conclude that science in general is broken.”

Such pre-determined views or natural bias on a topic makes constructive dialogue that much harder. It certainly makes it more difficult for the simply curious or those yet to form a view (the fence-sitters) to make an informed opinion when they hear only these passionate, polarized and unwavering opinions, and I have experienced a lot of this and I suspect I will continue to.

Bias is natural

Don’t get me wrong, to varying degrees such natural biases likely afflict us all and these views are an essential part of any dialogue when we as a society are trying to determine what the acceptable uses for this burgeoning scientific knowledge are. The problem arises when they dominate the discussion and blot out rational and informed debate.

Jason

TechNyou

It appears you have to subscribe to access all this, but it is free.

Jason

TechNyou