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Mar. 26 2000
Ottawa Citizen
Genetics pioneer denounces 'hysterical' opposition
to research
According to this story, it has been nearly 50 years since James Watson
and
Francis Crick made what many scientists believe was the most important
discovery of the 20th century: the structure of DNA, the chemical from
which
genes are built.
But Dr. Watson, the brash American who wrote a controversial bestseller
The Double Helix about his Nobel Prize-winning discovery, is still at
the
forefront of his field.
Also undimmed, despite his 72 years, is his capacity to cause trouble.
Mills
says that last week, during a visit to London from his native Chicago,
Watson blasted Prince Charles for campaigning against genetically modified
foods. He
accused the prince of ``pandering to superstition'' and ``not liking
science'' because of his opposition to the new agricultural technology
and
his much-publicized push for organic farming.
In an interview to discuss his new book, A Passion for DNA; Genes, Genomes
and Society, Watson was cited as saying firmly that the only reason the
public is so hostile to genetics is because of ``ignorance. ... People
get
hysterical about work with genes. That's why they're being so silly about
GM
crops. You have to wait for something wrong to occur before you know how
dangerous something is going to be. You have to invent the
bicycle before someone can fall off it. You can't just ban the idea. ...
In
the past 25 years, nobody has died from any of the scaremongering scenarios
posited in the 1970s. There has been no ecological disaster because of
DNA
experiments; we haven't caused cancer by experimenting with pathogens.
The
same pressure groups campaigning against GM crops -- Friends of the Earth,
Greenpeace -- tried to stop us doing those experiments because of
`unquantifiable risks.' But enormous good came out of them.''
With respect to genetically engineered crops, Watson was quoted as saying,
``We have so many ecological disasters already. Our
countryside is filled with plants and animals that didn't exist there
indigenously. ... The way we all move around on jet planes, these
contaminations are bound to happen. But we don't forbid Caribbean holidays
because you might come back with a foreign plant that would destroy the
purity of the ecosystem in Chicago. ... I understand that people here
are
nervous because the government handled the (mad cow disease) crisis very
badly.''
The difference, he argues, is that there were quantifiable risks involved
in feeding sheep carcasses to cows (scrapie had existed in sheep for
hundreds of years). Whereas nobody even knows what the risks might be
for
GM foods.
Watson was further quoted as saying the experiments of Dr. Arpad Pusztai
``were bad experiments. Nobody would say that was a reason for stopping.
Make the scientists the guinea pigs for these foods. If they don't get
sick, it's probably okay. ... Seeds have always been bred to be
bug-resistant by natural selection, plants that didn't have these
compounds died out. Plants are naturally full of a variety of components
which kill insects; that's their protection against being eaten. In fact,
we
have been improving the yield from the plants we eat and breeding them
for
genetic improvement for centuries. Otherwise, we'd still be living like
we
did 10,000 years ago. ... You have to be able to judge the danger
before you introduce bans. You can't just say, `this is going to cause
harm to the environment' when you don't know if that is true. The danger
Prince Charles is talking about is like the danger of witches -- it's
irrelevant.''
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