Biotechnology Unzipped: Promises and Realities (1997)
Joseph Henry Press (JHP)
The views expressed in this book are solely those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Academies.
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add to the confusion. They come already littered with philosophical and ideological debris, which combatants pick up as ready-made shields or weapons. Holistic medicine, industrial agriculture, vegetarianism, free-market economy, corporate control, and consumer lifestyles all become part of the arsenal, and the resulting melee quickly obscures the particular details of biotechnology and its tools.

Once we get down to specifics, the path may be straighter but the going may be no less rough. For example, is it a good thing or a bad thing to add genes for growth hormones to salmon? Let's see:

  1. Engineered salmon grow bigger faster on less food, which is a good thing economically.
  2. They contain no new hormones (only more of the fish's own hormone), so there is no reason to anticipate health risks to consumers.
  3. But the fast-growing fish might be more prone to disease.
  4. And if they escape from fish farms into rivers and lakes, they might harm wild stocks by competing for food or spreading diseases.

Of the four points made (and more might be added), two are positive and two negative. But the degree of certainty of each statement declines as you read down the list. This example is fairly typical. We can often be more sure about the economic outcomes of biotechnology than we can about health or environmental outcomes. And that, to many people, is a big problem.

Uncertainty is a stock-in-trade of the prediction business. The inherent complexity of the interactions that produce healthy people and a healthy environment


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