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Visiting scientist urges precaution as end of GE moratorium looms
Published by the Communications and Development Department
10 October 2003
Professor Terje Traavik, a virologist and Scientific Director of the Norwegian Institute of Gene Ecology, will present a public lecture on Tuesday night urging New Zealand to take a precautionary approach towards genetic engineering. Professor Traavik is visiting New Zealand to further develop collaborative research and capacity-building programmes with the Canterbury University-based New Zealand Institute of Gene Ecology.
Having worked in the field of genetic engineering for over 20 years, he is convinced that more scientific studies are needed before the risks associated with the release of genetically engineered organisms into the environment can be understood.
The title of his talk, “Absence of evidence is not evidence of the absence of risk in genetic engineering,” reflects his view that genetic engineering should not proceed unchecked simply because scientific studies have not yet definitely proven that GE techniques and products are dangerous.
“Absence of evidence may be due to many different things. No studies may have been done, or studies that have been done may be interpreted in the wrong way or may be used to draw conclusions that aren’t justified. Nobody really asks about these things.”
The Precautionary Principle may be particularly important in the case of genetic engineering, Professor Traavik says, because once transgenic material is released into the environment, it is too late to prevent its spread. “Once you have released something that is self-replicating, you cannot recall it.”
He believes that moratoriums are a useful way to “put on hold” activities that are suspected to be dangerous until society as a whole can decide whether the risks are acceptable. “A moratorium under the Precautionary Principle is something that may last two years or 100 years, because it is not up to the experts, but up to society to decide when safe is safe enough.”
One reason that research on the risks of GE is scant is that few scientific institutions today are publicly-funded and independent of corporate interests, a gap that both the Norwegian Institute of Gene Ecology and New Zealand Institute of Gene Ecology, which is based at Canterbury University, hope to fill.
And not only are the Institutes unique among scientific institutions in being “absolutely independent”, they also have a unique – and ambitious – goal: to make science that is truly “wholistic” and multi-disciplinary. Both Institutes have staff from a wide range of disciplines, including molecular biology, ecology, bioethics, philosophy and the social sciences.
The New Zealand Institute of Gene Ecology was established in 2001, after Associate Professor Jack Heinemann, a lecturer in Biological Sciences at Canterbury University, visited the Norwegian Institute and was inspired to create a similar independent research organisation here in New Zealand.
The Norwegian and New Zealand Institutes operate according to the same principles and work closely together. Professor Traavik says, “It wouldn’t have been possible to reach the goals that we have without this collaboration. So far it’s been a win-win situation.”
The Institutes are collaborating both on research projects on genetic engineering and also on a capacity-building programme on GE safety. This programme is tailored to the needs of the Third World, but is also attracting interest from certain groups within First World countries.
Heinemann says, “We want governments of the Third World to have the same choices, because they know the spectrum of risks that they can ask about. But so-called First World countries also have real gaps in their own capacity to deal with these issues and they may be less willing to acknowledge that…We’ve gotten a good response from First World countries but only from certain groups, for example indigenous groups and certain socio-economic groups.”
For Traavik, the First World’s largely reckless approach to genetic engineering only highlights a more fundamental flaw in the way that Western science operates today. He says, “These countries are so over-developed that they have forgotten what science is all about. It’s funny to be in meetings where people are lifting their eyebrows disapprovingly when you talk about the science of ‘what if’, because all science should be ‘what if’. Science should be about using knowledge to attack the unknown.”
Professor Traavik will give a public lecture on Tuesday, 14 October
at 7:00pm in Lecture Theatre C1, down Arts Road, sign-posted from
Clyde Road. The title of his talk is Absence of Evidence is not evidence
of the absence of risk in genetic engineering.
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