Nexus - 1103 - New Times Magazine-pages

Page Content (OCR)

REVIEWS @ BIOTECH TIME-BOMB for all of us, including the scientists and the by Scott Eastham corporations/organisations that fund their RSVP Publishing, Auckland, NZ, 2003 work, to realise that life is a precious gift; ISBN 0-9582182-2-6 (128pp tpb) that it is complex and thus unpredictable Availability: RSVP Publishing, website when tampered with and released at large. http://www.rsvp-publishing.co.nz; Banyan We all need to wake up before we destroy Tree, South Australia, tel (08) 8363 4244 ourselves, our environment and our future. hile the products of genetic engineer- ing are being foisted upon much of the RECODING NATURE world's populace, this gem of a book argues edited by Richard Hindmarsh and for a pause so we can reassess our values— Geoffrey Lawrence whatever our economic rationalist culture UNSW Press, Sydney, Australia, 2004 has left of them. It's also a call for real dia- ISBN 0-86840-741-0 (246pp tpb) logue between proponents and critics of Availability: UNIREPS, tel +61 (0)2 9664 gene science, in the hope that both sides, 0912, http://www.unireps.com.au together, will see the bigger picture. T™ huge ethical, social and environmen- Written by Scott Eastham, Senior Lecturer tal issues associated with the biotechnol- in the School of English and Media Studies ogy revolution of recent decades are loom- at Massey University, New Zealand, Biotech ing larger with the "progress" of science, yet Time-bomb has particular significance not the public has had little input into the Just for the world but for his native country, debate. Perhaps it's because people regard whose government decided in October 2003 the subject as too hard to grasp. However, it not to renew a GE crop moratorium. Now would be a grave mistake to leave all these NZ agritech corporations are inserting decisions to the scientists, corporate tech- nocrats, bureaucrats and politicians. For the Scot basil sake of preserving our future, it's up to all of Bi OTECH us to become better informed. This compilation, Recoding Nature, is a Ti ME-BO M B great source of information from a variety of contributors from Australian and New Zealand, who give perspectives on the scien- tific, health and environmental questions arising from biotechnology—whether from growing and consuming genetically engi- neered foods, developing and using GE designer drugs, applying gene therapy tech- niques in medical treatments, or creating cloned animals and even humans. The book is edited by Queensland academics and GE critics Richard Hindmarsh and Geoffrey Lawrence. The foreword is by UK geneti- cist Dr Mae-Wan Ho, who, through the Institute of Science in Society, is leading an international group of scientists who are issuing strong warnings on the risks of going down the GE path. One of the approaches reflected in the compilation is the growing trend towards organic farming and con- sumption, as seen in the pieces from Hugh Campbell of Otago University, NZ, and Scott Kinnear, organic farmer, activist and spokesperson for the Biological Farmers of Australia. By definition, organic growing must not be contaminated by GE. Another issue highlighted in the book is "biocolonisation", where the genetics of indigenous peoples and plants are subject to commodification without reward for the owners of those genes. People all around the world are having to become activists to protect their genetic heritage from pillage by biotechnology corporations. The compilation gives solid information on these controversial issues of our times. human genes into cows, supposedly to cre- ate better milk for human consumption! How we got to this level of madness is part of Eastham's erudite argument, and it touch- es on the history of speech, literacy (includ- ing the Western phonetic alphabet vs Chinese bigger-picture ideograms), printing, code-writing, automation and the digital rev- olution. These are relevant to the discussion because each involves a control paradigm. In the case of biotechnology, the DNA code is but a fragment of the whole: decoding the uman genome can barely lay out the map, let alone describe the territory. So how can biotech scientists hope to con- trol their creations once they're out of the jab, when they cannot foresee the effects over time? How will they be able to deal with irreversible effects on the environment and on human and animal health from the biotech revolution? They can't. So how can we tame their arrogant thinking? Essential to dealing with this, Eastham proposes, is for all of us, including the scientists and the corporations/organisations that fund their work, to realise that life is a precious gift; that it is complex and thus unpredictable when tampered with and released at large. We all need to wake up before we destroy ourselves, our environment and our future. RECODING NATURE edited by Richard Hindmarsh and Geoffrey Lawrence UNSW Press, Sydney, Australia, 2004 ISBN 0-86840-741-0 (246pp tpb) Availability: UNIREPS, tel +61 (0)2 9664 0912, http:/www.unireps.com.au Te huge ethical, social and environmen- tal issues associated with the biotechnol- ogy revolution of recent decades are loom- ing larger with the "progress" of science, yet the public has had little input into the debate. Perhaps it's because people regard the subject as too hard to grasp. However, it would be a grave mistake to leave all these decisions to the scientists, corporate tech- nocrats, bureaucrats and politicians. For the sake of preserving our future, it's up to all of us to become better informed. This compilation, Recoding Nature, is a great source of information from a variety of contributors from Australian and New Zealand, who give perspectives on the scien- tific, health and environmental questions arising from biotechnology—whether from growing and consuming genetically engi- neered foods, developing and using GE designer drugs, applying gene therapy tech- niques in medical treatments, or creating cloned animals and even humans. The book is edited by Queensland academics and GE critics Richard Hindmarsh and Geoffrey Lawrence. The foreword is by UK geneti- cist Dr Mae-Wan Ho, who, through the Institute of Science in Society, is leading an international group of scientists who are issuing strong warnings on the risks of going down the GE path. One of the approaches reflected in the compilation is the growing trend towards organic farming and con- sumption, as seen in the pieces from Hugh Campbell of Otago University, NZ, and Scott Kinnear, organic farmer, activist and spokesperson for the Biological Farmers of Australia. By definition, organic growing must not be contaminated by GE. Another issue highlighted in the book is "biocolonisation", where the genetics of indigenous peoples and plants are subject to commodification without reward for the owners of those genes. People all around the world are having to become activists to protect their genetic heritage from pillage by biotechnology corporations. The compilation gives solid information on these controversial issues of our times. 70 = NEXUS APRIL — MAY 2004 www.nexusmagazi ne.com