Sir

In his review (Nature 409, 559–560; 2001) of Alan McHughen's book Pandora's Picnic Basket, Dick Taverne expresses surprise that the volume contains only “a cursory mention” of “the potential of transgenic crops to fight hunger and disease in the developing world”. There is an important and subtle issue therein.

McHughen is right to de-emphasize the potential advantages of gene-splicing, or genetic modification (GM), to agriculture. Whatever the benefits of GM, the likelihood of risk in the vast majority of experiments or commercial uses is so minimal that the issue of safety stands on its own. The temptation for proponents of biotechnology to emphasize benefits not only obscures the theoretical and empirical evidence of the extraordinary precision and predictability of GM and the safety of its products, but it creates a kind of logical trap. It enables opponents of GM to argue that if the ultimate benefits will be small — such as the advantages of a tomato with a longer shelf-life or a sweeter melon — we should not tolerate any risk at all of creating an invasive, weedy or toxic plant. Hence we should not permit field experiments, or should institute draconian case-by-case review of all proposals.

Although they have seldom been presented as such, the current controversies over the testing and use of GM organisms are really about academic and individual freedom — which is being systematically undermined by discriminatory and onerous regulations. If, for example, a high-school student doing a biology project takes a packet of 'conventional' (but genetically improved via plant breeding) tomato or pea seeds to be irradiated at the local hospital, and plants them to investigate interesting mutants, he or she need not seek any approval from any regulatory authority. However, if the seeds have been modified by the addition of one or a few genes via gene-splicing techniques that are more precise and predictable than conventional plant breeding, the student researcher could face a mountain of paperwork and expense (to say nothing of the possibility of vandalism).

In the United States, bureaucratic requirements by the Department of Agriculture make field trials with GM organisms 10–20 times more expensive than the same experiments with virtually identical organisms modified with conventional genetic techniques.

It is irrelevant whether the purpose of crafting a new plant variety or microorganism is to test a scientific hypothesis or a marker gene, to offer marginal improvements or “to fight hunger and disease”. Western democratic societies have long traditions of relatively unfettered agriculture research, except when bona fide safety issues are raised.

Traditionally, we shrink from letting authoritarian minorities dictate our social agenda. Extremists should not be allowed to dictate the terms of the GM debate.