Ted Ashton writes:

>Thus it was written in the epistle of Wirt Atmar,
>> Greg asks:
>>
>> > OK, but isn't there a difference between the indirect manipulation
>> > the genes by selective breeding (even at the level of the
>> > gametes) and directly manipulating them at the sub-cellular
>> >level?
>>
>> Nope.
>
>Wirt,
>  Would you also conclude that there is no difference between
>entering new customer records in application and using a disk
>editor to change the contents of those sectors which make up
>the IMAGE dataset?  The difference is that you'd
>jolly well better know exactly what you're doing or the chances
>of your doing something you really don't want to are high
>(and you may not find out that you really didn't want to do
>it until the opportunity for recovery is past).

This is an interesting analogy because it illustrates a bias that is
often present but almost never made explicit: that "if it's natural, it
must be safe; if it's artificial, it must be suspect." The implication is
that the more carefully we control some process, the more dangerous it
becomes. This is absurd.

About 20 years ago, Eli Lilly introduced Humulin: human insulin made by
genetically engineered bacteria. Up to that time, diabetics had no choice
but to use pig insulin, which is different from human insulin.
Occasionally, there were side effects and people died. Eli Lilly's
product was absolutely identical to the product made by the human
pancreas: there was no difference whatsoever, and it promised to end the
use of porcine insulin with its known potential for dangerous side
effects.

Yet because the product was "artificial", it was greeted with great
suspicion. Self-appointed watchdogs of public health decried the
marketing of a product based on highly experimental technologies, calling
it vastly premature, deceptive and dangerous. The fact that no physical
or chemical test yet devised could distinguish the product from the human
hormone didn't sway them: they were convinced that since the product came
from a petri dish instead of a pig, it was prima facie bad.





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