Re: [gardeners] Fwd: Plant Protection/Terminator (Reformatted)
Liz Albrook (gardeners@globalgarden.com)
Tue, 17 Nov 1998 16:36:09 +0000
On 17 Nov 98 at 12:00, Margaret Lauterbach wrote:
> I stand corrected, Liz. I've had that post for at least three
> weeks,a nd should have re-read it. Margaret
I'm not sure what you stand corrected about -- I just reformatted the
post to make it legible. Please note that this post was written by a
publicist, not a scientist. I'm responding to it under the
assumption that a publicist got it right. (Ha!)
I have one serious reservation without giving the issue much thought
-- it's the implicit assumption that the only key to fit in the lock
that turns on sterility in these seeds is tetracycline. Apparently,
the "terminator" genes are activated by tetracycline as the designers
intended. That does not mean that other chemicals, naturally
occuring or synthetic, will not turn on the terminator gene. This is
a very, very serious issue.
Activation of the genes by tetracycline was, apparently, designed as
a fail-safe. The guarantee that "terminator technology" won't escape
and "destroy life as we know it" is based on the idea that the
technology won't work unless activated. If the activator is not
found in nature then it doesn't matter if the terminator gene escapes
-- without activation it is harmless. The idea is that only
something "exotic", i.e. not found in nature, will activate the gene.
The problem is that there may be more than one chemical that acts
so as to activate the gene. Another chemical with a shape similar
to part of a tetracycline molecule could, and probably would, act to
activate the gene, too. There are millions of naturally occuring
chemicals out there along with hundreds of thousands to millions of
synthetic chemicals. It is likely that in the chemical warehouse
that is Mother Nature there are dozens of chemicals capable of
turning on the terminator gene.
In other words, just because tetracycline turns on the terminator
gene in no way indicates that 1,3,5-triphenylformazan, or some other
chemical, doesn't turn on the terminator gene. This lock could have
dozens of keys, some of which are naturally occuring substances. I
don't wonder about the experiments that showed tetracycline turns on
the gene -- I wonder if they bothered to test more than a dozen of
the millions of other chemicals out there to discover if they also
turn on the gene. After all -- a tomato contains dozens of
chemicals (many of which are toxic). Lemons and oranges have seeds
that sit in the natural equivalent of an acid vat. There are
alkaline soils and aquifers in the western US and goodness knows what
conditions in other places on earth, including temperature and
humidity extremes. So millions of chemicals could come into contact
with terminator seeds under dozens of different conditions and
different pHs for differing periods of time. Talk about the way to
run a lottery! I wouldn't really want to bet that the only working
key for terminator technology is tetracycline applied at the seed
factory.
The fail-safe to prevent the spread of the effects of the terminator
gene is, by my way of thinking, insufficient on it's surface. As a
chemist, based on what little information I've gotten, I couldn't
support releasing this technology.
Perhaps, instead of the pandering pap about growing food in harsh
conditions for starving people -- what we're offered here as a reason
for considering this sort of technology -- good old Uncle Sam could
come up with a way to get people to practice birth control. That way
we could grow plenty of food on the good, arable land that exists in
moderate climactic areas. And people could have lots of fun doing
the research, too.
Heck, call me a lunatic idealist and invite me to dinner with
Florence King, but I think there are way more people on this planet
than we need (as well as way, way too many people that Ms. King
wouldn't want to dine with). We need less people, more biodiversity
and more open spaces.
Liz
chemist in retirement