Science / Medicine : Public Fears Factored Into Gene-Altered Bacteria Tests
Nearly a year ago, local scientists made history when they sprayed a strawberry patch with frost-fighting bacteria in the first release of a genetically engineered organism into the open environment.
Dozens of reporters and government officials looked on as a moon-suited scientist sprayed 2,400 plants at the test site in Brentwood, 50 miles east of here, with a solution of genetically altered pseudomonas bacteria. The spraying, which took less than 15 minutes, followed more than four years of protests, lawsuits and delays. It was nearly called off at the last minute after vandals broke into the fenced plot and uprooted most of the plants.
Today, scientists with Oakland-based Advanced Genetic Sciences are quietly carrying out a second field trial of the altered bacteria, trade-named Frostban. At UC Berkeley, plant pathologist Steve Lindow is preparing for a third field test of his genetically altered frost-fighting bacterium, Ice Minus. The trials have attracted little attention from either the press or the environmental groups that filed suit to stop the initial applications.
“Frostban was applied and the world didn’t stop,” said John Bedbrook, vice president for research at Advanced Genetic Sciences.
Effect of Controversy
While the dire consequences envisioned by some test opponents have not materialized, industry analysts, officials from other biotechnology companies, government officials and environmentalists agree that the controversy preceding last year’s open-air releases has had a major effect on the fledgling agricultural biotechnology industry.
Companies now routinely factor public education campaigns into their research and development timetables and budgets; scientists must comply with extensive monitoring requirements when field-testing genetically altered bacteria; and critics of the new technology have learned that public opinion can be influenced to slow down or halt proposed field tests.
“What happened to (Advanced Genetic Sciences) was very sobering to us,” said Peter Carlson, chief scientific officer of Crop Genetics International, a Maryland-based biotechnology firm. Its application to field-test a genetically altered microbial pesticide is pending before the Environmental Protection Agency. “It shocked us into realizing that this was an issue of tremendous public concern.”
Carlson said that addressing those concerns had become “just a cost of doing business” for his 7-year-old firm. Crop Genetics has assembled a paid committee of public policy experts, including William Ruckelshaus, former head of the EPA, and Elliot Richardson, former U.S. attorney general, to help it get its products approved for testing without igniting the passionate protest that stalled the Frostban and Ice Minus experiments.
Participation Invited
Acting on the committee’s advice, Crop Genetics met with EPA and USDA officials before applying for permits. It asked the agencies to help design its field experiments and invited USDA scientists to participate in the proposed field tests. The company also briefed local politicians in the areas where the tests would be carried out and held town meetings to allow local residents to air their concerns.
By contrast, when Advanced Genetic Sciences first proposed to field-test Frostban in Monterey County in 1985, it did not even consult with local officials. County residents and environmentalists, fearful of possible health hazards from the bacteria, quickly persuaded the Board of Supervisors to block the experiment. The company further incurred the wrath of environmentalists when it conducted an unauthorized outdoor test of the bacteria at its laboratory here in 1986. That test led the EPA to fine the company $13,000 and temporarily suspend its experimental permit.
Some industry analysts say the California controversy has scared off potential investors, who fear that court battles and regulatory delays will diminish the chances that promising products will be brought to market.
These analysts raise the specter of foreign competition, saying that Japanese biotechnology companies will overtake the U.S. industry if research does not proceed rapidly. “We’ve fallen behind,” said Bruce F. Mackler, general counsel to the Washington-based Assn. of Biotechnology Cos., a trade group. “The cost to the economy and the industry is high.”
But others, while acknowledging that investment in agricultural biotechnology has decreased during the last year, say October’s stock market crash had a far greater effect than last year’s protests. They view last year’s brouhaha as a learning experience for the new industry, rather than a fatal blow.
Seen as Trailblazer
“I don’t feel that we’ve suffered any major setbacks,” said Brian Sway, executive director of the California Industrial Biotechnology Assn. “You have to learn the rules of the road, and (Advanced Genetic Sciences) blazed the trails for everybody else.”
During the last year, two other companies have received EPA approval to field-test genetically altered bacteria in the open environment.
BioTechnica International of Cambridge, Mass., is scheduled to release a genetically altered nitrogen-fixing bacterium at a test site in Wisconsin this spring.
In November, Monsanto Corp. carried out a field test in South Carolina of an altered form of pseudomonas bacteria, designed to change color and serve as a marker in other experiments. Although there was some local opposition to the Wisconsin test, none of these experiments generated anything approaching the controversy seen here last year.
In both these cases, as with the proposed Crop Genetics test, the primary opposition came from Jeremy Rifkin, president of the Washington-based Foundation on Economic Trends. Rifkin also successfully opposed Monsanto’s application to field-test an altered microbial corn pesticide last year in Missouri. Many view him as the prime mover behind the protests here last year.
Rifkin would like to see a worldwide moratorium on field-testing genetically altered bacteria until more is known about the long-term effects. “People will pay for this hundreds and thousands of years from now,” he said. “Every introduction is a hit-or-miss ecological roulette.”
Rifkin argues that because gene-altered bacteria are alive and therefore inherently unpredictable, releasing even a seemingly innocuous strain could have potentially devastating and unforeseen effects.
sh No Recourse He warns that if something goes wrong and a gene-altered organism begins to spread out its own ecological niche, crowding out its natural cousins, there will be no recalling it to the laboratory.
But other environmentalists, such as Rebecca Goldburg, staff scientist with the Environmental Defense Fund, believe that the potential risks of each test can be assessed on a case-by-case basis.
Both Goldburg and Rifkin, however, would like to see an overhaul of the process by which biotechnology is regulated. The industry is now governed by a patchwork of laws, some of which were designed for pesticides and some for toxic substances. “You can’t take statutes designed for industrial technology and force genetic engineering technologies to fit them,” Rifkin said.
Goldburg said she favors having the EPA become the sole federal agency responsible for regulating the industry. “It’s the agency with the mandate to protect the environment, and that’s the primary interest with genetically engineered bacteria,” she said.
She conceded, however, that no major changes on the regulatory front are likely to happen soon.
In the meantime, scientists working on Frostban and Ice Minus say they are encouraged by the results of the field tests so far. They add that they hope monitoring requirements for future tests will be relaxed.
“We spent a lot of time on simple monitoring of the plot that took time away from other things we hoped to do,” Lindow said.
John Bedbrook of Advanced Genetic Sciences said the initial Frostban field test was a success, showing that the bacteria prevented frost damage at a colder temperature than its natural cousin. The current trial, which began in Brentwood in December and is to end in May, is intended to determine how the bacteria perform under weather conditions different from those of last spring.
Before it can market Frostban commercially, Bedbrook said, the company needs to test it on several different fruits and vegetables, in larger fields and in different regions.
