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Recently, Missouri voted on a Constitutional Amendment concerning cloning and bioengineering. These technologies are poised to upend our culture if we do not
find ways to manage their changes to our world. Of particular concern to us as small
farmers are genetically modified organisms (GMOs), particularly crops and livestock.
Without getting into religious issues, there is at least one clear cut reason to be
worried.
Genetic modification of organisms is of course done to improve them for large scale production, either to add new, useful characteristics, or remove characteristics which are not
considered useful. The modified organism is then sold to be grown far and wide,
generally displacing existing, traditional, seed or animal stock. Humans have been
able to clone vegetables for centuries through splicing or other means. Cloning of
animals is a new development. Cloning encourages a monoculture: a situation in
which all farms are growing essentially the same modified organism.
A monoculture is an epidemic waiting to happen. The Irish Potato Famine happened
because cloning of potatoes was widespread. Potatoes were almost always propogated
from eyes (cloned) rather than from seed. This meant that the potato on one farm
was genetically identical to a potato on another farm. A disease which can readily
affect one potato can readily affect all of them. A single disease spread quickly and
wiped out entire crops. Why did the potatoes not adapt to the disease? Because
adaptation does not work that way.
Disease resistance depends on existing variation. Individual organisms do not
change to better fight a disease; they either have what it takes or they do not. My
favorite example is sickle cell anemia. Sickle cell anemia is a genetic defect in humans
where the severe form kills but a milder form merely incapacitates a person as they get
older. The important part here is that the mild form of sickle cell anemia protects
against malaria. In a malaria hot zone, some people die of sickle cell anemia, some
people die of malaria, but some people are protected from one disease by another.
Cystic fibrosis works in a similar way. Cystic fibrosis is a genetic disease affecting
the mucus membranes. Mucus is too thick and blocks important passages. Like sickle
cell, there is a severe form and a mild form. Like sickle cell, cystic fibrosis has
stayed with us for a reason: sufferers of cystic fibrosis are protected
against heavy metal poisoning and are more likely to survive in areas where water is
polluted by natural sources of metals such as lead or mercury or by industrial
pollutants.
Disease resistance depends on normal variation between individuals in a
population. When an epidemic strikes, some organisms survive and some do not.
The ones that survive do so because of innate resistance, resistance which often comes
at a cost. After the epidemic passes, those which are left are resistant to the disease.
Over further time, the cost of the resistance causes the genetic defect to drop back
down to normal levels, waiting until it is needed the next time.
The reason that many genetic diseases remain in our world, among plants,
animals, and people is that these diseases have or have had an advantage at some point
which made some individuals survive at the expense of others. Eliminating these
"defects" also eliminates the advantages they confer, advantages such as resistance to
diseases, insect pests, radiation, or other things which we may not even be able to
imagine or have not yet discovered.
It is very tempting to use our new tools to "correct" flaws in nature. It is very
tempting to advocate the wholesale elimination of genetic defects which have caused
parents and children sadness for generations. As a parent myself, I am forced to wonder
which of my own faults I have passed on to my daughter. I also have to wonder,
however, what the future will be like and what unlikely heroes we will find in our genetic
past. Will a new disease wipe out whole harvests of genetically modified corn? Will an
industrial accident cause sufferers of cystic fibrosis to head up our future generations?
Nature, God, has provided for us in strange ways in the past. We would do well to
remember that as we continue to tinker.
Copyright © 2006 The Misty Manor, Mercers
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