Date:
From: rebecca (name and email info withheld)
Subject: biotechnology teaching
To: db@interchange.ubc.ca

Biotechnology is ethically and morally wrong!!!! How dare you act and perpetuate Frankenstein mentality to promote splicing animal and plant genes. What gives you the right to force GMO foods down our throats! Did anyone ever stop to think of the consequences of altering human genes, or crossing the animal/plant barriers--the negative affects on people who have allergies,--nuts, fish/shellfish, etc.etc. The idea of Biotechnology is unthinkably abhorant and strikes of mad-scientist way of raping mankind.

Hi Rebecca,

Thanks for your message. It sounds like you have very strong convictions, which is always a good thing. However, I should point out that from your letter it sounds like you object specifically to genetic manipulation, rather than biotechnology itself. Biotech is a much larger term that describes any application of knowledge from living systems. As such it would include things that most environmentalists would welcome. Such as fermentation practices for producing certain foods, herbal drugs, almost any medical application, etc, etc.

Assuming that yours is a response to our call for volunteers for an OUTREACH initiative, then your mistake in the letter very nicely demonstrates why we are doing it. AMBL is an educational facility which was founded by the late Nobel Laureate Michael Smith (it use to be simply called the Biotechnology Teaching Lab). Micheal was very passionate about science and very passionate about education. In fact, he found that with his Nobel Prize, one of the things he suddenly had was clout to get certain things done. This included a personal desire to promote science education through financial (for instance, he donated all of his 1 million dollar Nobel prize money), and political means (being Nobel Laureate meant that prime ministers actually listened to him). As such AMBL has a simple mandate to provide objective information and expertise in biotechnology. At the end of this TLEF project, we hope to provide unbiased materials on a multitude of topics. The concerns you point out, for instance, will be discussed in detailed, and more importantly will be discussed in a rational scientific manner that will highlight both sides of the argument.

I've been doing this sort of stuff for years now, and I consider myself an environmental and a scientific person. You would be amazed how after doing all of the homework on any given bioethics topic, how hard it is to say what is wrong and what is right. Both sides always have valid points, and at the end of the day, it really comes down to a personal call.

However, we feel very strongly that in order to do justice to this 'personal call', the individual should really be completely informed in all aspects of the debate. Interestingly, it is easy to get and understand opinions from the business side of things (mostly), and also from the environmental side of things. But what is harder is giving someone the scientific background to make a truly informed decision. I think that you would agree that in order to properly assess the dangers of any scientific endeavour, you would need to fully comprehend the science.
This is why we use biotechnology as a vehicle to teach science. We feel it is a perfect avenue for education, because it incorporates basic theory with the more interesting applications you hear about in the news everyday (i.e. the dry stuff you need to know, with the wow factor stuff you hear about in the press). More importantly, it also richly includes aspects of economical and societal concerns. In other words, I can think of no better topic to get tongues wagging about science. Which I hope you agree is a good way to motivate people to inform themselves.

Do me a favour and ask yourself a few questions... How much do you really know about genetic modification? How familiar are you with the countless nuances behind DNA biochemistry? Do you think there will be a point when you accept GMOs given possible advances in science? Do you know what it was that made mammalian cloning (something thought immpossible a few years ago) a reality? What's your background in immunogenetics to assess your information on allergies? Have you been trained in the idiosyncracies of risk assessment? When was the last time you updated yourself on the intricate laws of intellectual property, North American or at other country across the globe? How knowledgable are you with archaic regulations behind food safety?

It's a lot of stuff, and we've even had students in the past (some as firey sounding as you), who for some assignment or project took it upon themselves to learn this information, and interestingly, all of them were left with a much less decisive opinion.

Anyway, I've babbled long enough. If you are true to your convictions, then I'd invite you to chat with me in person (really I'm a nice person). I think most people would agree that simply sending a defamatory email is not the way to go.

dave ng