(permission is granted to reproduce this article, to distribute it without charge, and to provide links to it. Please contact the author at namofo@adelphia.net regarding other uses.)

Those who come from academic positions often have large financial stakes in biotech companies,32 and major universities are making agreements with biotech corporations that compromise academic freedom and give patent rights to the corporations. As universities become increasingly dependent on major corporations for funding, the majority of university scientists will no longer be able to function as independent, objective experts in matters concerning genetic engineering and public safety.^32a

Scientists have already demonstrated the transfer of transgenes and marker genes to both bacterial pathogens and soil fungi. This means that genetically engineered organisms are going to enter the soil and spread to whatever grows in it. Genetically engineered material can migrate from the roots of plants into soil bacteria, in at least one case radically inhibiting the ability of the soil to grow plants.³³ Once the bacteria are free in the soil, no natural barriers inhibit their spread. With ordinary soil pollution, the pollution can be confined and removed (unless it reaches the groundwater). If genetically engineered soil bacteria spread into the wild, the ability of the soil to support plant life may seriously diminish.^33a It does not take much imagination to see what the disastrous consequences might be.

Water and air are also subject to poisoning by genetically engineered viruses and bacteria.

The development of new genetically engineered crops with herbicide resistance will affect the environment through the increased use of chemical herbicides. Monsanto and other major international chemical, pharmaceutical, and agricultural corporations have staked their financial futures on genetically engineered herbicide-resistant plants.^33b  

Recently scientists have found a way to genetically engineer plants so that their seeds lose their viability unless sprayed with patented formulae, most of which turn out to have antibiotics as their primary ingredient. The idea is to keep farmers from collecting genetically engineered seed, thus forcing them to buy it every year. The corporations involved are unconcerned about the gene escaping into the wild, with obvious disastrous results, even though that is a clear scientific possibility.³⁴

NOTES:
32. Russell Mokhiber, "'Objective' Science at Auction" (The Ecologist March/April, 1998). See also Dan Fagin, Marianne Lavelle and the Center for Public Integrity; Toxic Deception: How the Chemical Industry Manipulates Science, Bends the Law and Threatens Your Health (Birch Lane Press, 1997).  

32a. According to a 1991 study of universities in the United States, MLT., Stanford, and Harvard respectively had the highest rates of commercial penetration into their biotechnology-related departments (Sheldon Krinsky et al., "Academic-Corporate Ties in Biotechnology: A Quantitative Study," Science, Technology and Human Values 16(3) Summer 1991,275-287). The College of Natural Resources, University of California at Berkeley recently signed a $50 million agreement with a subsidiary of Novartis Corporation to give the latter exclusive access to patent rights on genetic engineering research done at the college. Novartis also has the right to appoint some faculty members. See Carl T. Hall, "Research Deal Evolving between UC Biotech Firm: Berkeley Campus Could Get $50 Million," San Francisco Chronicle, Oct. 9, 1998; Peter Rosset and Monica Moore, "Research Alliance Debated," San Francisco Chronicle, November 16, 1998; Charles Burress, "UC Finalizes Pioneering Research Deal with Biotech Firm: Pie Tossers Leave Taste of Protest," San Francisco Chronicle, November 24, 1998.  

33. Ho, Genetic Engineering: Dream or Nightmare?, p. 133. See also M.T. Holmes and E.R. Ingham, "The Effects of Genetically Engineered Micro-organisms on Soil Food-webs," Bulletin of the Ecological Society of America (Supplement), 75 (1994): 97.  

33a. The conscious choice of a few genes for mobilization and widespread replication substitutes human judgment for natural selection. From a theological viewpoint, it is questionable that the agribusiness scientific staff have the collective wisdom to determine what constitutes the "good" when it comes to desirable genes. The fact that their choice could become self-sustaining (e.g., if the gene escaped into the wild) is cause for further concern. Initially, this and other adverse impacts potentially resulting from mass scale transgenic operations are likely to be invisible. One potentially insidious effect of reliance on genetically engineered herbicide resistant technology is the repeated use of single herbicide preparations. The repeated applications of a controlled sequence of four or more different herbicides typical of transgenic farming could be expected to transiently affect soil micro-organisms. But the sustained reliance on a single herbicide such as glyphosate [Roundup] or bromoxynil would predictably shift the soil microflora for longer periods, perhaps changing the overall composition of the soil's living matter irrevocably. Such an effect, should it occur, could affect soil quality for future plantings, particularly since germination in some herbicide treated soils has been reported to be impaired. Here the ethical concern is responsibility for future generations .... (Marc Lappe and Britt Bailey, Against the Grain: Biotechnology and the Corporate Takeover of Your Food, Monroe, Maine: Common Courage Press, 1998, 114).

33b. Ibid., esp. 50-62. 

34. On March 3,1998 the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) and an American cotton seed company, Delta & Pine Land Co., received a US patent on a technique that genetically alters seed so that it will not germinate if replanted a second time. The technology aims to prevent farmers from saving seed from their harvest to replant the following season. Because it is a potentially "lethal" technology, Rural Advancement Foundation International (RAFI) has dubbed it the "Terminator technology." ... If commercially viable, the Terminator technology will have profound implications for agriculture. It is a global threat to farmers, biodiversity and food security. The seed-sterilizing technology threatens to eliminate the age-old right of farmers to save seed from their harvest and it jeopardizes the food security of 1.4 billion people--resource-poor farmers in the South--who depend on farm-saved seed. The developers of the technology say that it will be targeted for use primarily in the South as a means of preventing farmers from saving proprietary seeds marketed by American seed corporations. Delta & Pine Land Co. and USDA have applied for patents on the Terminator technology in at least 78 countries. If the Terminator technology is widely utilized, it will give the multinational seed and agrochemical industry an unprecedented and extremely dangerous capacity to control the world's food supply (RAFI Communique, March/April1998http://www.rafi.ca/communique/19982.html). Geneticist Joseph Cummins has commented: ... Pollen escaping from the terminator crop is sterile and cannot spread to weeds or other crops. Pollen escaping from the tetracycline treated seed producing crop can spread the terminator blocking genes. When a weed is fertilized, for example, with the terminator pollen, the new generation of seeds will bear plants with fertile pollen. In the next generation, 25% of the terminator plants will produce sterile pollen. Since the sterile pollen cannot spread the terminator genes, the spread of terminator genes by normal sexual means is limited, but the terminator genes will always be in the population. The situation is similar to lethal genetic diseases in humans. Terminator doesn't threaten plant populations if it is spread only by normal sexual processes. However, spread of terminator by other means is more intimidating .... Spreading terminator genes by virus could easily cause a wide array of weeds and crops to be rendered sterile, and genetic recombination could easily eliminate the reversing action of tetracycline. The terminator virus could have a profound influence on crop production .... [Such genes] are potentially able to create chromosome mutations leading to genetic erosion and untoward changes in gene regulation and expression. They are very highly mobile, and, once introduced into higher plants and animals, are likely to spread and not want to leave ever!

("Genetics of Terminator," e-mail from Prof. Cummins, Wednesday, June 17, 1998. Some punctuation added.)  

See also Volker Lehmann, "Patent on seed sterility threatens seed saving," Biotechnology and Development Monitor, No. 35 (June, 1998); 6-8; Rural Advancement Foundation Internationals (RAFI) news releases on "Terminator Technology ; and Martha L. Crouch, "How the Terminator terminates: an explanation for the non-scientist of a remarkable patent for killing second generation seeds of crop plants," rev. ed. Edmonds, WA:. Edmonds Institute, 1998 .

Zeneca BioSciences (UK) has recently applied for a patent for their own version of the Terminator. See Rural Advancement Foundation International's (RAFI) news release ‘…and now, the "Verminator"!: Fat Cat Corp, with Fat Rat Gene Can Kill Crops'(Aug.24,1998) . <http://www.rafi.org/pr/release19.html> 

~ To be continued