Rebecca Nesbit's Blog, page 4

The EU decisions I’m eagerly awaiting

The Brexit debate has reached fever pitch, so I am trying to ignore it and focus my attention on another impending EU decision: will New Breeding Techniques be regulated as GM?

These techniques include using enzymes to make small and precise changes in a genome, or using current GM techniques to transfer genes from different varieties of the same crop.

There are a few major issues if the EU does regulate NBTs in the same way as GMOs:

Other countries haven’t, which could make trade harder if we need specific (and extensive) approval to import crops developed using these techniques.

Some of the techniques make such small changes to the genome that it may be impossible for regulators to determine whether these were made through conventional techniques or New Breeding Techniques.

New Breeding Techniques are much cheaper than current GM techniques, so open up possibilities for smaller companies to compete with the biggies we love to hate.

I can also see major issues if we don’t regulate them as GMOs. We will be forced to ask ourselves the question of exactly why we have such stringent regulations on GMOs. It’s not the techniques themselves which are a concern, it’s what we do with them.

Take herbicide-tolerant crops for example. The issues, positive and negative, are about herbicides and weed control. So why should herbicide-tolerant crops made through different techniques be treated any differently by the regulators? We can ask the same questions about herbicide-tolerant crops made through conventional breeding.

Whether we decide we want more regulation for conventional crops or less regulation for GM (or both), perhaps it’s time for a re-think of exactly what we are achieving with our regulatory systems.

The EU decision has been repeatedly delayed, and we don’t have a date for when it will happen. Who knows, maybe the UK won’t even be in the EU by then.

On that note, I’ll leave you with an interesting article about NBTs and the EU decision.

UN biotech podcast

A great podcast from the UN: ‘Can biotech benefit smallholder farmers worldwide?’. From 16 mins in there is a debate with three panelists who spoke at the International Symposium on Agricultural Biotechnologies.

Research recommendations from the National Academy of Sciences report

The latest report from the US National Academy of Sciences is definitely worth a read (free to download). It is an extremely thorough review of the literature, concluding that the GM crops currently available are safe to eat and pose no greater threat to the environment than conventional crops.

I can’t possible summarise the report in a blog post, but a common theme was the need for more research. This wasn’t surprising given that some of their conclusions were ‘experts disagree’, particularly on issues such as the impact of intellectual property.

There was one recommendation which particularly attracted my attention: a need for more investment in crops that aren’t attractive to private firms. Seems obvious, and it was the statement which followed that was particularly interesting: “However, there is evidence that the portfolio of public institutions has shifted to mirror that of private firms more closely.”

News – April 2016

A few items have caught my attention recently:

‘Monsanto has infiltrated governments’ is a standard claim , and now we have the reverse: there’s a claim that scientific bodies have been ‘infected’ by environmental activists. The classification of glyphosate (the herbicide most widely associated with herbicide-tollerant crops) as ‘probably carcinogenic’ has certainly been controversial, although I enjoyed this analysis on why it isn’t a conspiracy.

An annual report on GM crops in 2015 has been launched. Globally 179.7 million hectares of GM crops were planted by 28 countries, a decrease of 1% (1.8 million hectares) from the 181.5 million hectares in 2014. This decrease is likely related to the current low prices of commodity crops such as soybean and cotton.

The US has decided that a non-growing mushroom developed using genome editing (CRISPR) won’t be regulated as a GMO.

And there’s another role reversal. Anti-GM petitions seem to be common, but a signatures are being collected for a petition calling on the Canadian government to continue its investment in biotech research.

Words of caution from Boaty McBoatface

When scientists ran a public poll to determine the name of their new £200 million polar research vessel, they probably hadn’t considered the possibility of the winner being Boaty McBoatface. If they’d realised this in advance, there might have been a better get-out clause.

As things stand, about whether we should really crack a bottle of champagne over the bow of Boaty McBoatface. For me, it’s a warning of a wider issue: if you are going to ask for society’s views on your research, you have to be prepared to listen to their answers.

Public participation in research is central to the concept of food sovereignty, in which people have a right to define their own food and agricultural system. As part of this, the direction of agricultural research would be decided with a greater input from the wider public.

We do, however, have to ask the question of whether the wider public are more likely than current decision makers to direct research in ways which will benefit society. If research is ‘democratised’ will some entire research programmes end up as Boaty McBoatfaces? And if it’s what society wants, does this matter? They are our ultimate funders and the people whose lives we are working to improve.

In the mid-20th century, Bob Edwards faced criticism from his colleagues when he discussed his work with the public. Now it seems that the ‘father of IVF’ was ahead of his time – public engagement is has become fashionable, and researchers are expected to communicate their work beyond the scientific community.

We’ve come a long way, and maybe involving society in decisions about research is the next step. We just need to think twice about making commitments which involve asking questions to which we might not like the answer.

If you believe that the wider public should direct the research agenda, you have to be prepared to go with their decisions. Even if they’re Boaty McBoatface.

Global Risks 2016

The World Economic Forum has produced a risk map to show how the seemingly disparate challenges we face are all inter-connected.

My research into GM constantly takes me off into fascinating tangents for exactly this reason – no problem or opportunity exists in isolation.

The accompanying Global Risks report puts involuntary migration as the top risk over the next 18 months, but water at the top of the list for the next 10 years.

Book club: World Book Day

This is one of the book club questions for my novel A Column on Smoke. Please add your thoughts in the comment section below – I will be very interested to read them.

As it’s World Book Day, it seemed appropriate to do another book club post, the first for a while. I want to consider the question of whether it is normal/reasonable for Sally to be spending so much time thinking about Paul at the start of the book.

She is at an exciting time in her career, yet she fills a lot of her brain space thinking about a man who she hasn’t seen for years and who she isn’t even in contact with.

When I was writing A Column of Smoke I received a lot of support from the Cambridge Writers group, and this question came up in relation to other writers’ work as well.  My answer is PostSecret.  For anyone who hasn’t seen this, it is basically write a secret on a postcard and send it off. The secrets on the website change each week, so what you get will depend on when you’re reading this. But they often confirm that unrequited love can remain alive for a very long time!

Do you agree?

‘The spread of ignorance’

A recent article about the ‘spread of ignorance’ has prompted me to go back once again to the theme of balance.

Science historian Robert Proctor points out that ignorance can be promoted in the name of a balanced debate. The tobacco industry and climate change deniers have used ‘experts disagree’ to paint a false picture. 

The combination of a wide audience who often know little about an issue (e.g. GM) and interest groups with a message to push is a good recipe for the wilful spread of ignorance.

In a recent post I spoke of the importance of engaging with people holding different points of view, yet presenting different points of view can lead to false balance. Proctor’s work is interesting in this context, as is a conversation I recently had with a group of scientists. They were keen to point out where scientists can easily fall into the trap of showering people with information, without stopping to listen we make sure that the information is relevant to their concerns.

One part of engaging with people with different points of view is to understand where they’re coming from, rather than making assumptions. The vast quantities of information you give someone on a topic will be useless if you haven’t actually understood what their concerns are.

A recent article about the ‘spread of ignorance’ has prom...

A recent article about the ‘spread of ignorance’ has prompted me to go back once again to the theme of balance.

Science historian Robert Proctor points out that ignorance can be promoted in the name of a balanced debate. The tobacco industry and climate change deniers have used ‘experts disagree’ to paint a false picture. 

The combination of a wide audience who often know little about an issue (e.g. GM) and interest groups with a message to push is a good recipe for the wilful spread of ignorance.

In a recent post I spoke of the importance of engaging with people holding different points of view, yet presenting different points of view can lead to false balance. Proctor’s work is interesting in this context, as is a conversation I recently had with a group of scientists.

One part of engaging with people with different points of view is to understand where they’re coming from, rather than making assumptions. The vast quantities of information you give someone on a topic will be useless if you haven’t actually understood what their concerns are.

Bias, advocacy and communications

Two articles have just caught my attention, about the challenges of communicating science and its policy implications. Firstly, Susan MacMillan has written about advocacy communications.

Many science communicators (professional or otherwise) find themselves advocating particular positions, and we probably don’t stop to think about the implications. In fact, if advocacy is our specific objective, we can ask ourselves whether it’s appropriate and how we will achieve it.

Science isn’t the only consideration in policy making, but if the science says badger culling is a bad idea (it does) then it is fine for scientists to say so.

This post also points to a second one, this time by Tamar Haspel. Her ways to fix the food system are well worth a read, but in this context it’s interesting to see how many rely on communication. Teaching about food in schools, introducing labels with information about how the food was produced, and more inclusive conversations are all on the list.

Inclusive conversations should probably be on the list of how to fix any system. Her specific suggestions, such as organic advocates talking to conventional farmers, could very well apply to opponents of migration talking to refugees.

These issues seem connected to a question I’ve been asking myself: what is bias? It’s thrown around in GM circles (well, let’s be honest, I mainly mean anti-GM circles) in a way which suggests that bias means ‘an opinion I don’t agree with’. As I’ve blogged before, news outlets don’t necessarily improve things by their attempts at balance.

Does bias mean failing to take other points of view into account, or could it mean failing to recognise the evidence?

We’re all biased, it’s human nature. Recognising our biases, however, is the first step to overcoming them, and more inclusive conversations will help bias give way to understanding.