Rebecca Nesbit's Blog, page 5

How to stop patents stifling innovation

Patents are a seen as backbone of innovation – there’s no point in investing vast sums of money in something if a competitor can replicate your product as soon as it’s released. However, this of course means that innovations which could be used for the good of society can be controlled by patent holders (who may or may not give much weight to the ‘benefit society’ objective).

An interesting article in The Economist suggests how our patent system could be changed to promote innovation.

Apparently, studies have found that 40-90% of patents are never used or licensed out. As a result, the article suggests that patents should come with a “use it or lose it” rule, so that they expire if the invention is not brought to market. Also, in many industries patents of 20 years are simply too long.

This video is an entertaining plug for the value of intellectual property, but unfortunately it seems that the evidence suggests the current patent system is in fact a very poor way to promote innovation. Time for a rethink.

How can we change people’s behaviour?

I recently woke to the news that environmental activists were arrested for scaling the roof of New Zealand’s parliament to raise awareness of climate change (my alarm is set to the Today programme, so I guess I’m not alone). This didn’t fill me with hope. I’m not sure awareness is the problem – what we’re lacking is action.

Take healthy eating as an example – it’s widely known what a healthy diet looks like, and also widely ignored. So I was interested to read a Global Food Security blog post about research into behaviour change. What could make people  switch to a healthy, sustainable diet?

The post stressed the importance of Government interventions (so perhaps the NZ activists were targeting the right building, even if their stunt is unlikely to influence MPs). Leaving it to the individual or the producers isn’t going to work.

As was pointed out in the British Library’s recent event on sustainable fishing, consumers say that environmental considerations are important for their choices, but when they’re in the supermarket they vote with their wallet. Studies show that approaches aimed at getting individuals to change voluntarily have limited impacts.

This seemed relevant when Twitter (OK, @HStiles1 to be precise) had a link about nudging people towards greener choices. It turns out that, although price drives our choices, we are also fairly lazy. If green choices are presented as the default option people are far more likely to take them.

It sometimes seems as if there are two camps – one saying ‘consumption will increase, so we need GM/new technologies’, and an environmental backlash raising awareness and telling us we need to change. Perhaps we need something smarter in the middle – still looking to achieve behaviour change but being more realistic about how it will happen.

Even with interventions to change consumer behaviour, we will still need to increase food production – the population is growing and an overall increase in meat consumption is probably inevitable. It’s not that we can afford to ditch research into increasing yield (whether this is through GM or other techniques), just that we shouldn’t give up on changing consumption.

 

The importance of failure

The results are in: the aphid-repelling wheat which caused the Rothamsted protests of 2012 doesn’t actually repel aphids in the field. Despite success in the lab, the field trial showed no reduction in aphid numbers.

An interesting analysis in Nature points out that history is written by the winner. In science, however, there are many fails behind every success.

Failure is a huge part of science, and indeed of life. If you’re not failing, and learning from those failures, you’re probably not aiming for a big success. In my day job I’ve recently put together some videos of science Nobel Laureates talking about failure. They’re well worth a listen.

The next step for the aphid wheat is every scientist’s favourite: more experiments. The idea certainly isn’t being thrown out – one suggestion is the need for a closer imitation of the aphid alarm pheromone being used as the repellent.

If the protestors had managed to prevent the trial from happening, they would have deprived us of evidence that this crop, at least as it is currently, won’t deliver the benefits we’d hoped.

The only regret I have in this story is that such a huge amount of money had to be wasted on security when it could have been spent on research.

‘Rewilding’ – new GM potential for organic agriculture?

Many wild relatives of crops have genes which protect them from drought, disease and other stresses. These are exactly the characteristics we want in our crops, so these genes have great potential for agriculture.

Organic agriculture is in particular need of new genetic resources because modern crop varieties are normally bred with conventional agriculture in mind. Without inputs which are banned in organic agriculture, these varieties often don’t thrive. Currently average yields are lower on organic farms, and new genetic resources could help reduce this difference.

Genes from wild relatives can be introduced into crop plants to produce more robust varieties through ‘rewilding’ (a name which certainly fits with the organic brand).

Interbreeding crops and their wild relatives is already producing crop varieties which are less reliant on pesticides and fertilisers. However, drawbacks include the time taken (generally over 10 years) and the potential disruption or loss of favourable genes. So what are the latest alternative options?

The incredible progress in the speed and affordability of genome sequencing means it is becoming much easier to identify desirable genes. We also have New Breeding Techniques (NBTs) which allow for much more accurate changes to DNA than older genetic modification techniques.

One of these techniques is cisgenesis, which allows for the transfer of complete genes from wild relatives into domesticated crops. It can be restricted to a single gene, so avoids transferring extra DNA that could have undesired effects.

Another technique, precision breeding, can create specific changes to the DNA, meaning it may only alter in a single nucleotide (of which the wheat genome has 17,000,000,000). This technique is so new that no rewilding has yet been done this way, and we don’t even know whether the EU will class it as GM.

A new paper analyses whether organic agriculture will be able to take advantage of rewilding through New Breeding Techniques. Rewilding in many ways fits with the principles of organic, allowing crops to make effective use of resources so limit the need for pesticides and fertilisers. However, currently there is resistance to any varieties which are classed as GM.

The authors point out that there is a trend for retailers to describe food as natural because, of course, ‘natural = good’. It’s tempting to say that NBTs produce more natural crops than other GM techniques, but what does anyone seeking natural food believe ‘natural’ to be? Many people in food debates have different ideas of natural, and perhaps this lack of shared understanding is contributing to the stalemate.

‘Unpredictability’ is perhaps worth considering. This is one of the reasons which organic agriculture rejects GM, and NBTs can reduce unpredictability.

As to whether NBTs will be used to benefit organic farming, the first question is about how NBTs will be defined (currently the EU says Cisgenesis = GM, Precision breeding = ?). Given the current definitions, will the organic movement can rise above GM/non-GM branding and analyse evidence about whether NBTs can support their cause? Interesting times.

‘All GM food is safe/unsafe’ is a fallacy

Stories of GM being bad for health rumble on (though Seralini is still winning on this one) and they need some context.

It is impossible to say all GM food is safe to consume or that all GM is dangerous – every variety is different and should be assessed on a case-by-case basis. Even if a technique used for the modification proved to be dangerous (and I have no reason to believe it might be), this doesn’t mean that all GM food will be dangerous – ever more sophisticated techniques are being developed.

In the EU all GM products must go through a rigorous safety assessment carried out by the European Food Safety Agency (EFSA) before reaching approval. To date there has been no scientific evidence showing that GM products are any higher risk to the environment or human health than products produced through conventional breeding techniques. This conclusion is supported by organisations such as the European Commission (EC) and the World Health Organisation (WHO), and evidence has been extensively reviewed.

This doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do ongoing tests on the safety of individual varieties, it just means we need to distrust anyone who says that the GM industry faces the fatal blow that “GM food poses significant risks to human health”.

Instead, I leave you with the wise words of the WHO:

“Different GM organisms include different genes inserted in different ways. This means that individual GM foods and their safety should be assessed on a case-by-case basis and that it is not possible to make general statements on the safety of all GM foods.

“GM foods currently available on the international market have passed safety assessments and are not likely to present risks for human health. In addition, no effects on human health have been shown as a result of the consumption of such foods by the general population in the countries where they have been approved.”

If you’re concerned about your health, eat less sugar and do more exercise. And while you’re at it, please pester me to do the same.

Is the EU interested in evidence-based policy?

Seldom does scientific policy making get dealt a blow as large as it was today: the role of Chief Scientific Adviser to the EU has been scrapped. This is not just a great loss, but a worrying statement about how much the EU values scientific evidence in policy making. As Imran Khan, chief executive of the British Science Association, said: “Everyone—Europeans and the rest of the world alike—will rightly see this decision as the European Commission downgrading both the practical and the symbolic value of science in Europe.”

Earlier this year, environmental groups wrote to Jean-Claude Juncker urging him to scrap the role. The route of this was their disagreement with her positive position on GM.

I have no idea about cause and effect here, but if it is lobbying based on a mistrust of GM crops which led to the loss of the role, that’s very worrying indeed.

The shocked scientific community had a lot to say about this ‘step backwards’.

Genetic modification and inequality

My mother kindly alerted me to the fact that she’d be blogging for Blog Action Day (today). This year’s topic is inequality, something I believe should be close to the hearts of anyone interested in how genetic modification can benefit (or harm) society.

Firstly, a major manifestation of inequality is an unequal access to nutritious food. Theoretically, genetic modification could be used to change this. Golden rice is a prime example, in its attempts to improve the health of people whose sight and welfare is being threatened by poor diets.

Connected to equality is social mobility. Access to essential nutrients is by no means sufficient for social mobility but it is fundamental. Children without access to regular nutritious meals won’t thrive physically or intellectually.

We don’t just have to think about the products though – it is important to consider the ways in which they are currently being delivered. The distribution of golden rice is explicitly designed to tackle inequality, but the same can’t be said of other crops. The big players, such as Monsanto, are behind most commercialisations.

I’m not inherently anti multi-nationals. Take the pharma industry – there’s a lot to improve on, but ultimately every day I take medication they have kindly provided (thank you). I was struck by the announcement speech for this week’s Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences, discussing the efficiency benefits large companies can bring but also the need for regulations to ensure they act for the benefit of society.

For these purposes let’s look at supermarkets (yes, the irony is not lost on me that such huge companies sporadically speak out against GM when arguably the biggest argument against it is corporate control). There are legitimate concerns about the control supermarkets have over our food supply, but they also bring benefits.

In the UK, the poorest members of society benefit most from the cheap food supermarkets can provide, and often from stable employment (and hence the money to afford other staples of a relatively comfortable life). If we don’t keep food prices down it’s those on lower incomes who will suffer.

What initially springs to mind when I think of inequality are food and healthcare, which are generally associated with ability to pay. But what about equality of opportunities? What supermarkets could be criticised for is reducing the opportunities for a greater number of people to be business owners – shops are out-competed and only big suppliers are used. I found an interesting book on the topic.

I would need to do a lot more research to decide how much (if at all) I want to reduce multi-national corporations in my equal society, but there are certainly things I’d like them to do. For a start, I’d like to see them employing people from all the countries they trade in, right up to board level. And I want gender, race, social background, family status and sexuality to be of no consequence when employing people, even at the top.

What does an equal society look like to me? It’s a surprisingly hard one to answer – it doesn’t mean communism, it doesn’t mean everyone is the same. I’m clear what it should achieve though: equal access for all to happiness and mental wellbeing.

Difficult green choices: our diet and our pets

The recent TalkScience event was so thought-provoking I had to spill over into two posts. This one is about ways to reduce consumption, possibly as an alternative to increasing production.

Having an economist on the panel provided interesting insights. Taxing foods based on their health or environmental impact could influence people’s choices. Policy interventions on public health issues, while valuable, are seldom game changers on their own (the change in social attitudes resulting from the smoking ban and the legal requirement to wear seat belts were the only examples of that Professor Tiffin was aware of, and even those were accompanied by public health campaigns). I’ve previously blogged about the challenges of health-related taxes.How much meat we should eat was inevitably a big topic, given how much we know about the land needed to raise livestock and the contribution to climate change. There are lots of meat-related facts on the Talk Science blog so I won’t repeat them here. Having just come back from Brazil where I ate vast quantities of meat, I have decided to be a near-vegetarian for a bit.

Related to this, it was good to see pets getting mentioned. We feed lots of meat to dogs and cats and, although some of which is unfit for human consumption, this inevitably is an environmental burden.

Vicki Hird (FoE) was the first to admit that an anti-pet campaign would make her far too unpopular. It might be time for more environmentalists to at least acknowledge the impacts, even if pet ownership is something few people are willing to give up.

Sustainable intensification received some attention, with the interesting idea that we could be seeing this on a landscape scale – we could choose to intensify production on some land, and not look to increase production in marginal areas where it could cause environmental damage.

GM is a distraction

This week I went to a debate at the British Library about ‘Biotech on the Farm’. A geneticist, an economist and a Friends of the Earth campaigner talked genetic modification, taxes and eating meat as part of the regular TalkScience series. There was far more which the panel agreed on than might have been anticipated, driven by the common understanding that we need to increase food production while protecting the environment.

The geneticist and Friends of the Earth campaigner found plenty of common ground, and plenty to disagree on. They both believe genetic modification is a distraction. Professor Sang believes the method of production is just a distraction – it’s the product that counts. She was keen to see regulations changed from process-based to product-based: if you produce a herbicide-resistant crop it should be assessed for safety in the same way regardless of how you produce it.

Vicki Hird from Friends of the Earth believed that GM is distracting us from the political issues preventing the distribution of the food we already produce.

I agree that GM and other options for increasing yield can be a distraction from tackling other causes of food insecurity, such as social inequality or logistical challenges. The people who seem distracted by GM are those who campaign against it. Around the world people are still going hungry; I wish those who put effort into convincing us that we only have a distribution and not a production problem would put their effort into tackling this distribution problem and not fighting against alternative solutions.

Other than some strange claims about golden rice (specifically that farmers didn’t want to grow it because Syngenta owned the patent), Vicki Hird from Friends of the Earth had some sound points to make. She only said one majorly annoying thing – she started by suggesting that she would annoy the audience by speaking about the political barriers to effective distribution of the surplus that agriculture currently produces. I begrudge the assumption that because I’m a scientist I’m not interested in political (and social) ways to increase food security. I really am.

Although she was dismissive of all current GM crops, she wasn’t closed to the idea that they could be beneficial in the future. It will be fascinating too see how many of the different communities of environmentalists become open to the possibility for using GMOs.

 

Book Club: Did Sally make the right decision?

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.

I’m talking about her primary moral dilemma here (I do think she made the right decision regarding Paul).

This is the main theme of the book: will Sally go along with her colleagues’ choices. She battles with the decision, as loyalty to her colleagues (and being sucked into the ways they justify themselves) over-rides her basic moral and scientific values of honesty and integrity.

There are lots of situations where she could have revealed the truth and she chooses not to. To me, the option of telling another co-author was a clear choice, whatever it meant for her colleagues’ reputations.

In the end she does make what I believe to be the right choice, not to go through with any deception, it just happens far too late. It could have been done in a much less dramatic way had she said no to Darren and Vangelis earlier on. As it is, she compromised her integrity for far too long.

Do I think she made the right decision? No. Would I have made a different one? It is easy to say no from the comfortable position of a hypothetical situation, but research shows time and time again that humans often act very differently to how they believe they will act. I realise how strong the pressure of your friends can be and I can’t promise I would be any different.

(For anyone who’s interested in this last point I can recommend Professor Bruce Hood’s book The Self Illusion and this interview in which he says “We all think we would act and behave in a certain way, but the reality is that we are often mistaken”)