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If you think genetically engineered foods
are scary, wait until you hear about biobugs.
Scientists are hard at work researching
ways to genetically engineer insects for a variety of purposes.
Under consideration: mosquitoes that act as "flying syringes,"
delivering vaccines every time they bite a person. Pink bollworth
moth males engineered to pass a fatal flaw on to any eggs
they fertilize. Honeybees engineered with immunity to diseases
and pesticides.
Biobugs haven't garnered much media or
activist attention yet. The corporations behind biotech foods
have largely stayed out of the biobug field thus far, leaving
it to university and government scientific researchers. But
the Wall Street Journal, in a January, 2001 article, says
it's just a matter of time before the issue becomes hotly
contested.
The biggest worry about biobugs is that
once released into the wild, they would be impossible to recall
if something went wrong. Another is that genetically engineered
bugs could become "super bugs," extremely resilient
and damaging to crops.
"We need to be very careful because
there is more that we don't know about gene transfer than
we do know," Marjorie Hoy, a University of Florida entomologist
and member of a USDA committee on biotechnology, told the
Journal. Not all genetic tinkerers are trained to think about
the broad ramifications their creations may have on the environment,
she adds. "We're the sort who doesn't think much beyond
the lab."
Biobugs raise many tricky ethical and logistical
problems. For example, one idea under consideration is a genetically
modified mosquito that would carry polio, measles and other
vaccines in the Third World. Would people have to give consent
to be bitten by the bugs? What happens if a person gets bitten
by numerous Frankenmosquitoes, and gets too big a dose?
Government agencies haven't figured who
has responsibility for biobugs. The U.S. Department of Agriculture
focus on insects is restricted to those that bother crops
and livestock. The Environmental Protection Agency and Food
and Drug Administration, which are involved in regulating
biotech foods, "lack either the authority or any great
interest" in regulating biobugs, according to the Journal.
The first release of a genetically engineered
bug was scheduled to take place in the United States in the
summer of 2001. Scientists planned to release 3,600 moths,
engineered to contain a gene from a jellyfish, under a cage
within a three-acre cotton field in Arizona. The moths are
the first step in an effort to eradicate the pink bollworm
pest.
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