H5N1 Virus, Atomic Weapons, Genetic Modification

H5N1 Virus, Atomic Weapons, Genetic Modification. Can you find a connection between these three? Believe it or not there is a connection.

One of the best entertainments provided these days is the news of one country or the other trying to go nuclear. All hell is let loose, with threats and counter threats, bunker bursting bombs and what not.

But this is nothing compared with the entertainment that will be provided in another ten years or so as the biotechnology industry matures and as tens of thousands of young men and women in every backwater of every country achieve the godlike knowledge of knowing how to meddle with life forms. Nuclear Weapons are difficult to make as fissile material cannot be obtained easily. But not so pathogens, which are available everywhere and which can be deliberately modified by people clever enough to know how. And will there be people who will be sinister enough to do this? You bet! See how the internet is frequently brought to its knees by Virus of another kind.

And if not biological weapons, there will be enough nuisance created by scientists of all varieties having a go at creating new kinds of life forms, just from curiosity or to make a fast buck or in a misguided attempt to win the Noble Prize. Unfortunately the very nature of genes makes it possible to create infinite mischief. Even if a thousand new and exotic kinds of life forms were created in the lab everyday, one would not run out of fresh ideas in a million years!! And let us not forget that skills are transferable. There is some kind of informal ban at the moment when it comes to experimenting with human genes. But genes are genes, whether human, animal or belonging to plants. If you can mess up with the one, you can mess up with the other.

There is a phrase known as opening 'the Pandora's box'. It has its origins in Greek mythology, where Pandora ( the world's first woman) opens a box in which God Jupiter, in vile anger, had filled with all the vices, diseases, sorrows and crimes with which humans were to be subsequently afflicted - before that humans lead an idealic life. Pandora out of feminine curiosity was unlucky enough to open the box. If at all a situation can be termed as opening the Pandora's box, recombinant DNA technology can be termed thus.

Personally I would gladly live in a world full of Nuclear Weapons rather than chance it in a world where everyone is meddling with life forms.

IS THERE A WAY OUT OF THIS PREDICAMENT?

Yes.

1. Recognize that it is highly immoral to alter in an unnatural way the DNA of any life form on Plant Earth. Life forms on Earth relate to one another in complex ways. We do not have the complete blue prints. Since we are not the creators of the original life forms we have no authority to alter them.

2. Biotechnology is an all encompassing term. Distinguish between the safe kinds of biotechnology such as tissue culture etc and recombinant DNA technologies. Give the dangerous kind a different name.

3. Severely restrict teaching of recombinant DNA technologies.

4. All labs which deal with such technologies must be registered with the International DNA labs commission (IDLC), similar to the International Atomic Energy Commission. These must have stricter supervision than that followed by the IAEC.

5. Preferably call for a moratorium on all DNA transfer technologies for a hundred years. The Earth wont stop spinning if we do so!

6. Get all interested parties and world wide governments to invest in Space Habs in orbit around the Moon where DNA transfer research of all kinds will be permitted. Biotechnologies of all kinds hold great promise as we move out of planet Earth and set up human habitations on Mars, Moon and in giant space colonies put in orbit around the Sun. The rider is, we don't want these technologies on Planet Earth. Planet Earth is just one Space Hab, if you smoke a Bidi in India the smoke from it will drift all the way to USA. There is absolutely no isolation. Planet Earth, which is precious for us all, is not the right place for experimentation and propagation of such technologies.

With Fear and Hope
Selvaraj