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Źródło: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c74j2lz88pwo

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The great gene editing debate: can it be safe and ethical?

The great gene editing debate: can it be safe and ethical?

Along with the US and China, the UK is among the countries that lead the world in gene editing. Last year the previous government passed the Precision Breeding ActUstawa o precyzyjnym hodowli, which paved the wayutorować drogę for the commercial sale of gene-edited foodżywność modyfikowana genetycznie in England.

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At the timew tamtym czasie, many scientists working in the field were overjoyedprzepełniony radością.

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“I thought: ‘Great, this is going to uncorkodkorkować a whole area of activity in the public and private sectorsektor publiczny i prywatny’ and we could build an entrepreneurialprzedsiębiorczy community for gene editing in the UK,” says Prof Jonathan Napier of Rothamsted Research, a government agricultural research institute in Harpenden.

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But he says his hopes were soon dashedrozwiane.

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For the law to come into effectwejść w życie, secondary legislationustawodawstwo wtórne was required, and this was due to be passedmiał zostać uchwalony by Parliament this July. But the earlier-than-expectedwcześniej niż oczekiwano election meant that it was not voted ongłosować nad by MPs and the Act is currently in limbow zawieszeniu.

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Prof Napier was among 50 leading scientists to write to the newly appointedmianowany ministers at the Department for Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) at the end of July asking them to act “quickly and decisively” to pass the secondary legislationustawodawstwo.

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The Defra minister responsible, Daniel Zeichner, responded to the scientists’ plea last week by stating that the government was “now considering how to take forwardposunąć naprzód the regulatoryregulacyjny frameworkstruktura outlined in the Act and will share our plans with key interested partieskluczowe zainteresowane strony soon”.

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One of the prime moversgłówne siły napędowe behind the scientists’ letter, leading expertwiodący ekspert Prof Tina Barsby, described the minister’s response as a “encouraging” but said that his promise of clarityjasność “soon” had to mean really soon.

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Other countries, she said, were pressing aheadkontynuować with their plans for gene edited-crops at great speedz dużą prędkością. Thailand recently joined Canada, Australia, Japan, Brazil, Argentina and the USA in adoptingprzyjmowanie regulations around gene editing.

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Even New Zealand, which according to Prof Barsby “has historically taken a more cautious regulatory approachostrożne podejście regulacyjne to genetic technologies”, has announced that it will also introduce new legislationustawodawstwo.

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Prof Barsby added: “With our world-leadingwiodący na świecie science basebaza naukowa in genetic research, we cannot afford to be left behindzostać w tyle.”

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But Defra ministers also have to consider the views of environmental campaignersaktywiści, such as Dr Helen Wallace of Genewatch UK, who have concerns aboutmieć obawy dotyczące the “unwanted consequenceskonsekwencje” of the Precision Breeding ActUstawa o Precyzyjnym Hodowli.

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“If you remove these plants and animals from GM regulationsregulacje then you don’t have the same degree of risk assessmentocena, you don’t have labelling and you risk marketsryzykować rynki because many of them regulate them as GMOs,” she says.

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Dr Peter Stevenson, who is the chief policy advisorgłówny doradca ds. polityki to UK-based Compassion in World Farming (CIWF), also fears that the technology will further add to the intensificationintensyfikacja of animal farming - with negative consequencesnegatywne konsekwencje.

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“The use of selective breedinghodowla selektywna over the past 50 years has brought a huge number of animal welfaredobrostan zwierząt problems,” he says.

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“Chickens have been bredzostały wyhodowane to grow so quickly that their legs and hearts can’t properly support the rapidly developing bodyszybko rozwijające się ciało and as a result millions of animals are suffering from painful leg disorders, while others succumbulec to heart disease.

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“Do we really want to accelerateprzyspieszać this process with gene editingedycja genów?”

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CIWF’s biggest fear is that gene-editingedytowanie genów animals to make them more resistant to diseases will mean that the industry will not be motivated to deal withzajmować się the conditions that lead to the animals getting ill in the first placena samym początku - such as crowded, unsanitaryniehigieniczne conditions.

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The intensityintensywność of the production of milk, meat, and eggs currently leaves many animalspozostawia wiele zwierząt “exhausted and brokenwyczerpane i złamane”, Mr Stevenson told BBC News.

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Any genetic alterationzmiana genetyczna to an animal has the potential to have negative effects. But advocateszwolennicy say that for any commercial applicationzastosowanie komercyjne, firms have to demonstrate to the regulator that their changes do not harm the animal and back this uppoprzeć to with data.

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Indeed, many of those who argue foropowiadać się za the use of gene-editingedycja genów technology do so partly on animal welfare groundsze względu na dobrostan zwierząt - because it could make farm animals more resistant to disease and, since fewer would die as a result, fewer would be needed in the first place.

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Another of the letter’s signatoriessygnatariusze is Prof Helen Sang, who has laid the foundationspołożyła podstawy for using gene editing to develop bird flu resistanceodporność in chickens.

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“With a virulentzjadliwy strain of (the pig disease) PRRS wiping outwybijanie pig herds in Spain, African Swine Fever on the marchw natarciu north through Europe, and bird flu virus detected in both dairy cattle and their milk in the US, the importance of enabling all possible solutions, including precision breedingprecyzyjna hodowla, cannot be overstatednie można przecenić,” she said in response to Mr Zeichner.

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Some of the solutions to the problems Prof Sang mentions are already waiting in the wingsczekać w gotowości. She works at the Roslin Institute, where Dolly the Sheep was clonedsklonowany nearly 30 years ago. It now leads the world in developing gene-edited animalszwierzęta z edytowanymi genami.

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There are lessons here from the pastlekcje z przeszłości. Genetic modification was rejected by many consumers in the UK, the European Union and other countries 30 years ago because of its perceived unnaturalnessnienaturalność. GM crops were publicly trampled by protestors who saw this as a technology that they didn’t need, want or consider safe.

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At the same time, scientists were angry and upset that what they believed to be their world-saving technologytechnologia ratująca świat was being destroyed by, in their view, a wave of anti-scientific hysteriaantynaukowa histeria fuelledpodsycany by the media.

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Gene editingedycja genów seems to be a more palatabledo przyjęcia version of GM to some, arriving at a time when the debate is less polarisedspolaryzowany, the need for environmental solutionsrozwiązania środowiskowe is even more urgent and there seems to be a greater readinessgotowość for some scientists and campaigners to see each other’s perspectiveswidzieć nawzajem swoje perspektywy.

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Mr Stevenson of CWIF believes that in the long runna dłuższą metę, there has to be “huge reductionsogromne redukcje” in global livestock production to deal withradzić sobie z climate change, but pragmaticallypragmatycznie, the fact that climate change is already destroying so many lives, the use of gene editing could be “legitimateuzasadniony”. But he is wary.

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“It is hard for me to trust that part of the scientific worldświat naukowy who say: ‘Hey now, we have a new way to alterzmieniać animals.’

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“The danger is of animals being thought of as things, units of productionjednostki produkcyjne, more so than they are now, because we can modify them to make them more amenablepodatny to our uses and taking us away from this notion of animals as sentient beingspojęcie zwierząt jako istot czujących.”

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What happens next, not just in the UK, but the rest of the world, depends onzależy od whether the advocateszwolennicy of gene editing can convince the open-mindedotwarty umysł, but waryostrożny, such as Mr Stevenson, that they can act safely, ethically and in a way that makes lives better, not worse - for people and animals alike.

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