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Plant Physiology
By Ingo Potrykus
March 2001
Professor Emeritus, ETH Zurich, Switzerland; Member of Academia Europaea; and Recipient of the International Society for Plant Molecular Biology 2000 Kumho Science International Award
The term "golden rice" was coined by a Thai businessman who is active in initiatives aimed at reducing the birth rate, a major cause of the food security problem. As it turned out, the term "golden rice" has proven to be enormously successful in piquing the interest of the public. (I gave up tallying its mention in the popular media after more than 30 television broadcasts and 300 newspaper articles, but I am still busy with requests for interviews every week.) It is difficult to estimate how much of its celebrity stems from its catchy monicker and how much is from the technological breakthrough it represents. Needless to say, we live in a society that is strongly influenced (not to say manipulated) by the media. As the popular media live by selling news, "catchy" names are especially useful in attracting the interest of media consumers. The "story," however, must also be accompanied by an important message, in this case, that the purely altruistic use of genetic engineering technology has potentially solved an urgent and previously intractable health problem for the poor of the developing world. And this is my first message and my response to Chris Somerville's (2000) contribution: I, too, believe in the power of education and rational discourse. However, after more then 10 years on the frontlines of the public debate concerning genetically modified organisms (GMOs), I have learned that even with the help of the media, rational arguments succeed in influencing only a small minority of the public-at-large. In short, rational arguments are poor ammunition against the emotional appeals of the opposition. The GMO opposition, especially in Europe, has been extraordinarily successful in channeling all negative emotions associated with the supposed dangers of all new technologies as well as economic "globalization" onto the alleged hazards presented by the release of GMOs into the food chain. This is one reason why the story of "golden rice" is so important: In the short history of GMO research, "golden rice" is unique in having been embraced by the public-at-large. The reason for this, I believe, lies in its emotional appeal: People are truly concerned about the fate of blind children, and they are willing to support a technology that offers the children at risk the opportunity to avoid blindness.
I fully agree with the opinion of Maarten Chrispeels (2000) that "food security" for developing countries is one of the major challenges for mankind. I believe that scientists, as a privileged group of citizens, have more than an academic responsibility to advance science: They must also accept a higher social responsibility and, wherever possible, use science to help solve the important problems not of industry, but of humanity. In this respect our scientific community is not in balance, and the public senses this intuitively. This, in turn, has made it easy for the GMO opposition to wage a war of propaganda against our work with arguments to the effect that we are only pretending to work for mankind, or are only satisfying our own egos, or are working merely for the profits of industry. For example, laypeople often ask if food security for developing countries is such a dire problem, and if scientists feel that GMO technology should be developed to contribute to a solution, then why are so many scientists working on Arabidopsis and so few on those plants that feed the poor? Of course, one can pontificate about the importance of basic research and how all the knowledge gained from Arabidopsis will ultimately expedite the improvement of major crops, but one realizes that the average citizen remains emotionally unswayed by such arguments. The public's skepticism is heightened by the fact that many scientists do have funds from industry and, therefore, have their sensibilities attuned to solutions of problems of interest to industry. Press releases from the agrobiotechnology industry relating to work on food security in developing countries are taken as disingenious and serve only to foster ill will against the technology. So what can we do to improve the public sentiment about the technology? We need more examples of the "golden rice" type; namely, successful projects that were developed in public institutions using public funding that address an urgent need, are not solvable with traditional techniques, are being made available free of charge and limitations to the poor, and have no deleterious effects on the environment or human health.
For the full article, go to Plant Physiology, March 2001, Vol. 125, pp. 1157-1161, http://www.plantphysiology.org/current.shtml