Sir

The letter from Crompton et al., describing themselves as “individuals involved in either the development or implementation of risk assessment frameworks for biotechnology” — regulations mandated by the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) — illustrates perfectly the emerging problems of those efforts (Nature 391, 528; 1998).

The authors assert that biosafety regulations should involve “the overt consideration of socioeconomic issues before the environmental release or transboundary movement of genetically modified organisms” (defined narrowly as those crafted with molecular techniques of genetic manipulation). In other words, any field trial, anywhere, of a new, recombinant strain of Rhizobium or a new variety of transgenic maize would be subject to an evaluation of possible social and economic impact, anywhere else in the world.

The basic premise of the CBD-mandated biosafety protocol — that the most precise, molecular techniques of genetic manipulation deserve extra scrutiny because they confer on products incremental risk — is contrary to scientific consensus. As a leading article in Nature has said (356, 1–2; 1992), a broad scientific consensus holds that “the same physical and biological laws govern the response of organisms modified by modern molecular and cellular methods and those produced by classical methods ⃛. [Therefore] no conceptual distinction exists between genetic modification of plants and microorganisms by classical methods or by molecular techniques that modify DNA and transfer genes.” Triggers to government supervision should therefore focus on product traits that may be related to risk rather than on whether one or another technique of genetic manipulation was used.

Furthermore, a requirement to consider socioeconomic factors before the field testing of a recombinant organism would imply the following kinds of scenarios and mandatory assessments.

• Any pest- or disease-resistant plant: What would be the possible impact on workers, companies and countries manufacturing chemical pesticides?

• New plant varieties engineered to produce plastics or other substances now derived from petroleum: What would be the effects on the economies of the Persian Gulf states and other OPEC countries?

• A new malaria or schistosomiasis vaccine delivered in an edible fruit: How will national infrastructures absorb increases in population if the death rate from those highly prevalent diseases falls precipitously?

If such questions can ever be answered accurately, there is certainly little likelihood of doing so while products are at an early stage of testing. At any stage, such efforts would constitute major interdisciplinary research projects and would be highly vulnerable to the vagaries of value judgements. Moreover, such analyses have not been required for other technological innovations, from the internal combustion engine and electric automobiles to semi-dwarf wheat varieties and seedless grapes.

Finally, there is the more basic issue of whether a commitment to free trade and markets makes such requirements appropriate or useful at any time.