Tiki's Guide
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      Genetic
  Engineering

Genes, snails and whales — What makes you human or me a penguin? Genes. These are the instructions for how to build a body which all living things have.




Tiny creatures like snails have them just as big animals like whales do. So do all plants and other living things. Genes are clumps of information about how to make parts of living bodies … a little like a recipe for a cake or a music track on a cassette tape or CD. But they don't just exist on their own. They are packaged up in long strings called chromosomes like a whole music album on tape.

All these genes - that's all the instructions needed to make you or me - are stuffed in the middle of tiny blobby packets called cells. As millions and millions of these cells stick together, what we call a body begins to form. That could be a snail, a whale; you or me. (How this 'sticking together' happens is very complicated and no-one understands it properly.)

When you grow, some of your millions of cells split into pairs of identical new ones. Start with one million and, whooo! - you've got two million - twice as big! Now this is the clever bit: all the gene instructions get copied exactly just before the cells split. This is like copying your music tape onto another blank tape to give to your friend. So every cell of every body of every living thing on the planet always has this gene body-building information - the genetic code - inside it.

Tried and tested — Our home planet is very old. Do you know how old? Well it's four thousand six hundred million years old. That's 4,600,000,000 years! And life has been around for most of that period. That's plenty of time to try out a system for making new life to replace old, and this works just about perfectly. What's more, very simple life forms - just single cells - long ago began to join together to make more complicated bodies with thousands or millions of cells. All these new types of life were natural experiments to see what worked and what didn't. Many didn't work and died out - they became extinct.

Some worked for hundreds of millions of years like the dinosaurs, but still ended up extinct. You humans have been around for just a few hundred thousand years at the most, and you've only found out how to mess up our planet in the last hundred or so.

New types of bodies - organisms - generally work when they happen to be in a part of the planet where there's plenty of food and few enemies. Too little food, nasty climate or vicious enemies spells disaster and means extinction unless an organism can adapt in some way. This is where genes come in.

Adapt or die — The nineteenth century naturalist Charles Darwin was the first to realise that all life is governed by this rule. He found that creatures did indeed adapt though he didn't know how because, in his time, people didn't know about genes. It turns out that genes can change. They don't always make perfect copies when a cell divides. Sometimes a mistake is made. This is called a mutation. Most mistakes are disasters - the organism dies. Some are useful and give the creature an advantage which allows it to have babies which are more likely to be successful. But this process is entirely accidental. This slow business of trying new body shapes and styles, some of which work and some of which don't, has been going on for as long as life. Perhaps you know about it. It's called evolution - the survival of the fittest.

Coils and corkscrews — Two scientists, Francis Crick and James Watson, finally began to find out the basics of how genes worked and how they copied themselves. This was back in 1953 when they discovered what the stuff that makes all genes everywhere really looked like. This stuff is called DNA (for you clever kids, that stands for deoxyribonucleic acid - got that?) and it looks like a double corkscrew. It seems that DNA is the cassette tape which stores all the information about how to make a new cell - or person or penguin. It all coils up very small to pack away into the tiny space in the centre of cells.

Copycat — How does the DNA copy itself? Because it's made of two corkscrews - called a double helix - hooked together, it can unwind. As it does this, it attracts the right new bits to join the hooks which run down its middle - a bit like the legs on a millipede.

And so one strand rebuilds a new mirror-image of itself, just as its mirror-image partner is doing nearby. So one DNA molecule becomes two perfect copies. Clever stuff, eh?

How the DNA itself then organises all the stuff inside a cell to make whatever it needs - like proteins - is complicated. Scientists still don't understand all the things that have to happen to make what starts as just one cell into a human being or a whale. It's taken 3,500 million years for nature to develop all this wonderfully clever yet tiny machinery to build bodies. So it's not surprising that scientists don't understand all that much yet. This makes the next bit rather worrying.

Welcome to gene tinkering — Genes are long bits of DNA which code the instructions to build bodies in certain ways. Scientists know a lot about how genes work. They know how to 'snip' genes out of one place and 'stick' them into another. This is the hi-tech world of genetic engineering. We'll look at this in a moment. But first, let's ask a question or two. Why bother? What's the point of tinkering with genes - genetic engineering?

Evolution on fast forward — People are impatient. They want to move fast, not just in cars, planes and spaceships. They want to make new types of life which will do new things. The best example is plants for food. About 10,000 years ago, people found a new way to make sure they got enough food: they invented agriculture - farming. The first farmers simply collected seeds of food plants people liked to eat and sowed them in the ground. Each harvest, they gathered in their seed crops and selected the best and fattest seeds to sow in the ground next year. Because all organisms - plants, penguins or people - have in their genes a certain amount of variation, gradually this year-by-year selection of the best quality seeds meant that the crops gradually got better, giving more food which tasted nicer. This is now called breeding. And believe it or not, all dogs from huge St Bernards to tiny Chihuahuas have been bred by humans from one type of wild dog - probably a wolf. A St Bernard and a Chihuahua are the same species even though a St Bernard could gobble up a Chihuahua in one gulp. Being the same species means you can breed with any other member of your species. So you, a human, can breed - or mate - with any other human of the opposite sex to make a baby.

But breeding isn't fast enough for some humans who've found they can make lots of money, not just by breeding but by the new science of genetic engineering (part of what is called biotechnology - using life to make things).

So what is genetic engineering? — 'Engineering' is a fancy word for making something. So genetic engineering (often just called GE) is making something with genes. Clever scientists have learned to spot which gene does what in building a new organism. At least they think they have. They've found out that simple organisms like bacteria or viruses often have genes which are useful because they can be snipped out and put - spliced - into plant genes. Doing this could give the plant special new abilities like resisting disease. This is rather like grabbing a large scorpion so it can't nip you with its claws. You know it's safe to handle since its claws can't reach you but - ow! - it's got a sting in its tail you didn't know about. There may be a 'sting in the tail' which comes from splicing strange genes into other organisms - from viruses to plants, for example. No-one can be certain what will happen. It is unpredictable.


Genes can do unexpected and unintended things and nobody can ever be quite sure what.

What can genetic engineering do? — By making new types of GE organism (mostly plants) - called transgenic organisms because they contain genes pinched from something else like bacteria, viruses, other plants or even animals - scientists can get the plant to grow bigger or faster or make more for people to eat. Some plants could be made to grow in salty water or very little water - good for very dry countries. Others could be programmed to resist disease. Some could even make stuff called vaccines which could protect kids against nasty illnesses like polio or measles. Sounds great, doesn't it?

What's wrong with genetic engineering? — It's back to speed again. People want results fast. More important is that big companies want to make lots of money out of GE.

Most companies like to make lots of money and they like to make it fast. Some don't care much who or what gets trampled on in the process. That's why I'm frightened about GE in the hands of some of the companies that do it. If they could, they'd really like to make sure everyone everywhere is eating food made from GE plants. Then they'd make huge amounts of money because they own the seeds. Once they have changed plants by GE, companies can patent them. This means that any farmer who wants to sow that seed must pay money to the company which owns the patent. It means that the farmer has to buy new seeds every year... He can't save his own seeds any more as farmers have done since the start of farming. The company, not the farmer, then has control over who grows what food. Many poor farmers won't be able to afford to buy the seed.

Patents on living things has also linked in with a new sort of piracy: biopiracy.

But GE is a risky business and nobody knows - nobody! - what will happen if most people end up eating GE food most of the time. Nor does anybody know what effect growing all these plants with funny genes will have on other plants or animals over time. Maybe nothing will happen - or nothing much. Or maybe people and other living things will get ill and die. Nobody knows for sure.




For safety's sake, slow down! — Why the rush? The companies say they want to feed all the world's starving people. I wish I believed that. Few companies want to give money away - which is what they'd have to do to feed the starving. Hungry people have no money to buy food or land to grow it on. That is why they're hungry. Not because there isn't enough food. I think the companies are in a hurry because they want to make money fast. And like a lot of people, I think this is very dangerous because the genetically modified organisms (GMOs) they are already growing (especially, you American kids, in the USA) and getting us to eat have simply not been tested properly. If they could all agree to slow down while proper tests go ahead, everyone would be much happier.

It's the same stuff! Or is it? — The big seed companies like to say that their GMO seeds and foods are 'substantially equivalent' - meaning more or less the same as ordinary seeds. A soy bean seed or tomato looks the same whether it's genetically modified or it isn't. They taste the same. They smell the same. So they are the same (almost), say the companies. So there's no need to test them. Critics say this is a lie. If a plant's genes have been altered by GE, that is to make the plant make or do something different. So it is different, and it may have effects that no-one can know about until people start to get ill and even die.

In case you think this is a bit far fetched, this may have already happened. Thirty seven people in America died and over a thousand got sick because they ate a special type of food, made using GE bacteria. This food was thought to be 'substantially equivalent' to the normal one. People are still arguing over what happened exactly. Some say it was because of genetic engineering and others say it was not.

What the companies are making now — The first and most important GE crop is soybeans. "I don't eat those. Yuk!" you probably think. But you'd be surprised because you find them - or stuff made from them - in most foods from bread to hamburgers. Maize or corn is the second most important crop. And there are many more, mostly not important yet. But what's different about these GE crops if they don't taste different or look different? For the moment, there are two main differences: many of these GMOs are made to be resistant to the weedkiller chemicals. That means farmers can spray their GE crops with weedkillers (herbicides) which will kill every single plant except the crop. The other GMO crops have been engineered to make a poison which kills insect pests. These two things seem good ideas, you might think.

Problems with weedkiller-safe crops — Farmers like tidy fields and weeds compete with crop plants meaning that the farmer gets less crop and less money.

So making sure no weeds grow by spraying herbicide seems to make sense … but not for the other creatures and plants that live on the planet. By killing everything but his crop, the farmer is making the landscape into a desert for other life. No birds will be there because there are no weed seeds or insects to eat. There will be no flowers. Just miles of identical GE plants. The whole web of life is destroyed. Oh, and many farmers are finding that they aren't making the great profits they had hoped to make by growing GE crops.

And problems with poisonous plants — Insects are very successful creatures. They are very adaptable and, because of their own variable genes, can quickly overcome poisons used by humans. Every time a new poison - pesticide - is made, within a few years, pesky insects become immune to it. The same is already happening with the new transgenic plants which make their own insect poisons. Unfortunately, these same poisons are very important in organic farming (farming without chemicals and artificial poisons in a nature-friendly way) as a weapon of last resort. Organic farmers use it only occasionally and it's very effective because the pests have no chance to get used to it. The transgenic crops will be making this poison all the time in every part of the plant - roots, stems and leaves. What will the effect be on people or animals which eat them? Very early experiments suggest that some may be harmful. They are certainly harmful to the insects (predators) which eat other insects (prey) which have started to feed on the plants.

Scattering the genes - What happens when GE plants grow where they're not supposed to? Or when their genes get scattered around by accident? When plants flower, they do it for one reason only: to make new plants. The flowers attract bees which collect pollen from the male part of the flower. The bees visit hundreds of similar flowers, some of which may be miles away, and leave some pollen from their earlier visits on the female parts of later flowers. The male pollen connects with the female part of the flower and combines its genes with the female's genes to make a new seed. This is called 'pollination' or 'fertilisation', long words for plant sex. Some other plants (like maize, a member of the family of grasses) use the wind rather than insects to carry their pollen around. This pollen can travel a very long way.

If pollen from a GM plant happens to land on a plant of the same species which has not been genetically modified, it fertilises the unmodified plant just the same. But the GM genes will become part of the new seed. When the seed grows into a new plant, it may grow up to be just like its engineered parent. It will be contaminated. This is one of the main reasons many people object to GE plants because there is no way to stop this contamination - called gene flow - if the GMOs grow in open fields on a large scale (as they do).

Hope for the future? — Yes there is - if you and your friends do something. Genetic engineering could help people wipe out some diseases and could, in the right hands, help feed the world. But for the time being, I think people should go ahead slowly and cautiously. I don't think it's wise for millions of you people - especially young kids or babies - to be eating GE food without knowing it when it hasn't even been properly tested. And I don't think it's at all wise to be running these great 'experiments' in the open air on a huge scale. Both these things are already happening - in the US, Argentina, Canada, Australia and now China. But many other people in the world - particularly Europe and India - have woken up and want to stop being used as guinea pigs. There's already a big fight between ordinary 'guinea pig' people - who are now just called 'consumers' - and the companies, usually supported by their governments. I hope you 'guinea pig' folks win because if you don't, I'm not sure what will happen. But I don't think it will be very nice for anyone - including the people who run the companies. Even the most powerful man in the most powerful company is human and has to eat. And he probably has kids whom he cares about. Does he really want to use his own kids as guinea pigs too?

The bottom line — In the longer term I think some types of GE could be useful to people. It might mean new ways to cure diseases or to prevent them in the first place. But - and this is a very big BUT indeed! - all you people need to know what's happening and why. You need to get involved in thinking about whether GE (and other new human technologies) are good or bad... or if bits of them are good and other bits bad and dangerous. You also need to have a choice, to have a say in what is done or not done. You need to have proper labelling on the stuff you eat and drink so you know how it's made. Governments and companies tend to keep rather quiet about GE. After all, people can't object to things they don't know about. Now people are coming to realise just what's been going on and more and more want to put a stop to this secrecy. Don't you want to be involved in deciding the future of life on our planet? GE could affect natural life in all kinds of ways nobody yet knows. If companies release lots of GMOs and something goes terribly wrong, who pays for the damage? Can the damage be repaired? And who pays the bills? Please think carefully about what kind of a future you really want. Ask questions. Don't let others do your thinking for you! Don't leave it to the 'experts'!

What can kids do? — Lots of things. If you are worried about GE, here's what you can do:

• Find out about others who feel the same way. There are hundreds of groups in many countries all working to wake up other people to the possible risks of GE. You can join and I've listed some on my links page.
• You can send emails or write letters to your local or national government in your country - that would really surprise them.
• Better still, call or write to supermarket managers or even the companies who make GMOs. Tell them what you think and why.
• You can pester your mum or dad to help you (and them) find out more. Get them to buy organic food (which is not allowed to contain any GMOs).
• If you have a garden or yard, try growing your own vegetables. It's fun... and then you know where your food came from. You could even keep a couple of hens for eggs (being a bird myself, I don't like to think about eating eggs but I don't suppose the hen will mind if you're kind to her). Or buy local food, perhaps from a farmer's market, your local farm or join a veg box scheme. Again, you know where the food comes from, who grows it and what it is they grow.
• Ask questions. Don't accept answers you don't think are honest. Question where the information comes from. Is it biased?
• Tell other people what's going on.
• Write to your local newspaper.
• Join your local radio phone-in or ask questions on a TV chat show (if you can).
• Talk about it to your friends or your teachers at school. Get your teachers to run some kind of project where you all help each other to find out more.
  

  I've written this guide just because I love all life on Earth and I want you and your friends to wake up and help persuade your human companies and industries do things which are useful, sensible and not damaging to the rest of life. It won't be easy, but there's one thing I'm sure of:
  You can do it!
  

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  Click here to go to my links page to find out more about groups concerned about genetic engineering and who are trying to change its direction for the common good of all. I've also added some sites which think GE is a great idea. See what you think.
  

  Good luck kids. It's your world...!

  Some people really hate this site. They tell me I'm lying and dishonest and many worse things. (And someone has even made an anti-Tiki site. Now who would take the trouble to do that?) So how do YOU know if I am telling the truth? Well you could start by a little surfing. Type 'genetic engineering' into any search engine, and see what you come up with. You'll find some sites which tell you how great GE will be and others which will say the opposite. Who is right? That's for you to decide. My guide is just that: a guide - a penguin's view. I'd just like people to slow down a little and do some thinking.

  What do you think about genetic engineering and how it should be used? If you do, please write to me. As long as your message is sensible and friendly, I promise to reply. I will also put your message on my Friends page. Click to email me now!

  If you found my genetic engineering guide helpful, why not tell your friend(s) about it. It's very easy. Just type your friend's email address into the box and click 'send'. There's no tricks, no junk mail, no ads. Just a simple email from you to your friend. You can add your own message if you want.