AUSTRALIA鈥橲 Murray-Darling River, the longest on the continent, is in trouble, dying under the combined pressures of mismanagement, thirsty irrigation systems and, last but not least, invading species such as the European carp. So an ambitious new plan to get rid of the foreign interlopers should be a cause for celebration, as long as it鈥檚 well thought through. And there鈥檚 the rub鈥�
The plan is to insert a gene called daughterless into male carp that will ensure that their offspring are male. When released into rivers, it should send the wild carp populations into a nosedive, hopefully making room once again for Australia鈥檚 native fish (see Gene warfare). The researchers working on the project have stellar reputations, and are committed to rigorously assessing the risks of their plan before they even think about releasing the carp into the rivers.
They鈥檝e got a tough job ahead of them. Even without genetic engineering, there are myriad dangers in messing with ecosystems. The history of biological control is littered with disasters in which the introduced pest-controller has become a pest itself. The cane toad is an example all too familiar to Australia. Worse, in the 1970s, the Partula snails of the South Pacific were almost wiped out when a snail introduced to save them decided instead to eat them. In the case of a gene designed to wipe out entire populations, it would be reckless not to be very cautious indeed. We need to know what would happen if the gene jumped to another species, or if the carp were let loose in another country.
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Australia鈥檚 CSIRO research organisation and the Murray-Darling Basin Commission, the two sponsors of the carp project, are making all the right noises about safety testing and public consultation. Yet they鈥檝e made one extraordinary and worrying assertion: that daughterless carp do not qualify as genetically modified organisms (GMOs). Their rationale is that the gene in question is a modified version of a carp gene, rather than one from another species.
Such nit-picking is daft and damaging. To anyone with any common sense, daughterless carp are GMOs. The nearest thing to an international definition, in the UN鈥檚 Biosafety Protocol, lists a 鈥渓iving modified organism鈥� as 鈥渁ny living organism that possesses a novel combination of genetic material obtained through the use of modern biotechnology鈥�. The CSIRO and the MDBC should resist any temptation to sidestep Australia鈥檚 regulations covering gene technology鈥攔egulations that were designed to curb any dangers that GMOs may pose to human health or the environment. But even if they do, there may still be a victim of this affair.
To deny that daughterless carp are GMOs will raise suspicions among politicians and the public alike. You might expect by now the lesson would have been learned from Monsanto鈥檚 debacle in Europe and the British government鈥檚 mad cow fiasco that not being straight and open with the public leads to disillusionment with science and backlash. Attempts to avoid regulations or to redefine genetic engineering will lead to further erosion of an already fragile public trust.