THIRD WORLD NETWORK BIOSAFETY INFORMATION SERVICE
Dear Friends and Colleagues
Right of Communities to Say “No” to Gene Drives
Gene drive organisms (GDOs), also called “exterminator genes”, are designed to hijack normal inheritance laws in sexual reproduction, forcing a novel gene through whole populations of organisms, potentially wiping out entire species. An article by civil society groups, published in the journal Development, expounds on the rights of communities to say ‘no’ to such new genetic technologies. These rights are being eroded, despite calls for the free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) of affected communities to be respected.
At the United Nations’ Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) meeting in Egypt during November 2018, indigenous peoples and other members of farming communities were vital in calling for a moratorium on any environmental releases of gene drives, in the interests of precaution and justice. Hundreds of organizations, many based in the Global South, joined this call. Efforts to block such a moratorium were led in part by proponents of gene drives.
Target Malaria is a project led by the Imperial College in London. Some USD100 million is being directed through it for GDO research, largely from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. In July 2019, in villages of Bana and Sourkoudingan in Burkina Faso, Target Malaria released ‘male sterile’ genetically modified mosquitoes as a preliminary step towards releasing future mosquitoes with gene drives. Target Malaria has however failed to publish any details of the engagement or consent process that led to this release and whether anyone went through a process of FPIC. Investigations show that many in the communities were not fully informed nor did they give their consent.
According to the authors, Target Malaria is doing research that would be deemed unethical in the UK, where its scientists are based. By conducting experiments in a foreign setting with more lax regulations, it is engaging in what the European Commission has, in the context of medical trials, called ethics dumping. These developments demonstrate the urgent need to democratize the development of new technologies and to continue to demand that proponents of experimental releases are obliged to obtain free, prior and informed consent.
With best wishes,
Third World Network
131 Jalan Macalister
10400 Penang
Malaysia
Email: twn@twnetwork.org
Websites: http://www.twn.my/and http://www.biosafety-info.net/
To subscribe to other TWN information services: www.twnnews.net
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EXTERMINATOR GENES: THE RIGHT TO SAY NO TO ETHICS DUMPING
Mariann Bassey-Orovwuje, Jim Thomas, Tom Wakeford
Development. September 2019
https://doi.org/10.1057/s41301-019-00214-3
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/335997824_Exterminator_Genes_The_Right_to_Say_No_to_Ethics_Dumping
Abstract
The scientific-industrial complex is promoting a new wave of genetically modified organisms, in particular gene drive organisms, using the same hype with which they tried to persuade society that GMOs would be a magic bullet to solve world hunger. The Gates Foundation claims that GDOs could help wipe out diseases such as malaria. Powerful conservation lobby groups claim GDOs will protect engendered [sic] species. Not only are the benefits from GDOs based, like their predecessors, on flawed ecological thinking, but they are backed by the same agri-business interests that have devastated agroecological farming systems. The rights of communities to say ‘no’ to new genetic technologies is being eroded, despite United Nations agreements, such as the Convention on Biological Diversity, which call for the free, prior and informed consent of affected communities to be respected. By exporting their field trials to countries with weak regulatory regimes and lowering of the standards of consent the Gates Foundation’s Target Malaria project has already been guilty of ethics dumping. These developments demonstrate the urgent need to democratize the development of new technologies.
Challenges for Policymakers
GDOs are invasive by design. They are a technology designed to ensure that engineered genes persist and spread in wild populations. While developers of these ‘exterminator drives’ claim that there may be ways to effectively contain GDOs in the future, these hypothetical claims and assumptions have yet to be examined, let alone tested. On 16 October 2018, ETC Group called for a moratorium on any environmental releases of Exterminator drives, in the interests of precaution and justice. Hundreds of organizations, many based in the Global South, joined this call. Several governments represented at the UN also expressed their concern.
Strict laboratory handling and containment rules for all gene drive research must be internationally agreed and put into practice before further research can proceed, even in the lab. At present, it appears possible for scientists to develop new GDOs without them being subject to any specific biosafety regulations. In some jurisdictions, such as Brazil, it is not even clear whether they will be subject to the weak biosafety rules that controlled the development and use of GMOs.
Technologies that originate in the laboratory, such as GMOs and now GDOs, ignore deep-seated injustices and power imbalances which require political answers and democratic scrutiny, rather than technical quick-fixes. At both national and international levels, questions of technology assessment and societal consent have only begun to be formally addressed since pressure was put on by grassroots-based and other civil society organizations.
On 29 November 2018, after 2 weeks of highly contentious negotiations at the United Nations’ Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt, 196 countries agreed to stringent rules on ‘gene drives.’ As GDOs are genetically engineered to make them take over and then potentially eliminate entire populations, we should call them what they are: ‘exterminator drives’. The UN’s final agreement recognizes the serious risks and ‘uncertainties’ around the gene drive technology.16 It calls upon governments only to consider introducing GDOs into the environment for experimental research, when ‘scientifically sound case-by-case risk assessments have been carried out,’ when ‘risk management measures are in place to avoid or minimize potential adverse effects’ and when ‘the ‘free, prior and informed consent’ of ‘potentially affected indigenous peoples and local communities is sought or obtained.’
This decision goes some way towards a moratorium on the release of gene drive organisms preferred by some countries at the talks, which is supported by indigenous people, food sovereignty activists and African civil society.17 Efforts to block such a moratorium were led in large part by Target Malaria, the world’s largest group undertaking gene drive experiments. Government representatives singing from the hymn-sheet of Target Malaria, including one employee, were inserted onto the official CBD negotiating teams of at least two African countries.
The outcome of the negotiations in Egypt places consent at the heart of any path toward the potential release of gene drive organisms. This has put the spotlight back on the adequacy of Target Malaria processes for gaining consent. In the two villages of Bana and Sourkoudingan in Burkina Faso, they are scheduled to soon release ‘male sterile’ genetically modified mosquitoes as a preliminary step towards releasing others with gene drives. Here they have brought reporters along and introduced them to people who are supportive of the project. Target Malaria has also issued videos that appear to show individuals in the communities supporting the project.18
To find out just how fully Target Malaria has obtained the ‘free, prior and informed consent’ of potentially affected communities, freelance journalist Zahra Moloo recently travelled first with two activists and then on a second trip, with a translator, to visit the targeted villages in Burkina Faso. Unlike many other journalists, she chose to visit the communities independently of Target Malaria. What emerged is different from that which Target Malaria has reported. Moloo concludes:
The longer I filmed the more I became concerned to find that local people had not been involved in a process of genuine participation, let alone consent. Most worrying about Target Malaria’s process of ‘engagement’ is the apparent absence of informed consent, a concept familiar to medical researchers. Target Malaria routinely speaks of ‘engagement’ and promoting ‘community acceptance’, but not the unequivocal word ‘consent’. The project’s preferred use of these words suggests its leaders have already decided to proceed with the release. Local people appear to only have access to information about gene drives from one source, which itself has a vested interest in promoting them—Target Malaria.
Following the outcome at Sharm el Sheikh, Target Malaria appeared to brief one journalist that ‘The requirement of “free, prior and informed consent” is slightly different in a public health context than in individual medical contexts.’19 They argue that they obtain consent from everyone in a household when they collect mosquitoes, but that ‘it’s not logistically possible to obtain consent from each and every person affected’ when it comes to GM mosquitoes.’ However, it is the consent of potentially affected peoples that the UN has recommended for GDOs. When it comes to such a controversial technology, with potentially serious ecological effects, and as yet unknown consequences for health, giving consent cannot be limited to a handful of residents or their community leaders.
An academic-style article published in April 2019, the lead author of which is Target Malaria’s public relations officer, the authors report on research undertaken ‘over the course of a year by a multidisciplinary team of experts and practitioners’. It states that ‘a clear understanding of who is likely to be significantly affected by the activities or implications of a [GDO] project is vital to designing an effective engagement strategy’. Yet the paper re-affirms Target Malaria’s view that a consent model does not apply. As we write this article (July/August 2019) Target Malaria had still failed to publish any details of the engagement or consent process that led to the release on 1 July 2019 and whether anyone went through a process of consent.
Civil society groups operating in and around the test-site villages are baffled as to why they too have not been consulted about a technology with far-reaching consequences. In the interviews for this film, Moloo heard from several people that the experimental release of GM and exterminator drive technology should be stopped until the risks and impacts have been investigated and until people across Burkina Faso have been fully informed and become active participants in decision-making.
The UN still recommends the consent of potentially affected peoples for new technologies such as gene drives. When it comes to such a controversial technology, with potentially serious ecological effects, and as-yet unknown consequences for health, giving consent cannot be limited to a handful of residents or opaque.
Target Malaria is doing research that would be deemed unethical in the UK, where its scientists are based. They are doing experiments in a foreign setting with more lax regulations. This practice is what the European Commission has, in the context of medical trials, called ethics dumping. The concept is part of a wider story of un-ethical domestic research practices that were documented in the mid-twentieth century, such as Nazi physicians’ experimentation on minority groups, or the infamous Tuskegee trials, which saw 600 African American sharecroppers enrolled in a trial by the US Government to observe the impact of syphilis if left untreated (Schroeder et al. 2018; Perryer 2019).
Burkina Faso has already been subject to ethics dumping via Target Malaria’s GM mosquito releases. GDO releases are the next step. Proposals to release GDOs on indigenous territories in New Zealand20, Australia21, and Hawaii22 are on the agenda for the coming months. Decisions taken in this African state in relation to this exterminator technology could set an international precedent. We must continue to demand that proponents of experimental releases are obliged to obtain ‘free, prior and informed’ consent in all these countries. Given Target Malaria’s failure to follow United Nations recommendations, the people of Burkina Faso and concerned civil society groups across Africa, have now called for them to explain what rights they will have to say yes or no before proceeding any further.23
Footnotes:
16 https://www.cbd.int/COP20 18-EGYPT.PDF
17 https://www.homef.org/posts/do-not-betray-africa-on-synbio-andgene-drives
18 https://vimeo.com/301653373
19 https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2018/12/7/18126123/genedrive-malaria-convention-biological-diversity
20 https://www.islandconservation.org/gene-drive-conservationgame-changer/
21 https://www.smh.com.au/environment/conservation/could-wa-bethe-genetic-testing-ground-for-synthetic-mice-to-end-mice-20180221-h0wev9.html
22 https://www.technologyreview.com/s/601383/the-plan-to-rescue-hawaiis-birds-with-genetic-engineering/
23 https://www.etcgroup.org/content/civil-society-denounces-releasegm-mosquitoes-burkina-faso