SRT GENERAL REPORT
TO THE 2002 CHURCH OF SCOTLAND GENERAL ASSEMBLY
See also SRT Special Report on
Sustainable Agriculture to the 2002 Assembly.
Contents
Deliverances passed by the General Assembly
1. Call upon European Union to accept HMG to the proposals on GM foods, labelling and traceability in the current draft EC directives, to ensure that the costs of such measures are not borne by conventional foods, and resist pressures to allow the import of GMO products unless they are duly labelled and segregated from the relevant non-GMO produce.
2. Call upon HMG to conduct investigate further the causes of animal welfare problems associated with nuclear transfer cloning.
3. Call upon HMG to ensure that animal-human hybrid nuclear transfer is explicitly forbidden in law.
4. Encourage congregations consider holding services and debates on themes under discussion of the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg in August-September 2002.
5. Urge congregations which have received introductory material for the Eco-Congregation Programme to register and formally adopt the programme, and encourage other congregations to join the scheme.
6. Urge that an environmental and energy audit be performed on the activities of 121 George Street, and other office premises of the Church of Scotland, with a view to identifying areas in which their environmental impact could be reduced.
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SRT Assistant Director Post
In September the Board of National Mission agreed to create a new post of Assistant Director of the Society, Religion and Technology Project. This exciting development in SRT's 32 year history reflects the enormous increase in opportunities which have opened up for the Project in the past few years. Technology has emerged as a mainstream question for society in many areas. SRT's pioneering work on GM food and animal issues, risk, patenting, and on especially cloning and stem cells, which grew from our contacts with the Roslin researchers, have together propelled the Project into the forefront of national and international debate on biotechnology. This has led to unparalleled activity in the life of SRT and to opportunities, often at the highest levels, that for the past 2 years have exceeded the limits of our human resources. We are delighted at the affirmation of the strategic importance of SRT's mission for the Church of Scotland which this new post will represent. The new post will focus on SRT's long standing work on environment, which have been taking an unwelcome back seat, and also on the wider dissemination of SRT's work in the church and ecumenically. It will enable SRT to address some forthcoming issues in relation to renewable and nuclear energy policy and climate change.
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GM Food and Labelling : Developments in Europe and USA
This report gives some examples of these opportunities as SRT's mission in the UK, European and world arena. In July 2001 the European Commission published proposals which would require that all GM foods be labelled as such, not merely by their content, but even if a GM process had been used in growing or preparing the food. These are welcome and go a long way to addressing the 1999 General Assembly's deliverance over consumer choice about GM food. They would overcome the present unjust situation that labelling as "genetically modified" is only required where the product contains measurable amounts of the relevant genetic material or its products.
However, the UK Government, following the advice of the Food Standards Agency (FSA), has opposed the EC proposals. FSA sees it as impractical and open to abuse to make a requirement for something which cannot be tested on the product, but can only be verified by its traceablility back to source. The SRT Project along with the main UK consumer organisations has criticised the FSA position, saying that its concern for regulatory water-tightness is much less important in this case than giving consumers a proper choice, either to have or to avoid a GM foodstuff. A second concern is that the FSA's alternative proposal, for labelling as "GM free", could lay the burden of the additional costs incurred by segregation and traceability on to those who want to buy non-GM food, instead on GM food. It is normally the innovator who should bear the costs implicit in bringing a novel variety to market, not the providers of what has been hitherto the normal product. Consumers ought to have the right to choose GM food if they wish, but they should not have to pay more for conventional food because of labelling it as non-GM.
The issue may also reignite US-EU tensions over GM issues. In the USA GM crops are not seen as such a major issue and European concerns tend to be perceived as trade issues or hysteria. The technical and commercial developments are very much US-led, and in this context the SRT Director Dr Bruce was invited to be the European representative in a series of ethical discussions with the US biotechnology industry and with the US National Academy of Sciences. One meeting began on the morning of September 11 and was rapidly abandoned. Stranded as a group in Philadelphia, our shared humanity in response to the awful events of those days has added a new dimension to our discussion of the future for food technology and GM crops. At this crucial time for global issues such contacts are strategically important. SRT's experience in these issues has played an important contribution here and is a witness to the relevance of the gospel to the real world.
SRT has been working with other church groups on these issues. Dr Bruce drafted a Report on GM food for the Church and Society Commission of the Conference of European Churches, and chaired an Evangelical Alliance study which produced the book "Modifying Creation", published by Paternoster Press in November 2001. We are also preparing a second edition of SRT's own book Engineering Genesis, updating especially on GM food risk, organic agriculture and the global context.
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Biotechnology as a Social Contract
Another area of opportunity was an invitation to Dr Bruce to address the World Life Sciences Forum, Biovision, in Lyon in February 2001, to give an ethical vision for biotechnology to some of the key players in the biotechnology industry, policy makers and the research community. His paper laid out the idea of biotechnology has an invisible social contract with civil society. People are prepared to accept novel technologies to deliver certain benefits, and will accept and the changes and risks they may bring, provided a set of conditions are fulfilled.
- Values : does it uphold or challenge basic values?
- Familiarity : is the technology familiar and understood, socially embedded?
- Comparison : if it is unfamiliar, has something like it gone wrong before or proved reliable?
- Control : how much do we feel in control of the technology or the risks?
- Trust : how much do we trust those who are in control?
- Vision : how much do we share their values, motivations and goals?
- Choice : is it a voluntary or imposed risk?
- Frequency of risk : if it's too frequent it's unacceptable
- Magnitude of risk : there is a much greater aversion to high consequence risks
- Immediacy of risk : is it noticeable or does it creep up insidiously?
- Benefit : does it offer realistic, tangible benefits to the consumer?
- Profile : has it been given a positive or negative image in the media?
If several of these factors are not fulfilled, the technology is unlikely to be accepted, as was dramatically illustrated in the UK public reaction to food products derived from imported US GM soya and maize, which failed most of the conditions. Dr Bruce has since presented this analysis to members of the Agriculture and Environment Biotechnology Commission (AEBC) at a special joint meeting it held in Edinburgh with members of the SRT's Engineering Genesis working group in April 2001, where it was well received, and to the Biotechnology Research Council in June. SRT was also invited to Brazil in March as part of a British Council delegation to the state of Parana, a major grower of soya and maize. This was an exciting opportunity to discuss the ethical issues with a key developing country which is currently debating whether or not to go down the GM crops route, and how to engage the public with the issues.
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GM and Cloned Animals and Ethics
SRT was also invited to meet with the AEBC to discuss the ethics of GM animals, in the light of the 2001 Assembly report GM Animals, Humans and the Future of Genetics. We also made two submissions to the Home Office - about the use of cost-benefit analysis in weighing up animal harm and human benefit and about the new ethical review process under the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act. The Home Office assessor asked to meet with Dr Bruce to hear about his experience as ethical advisor on animal issues with the Scottish Agricultural College and PPL Therapeutics plc. Dr Bruce stressed the importance of other organisations learning from SAC and PPL's examples of opening ethical issues within the organisation and to wider scrutiny in the public domain.
The combination of arthritis in Dolly the cloned sheep and the creation of a set of Cloned "knockout" Piglets by PPL's US subsidiary gave SRT prime media exposure, with interviews as the first item on Channel 4 TV news and on BBC Scottish news. SRT was already well aware of the issues and had indeed foreseen this very debate a year before in presenting them to the 2001 General Assembly. The removal of the function of a particular gene in an animal is a serious intervention which should not be done without a very good reason. Overcoming an immune rejection to enable pig organs be transplanted into human patients might constitute such a reason, but only provided the prospects for saving life were considerable. It is worthwhile continuing research but only as long as viable solutions seem likely to problems of rejection and the risk of virus transfer.
Dolly's arthritis was exaggerated in the media as throwing the concept of cloning into doubt. While giving rise to concern, several factors indicate this conclusion to be premature. It is a single result on a unique animal. To be statistically significant, diseases associated with old age would need to be found several more times in cloned animals. Although Dolly shows evidence in her chromosomes as if she were "older" than normal, some other cloned farm animals show the opposite effect, appearing to be "younger". This indicates how much remains unclear in the underlying science of cloning. Dolly was by no means the first cloned animal, but her novelty was in being cloned by reprogramming adult cells. Her arthritis might be associated with this method of cloning rather than all cloning. Most animal cloning uses a more efficient method starting from reproductive cells. By this means Roslin and PPL have sheep both of 4 years old and one a year older than Dolly, which do not show arthritis. Both organisations use animal cloning primarily as a means to do novel genetic modifications. Once a "founder" GM animal is produced, they no longer need to clone, and breed by normal mating. The major practical doubts about animal cloning remain the welfare problems at birth in sheep and cattle (though not in pigs). SRT has repeatedly said that these problems would need to be resolved for the technique to be used regularly on animals.
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Human Cloning Legislation
The media fascination with cloning has given unmerited attention to spurious claims for the imminent production of cloned babies. The scientists concerned have drawn universal condemnation from their professional communities, on ethical grounds and because of the serious risks involved. This did, however, prompt the UK Government finally to legislate to ban it in December 2001. SRT had first questioned the Government in 1997 whether the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act of 1990 really did outlaw the cloning of human beings, and had several times urged specific legislation. The Government eventually promised this in August 2000, but gave it no priority. In November 2001 a judicial review ruled that creating cloned human embryos lay outwith the strict definition of embryos in the Act. This left both reproductive and therapeutic uses of nuclear transfer cloning unregulated, and so led to an emergency Bill specifically to ban human reproductive cloning. While this is welcomed, it is a sad reflection that it took a political embarrassment to rush legislation which could have been carefully planned four years earlier. The Appeal Court has since overturned the judicial review, so that the use of cloned human embryos for research into stem cells once more comes under the HFE Act. Guidelines still need to be set, however, to ensure that embryo research is only done when there really is no alternative, and to ensure that alternative, non-embryonic methods are also fully researched. Claims to have created both cloned and parthenogenetic human embryos in November seem to have been premature.
Wider Ethical Debate on Embryonic Stem Cells and Therapeutic Uses of Cloning
The UK Parliament's decision to allow embryonic stem cell research and cloned embryos has aroused much controversy in continental Europe, especially in Germany. The SRT Director was invited to speak at a number of high level discussions on the issue by the British Embassy in Berlin, Humbolt University in Berlin, and the European Molecular Biology Laboratory in Heidelberg. He wrote an article in the leading German newspaper the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. He was also asked by the European Commission to speak at its major conference on stem cells in Brussels in December 2001, and by the European Parliament to discuss these issues with members of its Human Genetics Committee when it visited Edinburgh in November. He also presented objections to the patenting of stem cells at a hearing of the European Commission's ethical advisory group, on behalf of European churches.
The General Assembly of 2001 took the position that cloned embryos might be used to produce stem cells for treating degenerative diseases, but that spare IVF embryos should be not be used for this purpose, because God intends embryos only for reproduction. In the various discussions described above most authorities, such as the EC's ethical advisory group, have argued in the opposite sense. It has been contended that it would be illogical to forbid the use of "spare" embryos to make stem cells on the grounds that this would frustrate their reproductive intention, because in practice the fate of the hundreds of thousands of spare embryos in Europe is that they will simply be destroyed. It has been also argued that if spare embryos are forbidden, cloned embryos should not be allowed, because they both should have the same status as embryos. Cloned embryos are generally seen in Europe present more ethical problems because of the physical risks involved, and make it easier to perform reproductive cloning. SRT considers there is validity to some of these arguments.
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Science and Society
"Trust me I'm a Scientist" was the provocative title of a day session about scientists and their sometimes strained relationship with society, at the annual Festival of British Association for the Advancement of Science in Glasgow in September. Dr Bruce spoke on the church's role in science, describing how SRT has provided a unique, creative space to bring scientists together with specialists in ethics, social sciences and other disciplines, often before issues became points of contention. He was an expert witness in a public debate on "Should we trust scientists?", arguing that we should, if they prove trustworthy, but not if they merely dismiss public concerns as ignorance or promote science as answering all problems. He also spoke on the new Scottish Science Strategy, arguing that it needs a much greater emphasis on ethical issues in setting science policy.
Energy Policy and Risk
SRT has continued a watching brief on climate change and energy policy issues in relation to the review of energy policy, the development of renewable sources and the future of nuclear power. It hopes to begin a major study on these issues later in 2002. A new dossier on climate change is also available through the European Christian Environment Network of which SRT is a member. SRT continues its important work on value issues relating to technological risk, in biotechnology, mobile telecommunications, waste disposal and energy.
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The 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development, Johannesburg : "Rio + 10"
In 1992 the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro put environment high on the global agenda in 1992. Ten years on what have we to show for it? The world's leaders will gather again at the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg from 25 August to 4 September 2002. As they take stock of the present and consider where we go in future, the UK churches have a variety of initiatives to keep our responsibility for care for God's creation to the fore in our local congregations and communities, and to our Governments. ACTS have already contributed to the joint input made by the Scottish Civic Forum and the Scottish Executive to the formal UK submission to the Summit. Individual congregations are encouraged to hold special services before or during the Summit focusing on creation and sustainability. Study material and sermon outlines are now available from Churches Together in Britain and Ireland. Here is also a good opportunity to reach out into the community by holding a public debate focusing on one of the themes under discussion, perhaps with other local groups.
Eco-Congregation Resource Packs Available
Probably the best way for churches to get involved locally is to join the Eco-Congregation Programme. This was set up jointly in 2000 by Churches Together in Britain and Ireland and the government's Going for Green initiative, to help congregations across Britain find practical ways of caring for God's creation. Following its successful launch in Scotland at Dunblane Cathedral in March 2001, all congregations which have received introductory packs are now being encouraged to register formally with the programme. This will enable them to receive the full range of a dozen excellent resource modules which were published in November 2001. These are available in ring binder form free of charge to churches which register with the scheme. Fresh inquiries from congregations are also welcomed. Further information is available by contacting Eco-Congregation Enquiry, Elizabeth House, The Pier, Wigan WN3 4EX, freephone 0800 783 7838. With good material now available, it would be an opportune time also to extend the concept of a full environmental audit to 121 George Street and other central church premises.
Dr Donald Bruce, SRT Director
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This page was created on 26 April 2002 and updated 13 June 2002.
