Biotechnology and food is a controversial issue because it touches on so many fundamentals: our bodies, our families, our land, our sense of right and wrong.

Some of the controversy is fundamental.

But some of the controversy comes from misconceptions: a conflict between the way people imagine things are, the way people imagine they ought to be, and the way things actually are.

To better understand the controversies, and perhaps to help resolve some of them, it can be helpful to state in plain words some simple ideas about the nature of food.

Nearly all our food comes from living things: plants, animals, microbes.

Not all plants, animals or microbes serve humans equally well as food.

Humans select or develop crops, livestock and microbial cultures based on traits favorable to humans.

Those favorable traits include taste, color, ease of preparing, yield, vigor, storability, and nutrition.

Biologists hold that the traits, or the phenotype, of living things result from the interaction of the genotypeÖthe genes of organism--and the environment in which the organism lives.

To generate better varieties of crops, livestock and microbes, humans can manipulate the genotype and humans can modify the environment.

To generate new varieties through breeding, a breeder requires a source of genetic variation.

Genetic variation is expressed in the term "gene pool": all the genes available to a breeder useful in improving a breed through generating combinations of genes that result in superior traits.

The breeder's bread and butter are 1) the gene pool and 2) the methods for selecting and manipulating individuals or populations to get new varieties with more desirable traits.

In nature, genes mutate and genes flow and recombine from generation to generation within a species.

Genes flow among unrelated species through transformation, transduction, conjugation, cell fusion, and viral infection.

Since a gene is a concept and DNA is the physical stuff that carries genetic information, it is more accurate to say DNA mutates and moves and recombines.

In science, the evolving understanding of humans about how genes change and flow affects how humans convert this knowledge into technology.

Until 1973, the gene pool for a corn breeder was limited to corn and its close relatives that could cross-pollinate with it.

Plant breeders genetically manipulated plants many ways, including these 12:
• Selection
• Breeding
• Cloning
• Grafting
• Hybridization
• Mutagenesis
• Tissue Culture
• Somaclonal Variation
• Embryogenesis
• Cell Fusion
• Transposons
• Viral Infection

But with the invention of cut-and-splice recombinant DNA technology by Cohen and Boyer in 1973, the gene pool became, in theory, a Gene Ocean.

Because all known life on Earth uses DNA-based information systems, genes from one species can be understood in other species, provided there is a way to transfer the gene-carrying DNA molecule from one to the other.
• Recombinant DNA has been around since before humans.
• > Recombinant DNA technology is nearly 30 years old.
• > It is one of the most powerful tools ever invented.

The gene-splicing tools used to copy and move gene-carrying pieces of DNA from one species to a completely unrelated organismÖor, given our understanding of life on Earth, perhaps it is more accurate to say a distantly related organism.

The changing and moving of DNA, that is, the changing and moving of genes, by nature alone or by the hands of humans present risks of changing the traits for ill as well as for good.

Recombinant DNA technology gave even leading scientists pauseÖand cause to ask a series of questions:
• Is it safe?
• > Or better: Is it safe enough?
• Or better still: How safe or risky is it compared to other methods of genetic modification?

To explore these questions, scientists in mid-1974 declared and observed a moratorium on gene-splicing technology and Paul Berg and others organized the Asilomar Conference in 1975. In 1976 committees of scientists in many countries established guidelines for using recombinant DNA technology.

By the end of the following 1980's, the general consensus among scientific organizations was that recombinant DNA technology per se poses no known risks beyond those posed by other methods of genetic manipulation.

Mark Cantley of the European Commission calls this "a now classic example of applying the &precautionary principle&start tough, and adapt as you learn."

The debate over the risk and safety of recombinant DNA technology compared to other methods of genetic modifications continues and is being revisited, in the US notably by the sponsorship of the US Department of Agriculture and the National Academy of Sciences.

Assessing risk is one thing, and it is a thing for which science is elegantly useful.

But drawing the line of acceptable risk is another thing, and that is a political decision that may be informed by science but not formed solely by it.

The daunting question that combines politics and science becomes "how safe is safe enough?"

One option is to state that the new recDNA technology, even if it poses no new risks that we know of yet, may pose unknown risks and therefore we must be prudent and precautionary until we are sure.

Another option is to state that all methods of genetic manipulation may pose unknown risks, and that even though a technique is old and familiar, it may still be posing risks that have gone undetected be cause we have not yet looked for them or because we have assigned the risks to other causes.

There remains then at least two options for setting the bar of acceptable risk.

The first is to choose an expectation for recombinant DNA technology applied to crops, for example, that it be at least as safe as other methods of plant breeding.

The second is to choose an expectation that is greater than that for other methods of genetic manipulation.

The second may reassure or assuage the perception of risk but it is not clear at all that it reduces overall risk.

Greater scrutiny and higher expectations of safety may be applied to a new technology.

This may happen even in the absence of evidence that the new technology is riskier than an older technology, and in the face of evidence that the technology is in some ways less risky than an older technology.

But in such cases, it is imperative to avoid delusion.

Such higher standards of scrutiny and safety are not based on risk; a risk-based analysis would apply comparable scrutiny for comparable risk.

Caution, even precaution, can be a prudent policy, especially for societies with a problem of overproduction of food rather than a problem of hunger and malnutrition.

But when precaution slips into an expectation of omniscience, when the mere statement that "questions remain" suffices to block government review, then precaution becomes paralysis.

Science is not omniscience. Such reassurance regulations come with opportunity costs from opportunities lost.

Great expectations may be useful, even necessary, to gain public acceptance for commerce, if not to protect the common weal.

But in such cases, as Mark Cantley has pointed out, it is necessary to distinguish risk-based regulations designed to protect the public from biotechnology, and reassurance-driven regulations designed to protect biotechnology from the public.

Labeling

The debate over the relative safety of biotechnology applied to food often leads to a debate over whether such foods should be labeled.

Many foods are labeled. Labels can inform, labels can give insight, and labels can incite.

Societies that label food face a basic question: on what principles will food labels be compulsory, permitted or prohibited?

Compulsory means that such information must be provided.

Permitted means that certain information can be given or omitted at the choice of the labeler or of the consumer.

Prohibited means that some information or claims cannot be made by the labeler.

Different cultures may choose different principles and processes for judging what shall be compulsory, permitted and prohibited.

In the United States, labels are required to be both truthful and not misleading. This holds for statements made on labels put on the food package, and for information provided at the store or point of purchase.

This two-tiered standard shows that governments and consumers recognize that even statements that are formally true may be misleading.

A true statement can be misleading, and so the standard takes into consideration not just what the label writer states, but also how a label reader might interpret the label.

In the United States, the issue of composition is fundamental.

Food is judged by composition and adulteration.

Is the food what the label says it is? Does it contain anything that would adulterate it? Labeling of adulterated food is not much of an issue because it is illegal to market it or sell it.

In the United States, it is compulsory to tell on the label the composition and ingredients, in order of concentration, of a processed food, and to give a standard set of nutritional information.

Information on the methods used to process a food is sometimes required (pasteurized, frozen, cooked, irradiated.)

Information on the methods used to produce a food, including the breeding of a crop, is not compulsory.

Plant breeders can use any of a dozen methods of genetically altering crops, from selection and breeding to random mutagenesis to recombinant DNA technology, and the key principle is the resulting product, not the process used.

Is the new variety of tomato still a tomato? Or is it something significantly different in composition from other tomatoes?

Since tomatoes come in a wide range of sizes, colors, shapes, and flavors, the question implies an understanding of the essence of being a tomato. A new variety of tomato is can be labeled simply as a tomato provided the composition of the new tomato is not significantly different from all the other varieties of tomatoes.

The composition can be changedÖin fact, it is expected that most new varieties would differ in some ways in composition or else they wouldn't be a different variety from the types they were bred from.

To understand the choices and decisions to be made regarding the labeling of food from gene-spliced organisms, it is essential to understand the principles and precedents used in assessing and labeling food from organisms that are genetically modified by other techniques.

Legislators, regulators and consumers face a decision.

Will we have a system based on a standard of risk, or on a standard of perceived risk?

If the system of labeling is based on a standard of perceived risk, then an assessment of risk is not vital.

Labels are not a substitute route of access to market for substandard or unsafe food.

Food that is marketed is required to be wholesome and unadulterated.

No label warning can make unwholesome food or adulterated food legal to market.

A wholesome foodÖas measured by composition and experimentÖmay be considered a loathsome food, as determined by tradition, habit, taste, preference or religion.

To accommodate consumers who wish to know if food on the market is not loathsome, governments permit food processors to make label claims such as "organic" or "kosher" or "hallal".

Consumers have a right to know such information, even though food producers are not compelled by law to provide such information.

For a consumer whose right to information is not fulfilled, the legal remedy is to refuse to choose food that does not provide all the information the consumer desires.

These desires do not have to be reasonable or rational.

Any consumer can decide on any basis what they have a right to know.

Who should pay for additional labeling information beyond the information on composition and nutrition and safety required of all foods?

One approach is the Consumer Sovereignty argument.

Consumers have a right to know whatever they want to know about what they eat.

Furthermore, given a sufficiently influential appeal, governments may enact special rules that compel information and segregation based on political considerations, even in the face of evidence of absence of special risks.

It is democratic but not necessarily just.

By its nature it is a double standard based on political sensibility more than scientific sense.

Another approach to distributing or assigning the costs of labeling is the Economic Justice argument. Here special label information, beyond the standard information on composition, safety and nutrition required equally of all foods, should be considered an economic service or good.

As with all economic services or goods, the concept of consumer freedom to choose or to decline should operate.

If special label information is a consumer good or service, then those consumers who value the information (service or good) should pay for it, and those who do not value the information should not have to pay for.

This approach accommodates consumer concerns or preferences, without shifting the burden of costs for wholesome food to consumers who do not share the tastes or standards of loathsome.

A weakness of the economic justice argument is that some people cannot easily pay for the extra cost of the information.

On the other hand, a weakness of the capricious case-by-case approach is that some people who do not share the standards of loathsomeness of the majority will have to pay more for food because of the labeling, certification and segregation required.

In the case of gene-spliced foods, the key questions are:
Are they safe?
Are they significantly different in composition from the crops they were derived from?
What is the definition of "significant" in "significantly different"?
If gene-spliced foods are as safe and as wholesome as crops bred by traditional means, then why should special labels or segregation be required?
Why should consumers who find wholesome foods loathsome be able to shift the costs of labeling to consumers who find wholesome foods not loathsome?

Wholesome but Loathsome.

In 1999 in the US a chain-reaction moved from retailers to wholesalers to processors to suppliers to shippers to farmers as each link in the chain strained at first to reassure and then to certify the source of such basic foodstuffs as gluten, oil, and lecithin.

The issue was not about food safety but about food acceptabilityÖnot about food sense but rather consumer sensibility.

From experience in producing kosher foods, the food industry has long been familiar with chains of certification.

Clearly consumers can move large companies to change their purchasing, tracking, formulations, and labeling.

Such a chain of events can be started by a determined minority of consumers.

Fungibility, Identity Preservation, and Segregation

Fungibility is that idea that varieties of a commodity are interchangeable.

For example, in the US, farmers grow dozens of varieties of soybeans.

Varieties can differ on how they look when they grow, the color and size of the soybean, and the protein and oil profiles of the seed.

The price that farmers get can vary with the quality of the seed (percent moisture, oil content, level of infection by seed-borne fungi), but all varieties of soybean are interchangeable within a commodity.

New rules requiring labeling and segregation of crops developed using gene-splicing techniques have changed fundamentally the range of fungibility.

In place of fungibility is the idea of Identity Preservation requiring monitoring and certification that the crop was sown, grown, harvested, hauled and stored in a certain way.

It prevents mingling or mixing of other batches of the same crop unless the other batches are of the same identity.

Some buyers, and in some cases some governments, are requiring identity preservation of formerly commodity crops.

Shipments of corn or soybeans, for example, are now one of three types: GMO, non-GMO, or GMO-free.

Shipments that claim to be non-GMO or GMO-free must be segregated from the general stream of the commodity.

Label claims of non-GMO or of GMO-free must be backed-up by affidavits from farmers, haulers and shippers.

Shipments can also be sampled and tested for a transgene or for the protein made by a transgene.

For example, the polymerase chain reaction can test for such transgenes as the S35 promoter of Cauliflower Mosaic Virus or the neomycin phospho-transferase selectable marker.

Other assays can test for proteins, such as the Bt toxin protein in some types of corn.

Governments or buyers must also set action thresholdsÖthe level at or above which the shipment is not acceptable.

Such thresholds for "foreign matter," such as weed seeds or corn seed in a shipment of soybeans, are used to grade grain shipments.

Thresholds can be as high as 3-5% for foreign matter.

However, standards for "non-GMO" are as stringent as 1%.

This is remarkable in view of the former fungibility and that the segregation has no basis in food safety or food processing characteristics.

The expectation of identity preservation and segregation extends beyond the grain to foodstuffs such as vegetable oil, corn gluten, soybean meal, lecithin, even to livestock feed and meat from livestock or poultry fed transgenic crops.

These regulations are seen in many countries as protecting the basic right of consumers to know what they are buying and eating.

To some people in the US, the regulations are more commonly viewed as possible non-tariff trade barriers, and as a government ban affirming and supporting a consumer boycott.

Update on Scientific Controveries

Overview

The range of criticism of biotechnology can be described broadly in five words: perversion, poison, promiscuity, profit and power.

Perversion.

Transfer genes from one species to another is viewed by some as a perversion against nature or God.

With some new technologies, from blood transfusions to organ transfer to test-tube babies, what was considered a sacrilege by one generation becomes a sacrament to the next.

Genomics will also be underscoring the idea the relatedness of all living things, and the idea that transfer of genes across what humans call "the species barrier' occurs in nature and is natural.

Poison.

Moving a gene from one organism to another may result in the production of a new toxin or allergen, or a decrease in nutrients in a food organism.

This is true, and it is true for all types of genetic modification.

This point is an opportunity to distinguish between the risk associated with the gene transferred, and the risk associated with the technique of gene transfer.

Promiscuity describes the idea that genes can flow by pollination from wild relatives to crops, and from crops to wild relatives and to weedy relatives.

The risk is that genes from crops can move into populations of weeds and result in superweeds.

If cultivated crops are grown in the same location as wild relatives or local varieties of the crop called landraces, then genes may flow from the commercial variety into the population of wild relatives or landraces.

These risks hold for genes of any source, conventional or transgenes, but the criticism is aimed usually at transgenes.

Although the concern expressed is higher, it is not clear that the risks are higher.

Profit.

Biotechnology is being commercialized primarily by biotechnology companies, which are often former chemical companies.

They are motivated by profit.

They seek patents and other protections of intellectual property.

They often sell not just seed but a license to use seed with a provision of the license being that farmers agree not to save seed from year to year, or to sell seed to other farmers.

The companies try to beat their competition or buy them out.

The seed business in North America and in Europe has concentrated in the past five years.

Power.

Companies holding patents have the power to refuse to let others use the patented technology.

Companies may choose not to use their technology on staple crops because they see no economic return in the money and time that would have to be invested.

The influence of biotechnology and of biotechnology companies may change the distribution of wealth, land and decision-making power.

Some critics contend that biotechnology gets too big a slice of the public research budget at the expense of other technologies such as organic agriculture or agroecology.

Biotechnology issues have created tension in international trade and in international agreements on biodiversity.

Proof.

All genetic modifications pose risk.

The controversy over recombinant DNA technology has focussed attention on how individuals, governments and societies make personal choices and public policies regarding new technologies.

Policies and precedents set in the biotechnology debate will affect the roles of science in regulating new products and in negotiating, mediating and arbitrating international trade issues.

Specific Controversies

Mad Cow Disease (BSE) and New Variant CJD

Biotechnology had no direct bearing on the issue of mad cow disease, but the disease and its possible link to new variant Creutzfeld-Jakob Disease announced in spring 1996 by the British government has borne on biotechnology.

The announcement crumbled public confidence in government regulators, in scientists, and even in science as a way of probing the unknown.

The shift in British public opinion changed the climate towards biotechnology in a country that had been one of the leaders in biotechnology commercialization in the European Community.

Bt Corn Pollen and Monarch Caterpillars

In May 1999 John E. Losey, Linda S. Rayor, and Maureen E. Carter reported that in a laboratory test pollen of Bt corn, but not pollen of non-Bt corn, sickened or killed larvae of Monarch butterflies placed on leaves of milkweed, the caterpillars' normal diet, that had been dusted with the pollen.

This was viewed by many as a stunning revelation and caused concern for the well-being of the Monarch butterfly population since many million acres of Bt corn were growing in the US.

For some critics of biotechnology this case illustrated the scenario of unintended and widespread environmental consequences that could result from transgenic crops.

For other people, the question was not so much if Bt-containing pollen could kill caterpillars.

It would be likely; it would be really unexpected if it did not.

The pivotal question was whether the system of corn growing using Bt corn was overall more or less damaging to the environment than other systems of growing corn.

For some observers, this case illustrated the monocular vision that applies great scrutiny to biotechnology but absolves competing approaches from comparable scrutiny.

Gene Flow and Terminator Technology

Genes can move by cross-pollination from crops to weedy or wild relatives.

It is not surprising that transgenes in a crop can move by cross-pollination into weedy or wild relatives.

It would be surprising if they did not.

But some news stories about research on transgene flow could leave the impression that only the transgene moved, rather than the transgene moved with another 20,000 to 40,000 genes from the crop.

Researchers, regulators and environmental advocates are concerned that gene flow from crops to weeds could result in a superweed.

A possible scenario is that a transgene that improves the fitness of the crop, for example by making it resist a pest or a pathogen or an herbicide, would lead to a superweed.

The irony here is that the same risk is presented by new crop varieties with pest or pathogen or herbicide resistance developed using traditional genetic manipulations.

Yet the risks of transgene flow tend to be discussed as unique risks, rather than being viewed in comparison with existing risks of conventional breeding.

One potential way to reduce the risks of gene flow from crops is to use a set of genes discovered by a group led by Melvin Oliver of the US Department of Agriculture.

Yet this so-called "Terminator" technology set off a worldwide protests aimed primarily at Monsanto, which was in the process of trying to buy out Delta & PineLand Company, which holds the license from the USDA on the technology.

"Terminator" technology was viewed as a threat to the ability of farmers to save seeds from season to season because the seeds would be sterile.

"Terminator" gives two advantages to seed producers.

It is more reliable than license agreements in making farmers buy proprietary seed from the producer every year.

And it provides an elegant, self-limiting way to block gene transfer to landraces or weedy relatives. Any flowers of the landraces or weedy relatives pollinated by pollen containing the "Terminator" genes would form seeds but the seeds would be sterile.

However, public reaction was dominated by the threat to seed saving, and the potential for controlling gene flow was discounted or ignored.

In October 1999 Monsanto announced it would not market any seed with "Terminator" technology.

New Research Directions

Man cannot live on DNA alone.

Recombinant DNA technology will not feed the growing population of the world.

But it could help, and help significantly.

Here it is helpful to make a rare but significant distinction: the difference between biotechnology and the biotechnology industry.

Many criticisms of biotechnology are really criticisms of the biotechnology industry, or more broadly, of capitalism in general and of multinational corporations in specific, and of Monsanto most acidly.

It is ironic that the two countries where the application of biotechnology is proceeding unabated are China and Cuba, both claiming to be committed to feeding their people better through biotechnology.

Gordon Conway, president of the Rockefeller Foundation, identifies three ways biotechnology could help farmers in developing countries: 1) increasing yield ceilings; 2) combating pests, diseases, drought, and other stresses; and 3) improving nutritional quality of crops and livestock products.

Conway's third point is most telling.

He spoke at the "Agbiotech 99" conference sponsored by Nature/Biotechnology in London in November.

Of the 34 speakers, none spoke on transgenic livestock.

Transgenic animals are apparently so taboo that recombinant DNA technology will be given no practical role in genetic improvement of livestock.

It is not clear what are the opportunity costs or the lives lost or the unintended consequences of this pariah condition.

At the same conference, researchers described the several current and future applications of recombinant DNA technology and genomics.

For example, researchers in Switzerland used gene-splicing techniques and conventional crosses to move genes into rice to enable the crop to make provitamin A and to increase iron content.

Such grain could help reduce both blindness and anemia in people who rely on rice.

Genomics can help identify genes for resistance to pathogens, and genes identified in one crop may have cousins or twins in another crop that will be easier to find once the genes are found in one species.

The expression of a crop's own toxins can be modified to help the crop resist insects.

Viral vectors based on tobacco mosaic virus are being tested as a way to discover the functions of new genes discovered through genomics research.

Genes spliced into chloroplasts may reduce the risk of flow of the transgene into wild or weedy relatives of the crop, since pollen rarely transfers chloroplasts to the plant's fertilized egg cell (megagametocyte).

Coat protein genes and other viral genes can be modified and put into crops to make the crops resist viral infection.

DNA laboratory techniques can speed the analysis of complexes of genes called quantitative trait loci that can be introduced into rice from its wild relatives.

Marker-assisted breeding using amplifed fragment length polymorphisms (AFLPs) or single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) take advantage of unique DNA patterns that help breeders find and follow single genes or complexes of genes for a range of traits.

Researchers are adding genes or modifying existing genes to change carbohydrate metabolism to make modified starches and polymers such as the fructan called inulin.

Transgenic plants engineered to make and excrete higher levels of organic acids into soils can tolerate levels of aluminum toxic to conventional crops, an approach targeted for use in acid soils of the tropics.

Genetic screening has revealed a family of genes that increases a plant's tolerance of cadmium, and such plants could be useful in removing heavy metals from soils or water.

Crops can be a commercial source of antibodies, including immunoglobulins to be purified for use as drugs or industrial feedstocks.

Oilseed crops such as canola or soybean are potential sources of tailored oils for use as food and as raw materials.

GENOMICS

In the mid 1990s, with transgenic crops becoming widely grown in North America, the leading edge in plant biotechnology research shifted from a focus on single genes to genomics.

Genomics is the study of all the genes of an organism.

Genomics involves sequencing all the DNA of an organism, identifying all the genes present and the proteins they make, mapping all the genes to specific places on the chromosomes, figuring out what each gene does, and probing when and where and how genes are turned on or turned off.

The key model plant for crop genomics is a little weed in the crucifer or mustard family called Arabidopsis thaliana.

Arabidopsis is a good model system.

It is small, fast, simple and cheap.

It's only about 10-15 cm high.

It goes through its life cycle in about 40 days, or about 9 generations per year. It's relatively easy to grow under lights in simple growth chambers.

It has only 5 chromosomes, about 25,000 genes on 120 megabases of DNA, and almost no junk DNA.

It is diploid, in contrast to many major crops such as potato (tetraploid) and wheat (hexaploid).

Genomics was at one time also referred to as "reverse genetics." From the time of Mendel, geneticists studied phenotypes and their patterns of inheritance; postulated concepts called genes to explain the inheritance; found that genes map to chromosomes; discovered that DNA is the chemical that carries the genetic information; parsed the structure of DNA and studied how it is regulated and expressed; and learned to sequence DNA.

Geneticists generally start with a phenotype, study its pattern of inheritance, postulate a gene or genes, map the genes, isolate the DNA that carries the gene, sequence the gene and study the protein it encodes and the ways the gene is controlled.

Genomics goes the other direction.

It starts with a sequence of all the DNA.
1. The sequence is deciphered and all the genes are sifted out and mapped to a location.
2. The amino acid sequence of the protein that each gene encodes is determined.
3. The function of each gene is determined by "gene knockouts" in which a plants with the gene knocked out by insertional mutagenesis are grown under a range of conditions and examined for any phenotypes different from normal.

Genomics is changing how we look at life. Genomics bears the issue of essence and substance.

Genomics bears on evolution and on vitalism.

Genomics confirms that humans share a genetic heritage with other organisms.

Many arguments against gene-splicing technology are posited on the idea that the risk of the transfer increases with increasing evolutionary distance between the donor species and the recipient species.

This seems to be a vitalistic idea.

Vitalism suggests that if you transfer a piece of DNA that encodes a gene found originally in one species into the genome of another species you are transferring not just a substance but rather the essence of the donor into the recipient.

This idea is most clearly illustrated by the cartoons of tomatoes with fish heads and tails that ostensibly result when a fish gene is moved into tomato.

Alas, that it would be so easy to transfer essence.

Genomics may assuage the concerns of consumers who object to moving genes from one species into another.

Recombinant DNA technology turned the gene pool into a gene ocean.

Genomics is turning every crops' genome into a storehouse of self-help genes.

The crops' own genome can become a rich source of genetic variation.

Genes found in other organisms, such as Arabidopsis or yeast or E. coli, may have cousins or twins in a crop plant.

Complex traits conditioned by mixtures of many genes can be introduced into crops from wild relatives or from combinations of existing breeding lines, then studied and manipulated without resorting to gene-splicing techniques that some people find unacceptable.

Opponents of recombinant DNA technology may find genomics a correct or acceptable way to generate genetically modified organisms.

Or they may not.

If there is a technology treadmill, there is certainly also a Correctness Treadmill on which biological Sisyphus must ever roll his stone uptread with no certainty of ever achieving acceptance.