Words: Isaac Quirke (he/him)
While genetic modification of the food chain has the potential to muddy Scotland’s squeaky-clean agricultural image, rewriting the building blocks of the body curiously seems to have the opposite effect.
I was first made aware of the potential dangers of genetically modified food via a block of tofu. During a teenage stint of veganism, I was misinformed by a vegan influencer that GMO (genetically modified organism) foods should be avoided at all costs. The reasons were nebulous. I absorbed them anyway. I was also advised to only eat raw foods until 4 pm, and told that consuming watermelon had mystical properties for healing poisonous spider bites. Those I wasn’t so sure of.
The “natural fallacy” – the idea that something produced from nature without scientific intervention is safer and better, morally or otherwise – drives the majority of scepticism around GMOs today. Thankfully, science has consistently proven the efficacy of these crops, as they are rigorously tested before entering the market, and have bountiful benefits for the wider population. GMOs are easier to grow, cheaper for the consumer, and can yield much more nutritious versions of the foods from which they originate. Puritanical discourse regarding food origins aside, surely these scientific miracles are a no-brainer for governments worldwide?
Not in Scotland. The SNP must also be watching too many videos by woo-woo TikTok “nutritionists”, as GM crops are outright prohibited in Scotland. The pathetic reason for this ban? It is an attempt to maintain Scotland’s international brand of having natural, high-quality food and drink. Thank God our government has its priorities straight! To be fair, there are actual, reasonable concerns regarding the implementation of GM crops economically. Take, for example, agrochemical and agricultural behemoth Monsanto, and its legal tirade against small farmers replanting crops grown from their genetically-modified seeds, which bemusingly violates intellectual property laws. Who knew man could own the origins of plant life? These lawsuits have international implications, too. The implementation of GMOs in Nigeria has sparked concerns of “neo-colonialism”. African states risk becoming reliant on the costly repurchasing of foreign seed for their citizens’ livelihood, in order to avoid legal trouble from planting seed from existing GM crops. These serious concerns have seemingly not been factored into the SNP’s optics-centred lawmaking process.
With this hardline approach to manipulating the food chain, you’d think Scotland would have a similar stance towards the genetic modification of the human body. This is not the case. The Scottish government recently launched the Genomic Medicine Strategy 2024 to 2029, with research, testing, and innovation as its key pillars. This strategy has an undeniable practical and positive impact for Scots: for example, by improving genetic testing pathways for patients with cancer and rare or inherited diseases. Last year, Edinburgh-based Concinnity Genetics received £3 million in funding from private investors for the development of more “effective” and “safer” gene therapies. However, a central factor in receiving this funding was due to the fact that ‘life sciences is one of Scotland’s key growth industries’, and that their investment will help Concinnity’s ‘international growth, delivering maximum benefits for Scotland’s economy.’
Comparing these two instances of Scotland’s stance on genetic modification is revealing. The two key driving factors of its implementation, or lack thereof, seem to be the commingling of profit and “purity”. While genetic modification of the food chain has the potential to muddy Scotland’s squeaky-clean agricultural image, rewriting the building blocks of the body curiously seems to have the opposite effect.
There’s no denying that improving the livelihoods of those affected by gene therapy-treatable diseases, such as cystic fibrosis, sickle cell disease, some cancers, and HIV, to name a few, should be an absolute priority. Scotland, however, has not historically treated those with inherited conditions with the utmost care and respect. 20th-century Scottish institutions for disabled children selectively treated patients based on which cases were ‘more acute, interesting, unusual, and curable.’ Organisations even went as far as conducting “interesting experiments” on vulnerable children in the hopes of swiftly fixing them up for a lifetime on the economic hamster wheel. Efforts were less about care and support, and more a futile attempt at “normalisation”.
While the motivations of state healthcare systems have shifted for the better, genetic modification inherently brings into question which traits we deem “good” or “bad”. Scotland’s championing of the unscientific “purity” of non-GMO crops for marketing purposes, while investing millions in attempts to “purify” the human body for profit, is dually nonsensical and harmful. Whether traits are added or removed, deemed “effective” or “defective”, makes no difference. The reality of these processes is deceptively simple: they are neutral. The inheritance of traits, harmful or benign, is just the mundane ticking-clock of animal reproduction. However, the values we ascribe to these various inheritances should be assessed before proceeding further into the murky territory of genetic modification. While we express our humanity by developing healthcare interventions that address debilitating and life-threatening conditions, who draws the line on which trait is the next to be deemed inhuman?
