Environmental Leaders say 'No!' to Gene Drives

OAHU, HAWAI'I — As thousands of government representatives and conservationists convene in Oahu this week for the 2016 World Conservation Congress, international conservation and environmental leaders are raising awareness about the potentially dangerous use of gene drives — a controversial new synthetic biology technology intended to deliberately cause targeted species to become extinct.

Members of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), including NGOs, government representatives, and scientific and academic institutions, overwhelmingly voted to adopt a de facto moratorium on supporting or endorsing research into gene drives for conservation or other purposes until the IUCN has fully assessed their impacts. News of the August 26 digital vote comes as an important open letter to the group is being delivered.

Scientists and environmental experts and organizations from around the globe have advocated for a halt to proposals for the use of gene drive technologies in conservation. Announced today, a long list of environmental leaders, including Dr. Jane Goodall, DBE, genetics professor and broadcaster Dr. David Suzuki, Dr. Fritjof Capra, entomologist Dr. Angelika Hilbeck, Indian environmental activist Dr. Vandana Shiva and organic pioneer and biologist Nell Newman, have lent their support to the open letter: “A Call for Conservation with a Conscience: No Place for Gene Drives in Conservation.” The letter states, in part: “Gene drives, which have not been tested for unintended consequences, nor fully evaluated for ethical and social impacts, should not be promoted as conservation tools.”

To read the full press release:

http://www.etcgroup.org/content/30-environmental-leaders-say-no-gene-drives-conservation

Stop The Gene Bomb! ETC Group Comment on NAS Report on Gene Drives

http://www.etcgroup.org/content/stop-gene-bomb-etc-group-comment-nas-report-gene-drives

First study on gene drive governance avoids the explosive issues: Militarization, Commercialization, Food Security. ETC Group urges that gene drive patents and governance be handed to the United Nations. 

Coming in at over 200 pages, today’s National Academy of Sciences (NAS) report, 'Gene Drives on the Horizon’ is weighty but disappointing. It fails to properly address three of the most pressing issues raised by the controversial new technology of CRISPR-CAS9 gene drives. Dubbed, the ‘mutagenic chain reaction’ by its inventors, RNA-guided gene drives are a high-leverage synthetic biology technology invented only last year. They are designed to relentlessly drive a specific genetic trait through an entire species or population - potentially driving species to extinction. This capability to reshape entire natural populations and ecosystems raises significant threats to peace, biodiversity and food security which is why a high profile study of this kind was mobilized in such record time. Yet, inexplicably the NAS’s report entirely fails to address the problems that will follow from agricultural commercialization of the technology and gives short shrift to the military and security implications of gene drive development. Since commercialization, food security and militarization are among the most explosive issues raised by these developments, their near absence in the report is puzzling. The NAS study was co-funded by DARPA (a US military agency) and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (a global agricultural funder). Both institutions are heavily invested in gene drive research.

Permanently changing a species: What could go wrong?

https://medium.com/@foe_us/permanently-changing-a-species-what-
could-go-wrong-ec7a7190fd0f#.ow64lkqni

by Dana Perls, Food and Technology campaigner

While the NAS report offers thoughtful insights and useful warnings about gene drives, it falls far short of offering a blueprint for responsible governance to ensure that the technology will not be used for hostile purposes, reckless corporate profit or at the expense of health and the environment.

There is only one responsible path forward for gene drives — we need a moratorium on commercial or environmental releases of this technology. There must be strong and clear international regulations and oversight. We must ensure that corporations and governments (particularly militaries) are not developing gene drives and cannot misuse this technology in ways that could have profound ecological, health or socio-economic impacts. There must be strict regulations on lab research, especially given the risk of accidental escape of gene drive organisms, even from high security labs.