Politics and technology : the power of GMOs

Résumé du document

In 1953, DNA was discovered. This discovery was the revolution of the century, if the XXth century was the century of the atom, the XXIst will be that of the DNA. But once you have discovered a code, you certainly want to use it. This is the reason why further researches were made so that a short while after, a series of scientific advances, such as the creation of the first recombinant bacteria, in 1973, enabled scientists to modify the genetic code of an organism for the first time. Genetically modified organisms, a concept that sounded, a few decades ago, like science-fiction, is now currently used in large industries like food industries. GMOs are everywhere, but they aren't consensual in any way, though, some people place immense hopes in them, believing they are a way to eradicate the most horrible harms and diseases, whereas other people are so strongly opposed to GMOs that they consider them as potential bombs, because of their potentially unknown risks. Why are GMOs such a politically sensitive matter? The question this paper will focus on is, can the DNA discovery, and GMOs, become a way to control the world, and how? It seems relevant to begin this analysis with a further scientific explanation on what GMOs really are, how they are made, and what this technology can be used for. We will then, after this scientific part, focus on the political aspect of the subject, studying the domination of multinational firms on the GMOs Empire, an international issue, then GMOs and bio-war, before explaining how scientists believed DNA was the key of the living beings, just like a code is the key of a software.

Extraits

[...] Well, it appears Nature is more complex than our current programming languages and we don't know yet the secret of life. In the current state of researches, we aren't sure anymore that one gene corresponds to one function and we are far from controlling mutations and all these small unpredictable mistakes life makes on purpose? Conclusion According to what we have seen, we could say that, yes, GMOs can be a way to control the world by controlling food, by making dangerous weapons or by recombining genetic code in order to give birth to any monstrous or wonderful creature that could be imagined. [...]

[...] Politics and technology : the power of GMOs In 1953, DNA was discovered. This discovery was the revolution of its century: if the XXth century was the century of the atom, the XXIth will be that of the DNA. But once you have discovered a code, you certainly want to use it. This is the reason why further researches were made so that short after, a series of scientific advances such as the creation of the first recombinant bacteria, in 1973, enabled scientists to modify the genetic code of an organism for the first time. [...]

[...] For the first time, the population has massively expressed fear and rejection for a technologic progress, and constituted associations, such as, in India, that of Dr. Vandana Shiva, against Bt cotton. At a time when the polemic on the law on GMO that is to be voted by French Parliament aliments debates in the whole country, the future will tell us in whose hands the power on GMOs really lays firms, lobbies, governments, or populations? [...]

[...] Each organism has a different number of genes: bacteria like bacillus subtilis have 500 to 800 genes, yeasts like saccharomyces cerevisiae (used to make beer) have about 6000 genes, animals (such as mice and men) have about genes and crops like maize or rice have about genes. The more genes they have, the more probabilities exist for natural mutations to occur and this phenomenon gives the organism better chances to survive in difficult conditions. Numerous genes are duplicated, and 30% to 40% of the genes code for proteins which function is totally unknown. Moreover, according to further researches, it is not sure that one gene codes for one function: it could code for several ones. [...]

[...] GMOs and bio-war Military scientific research can avoid being controlled: they just have to classify their GMOs “State secret”. War leads to conceive the more powerful viral and bacteriologic weapons existing and GMOs require far cheaper and less visible gear than nuclear weapons a great point at a time when wars are widely exposed to the media. There are two types of strategies for elaborating military GMOs: the soft ones, and the hard ones. The soft strategies consist in destroying crops in order to control the alimentation of a country. [...]