Biotechnology and its public

The author provides a perspective on three key areas of biotechnology: the public debate over hazards, the commercialization of the technology, and ethical issues that are arising in terms of application of genetic therapy to humans. He reviews the history of the recombinant DNA research debate beginning at Asilomar in 1975, when the molecular biologists called for a temporary moratorium on certain experiments, so the NIH might develop guidelines to govern this research. The author then characterizes the lobbying activities of the biologists against proposed regulation at the federal, state and local level. Despite the lobbying, he concludes that Congress did not enact legislation because of the exemplary behavior of the biologists, beginning with their meeting at Asilomar. The author next describes the impact commercialization of this technology will have on academic biologists who traditionally have not been involved in that process (as have chemists and physicists). He also comments on the ethics of biotechnology, concluding that the more powerful biology becomes, the more its uses and some control of those uses will be debated.