From Asilomar to industrial biotechnology: risks, reductionism and regulation.

The international meeting held in February 1975 at the Asilomar Conference Center in Pacific Grove, California, set in motion the first scientific evaluation of genetically modified organisms. It left a legacy that remains influential decades later when the world is faced with the prospect of a cornucopia of new products derived from gene-splicing technology. Unlike the initial concerns over the risks of recombinant-DNA molecule technology (r-DNA), which was the centrepiece of the early controversy during and for several years after the 1975 Asilomar meeting, the contested issues today are about the social, environmental, economic, and ethical consequences of creating products from the progenitor technology. The public’s attention has turned from the risks of r-DNA in basic research to the risks of biotechnology primarily in agriculture and the pharmaceutical industry. In this paper, I focus on the cultural, political and epistemological components of risk analysis for genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and their impact on the regulation of the biotechnology industry. The guiding questions are: (1) in what ways did the Asilomar ’75 framework for risk assessment set the stage for the social management of biotechnology in the United States during the start of its industrial development? and (2) what role did genetic reductionism play at Asilomar ’75 and how did it shape the regulatory and legal development of biotechnology? I argue that, beginning in 1980 with the election of Ronald Reagan, a changing political climate took hold in the United States, which gave rise to a neo-conservative government along with its cultural and economic manifestations. This helped to fuel and reinforce an epistemology of scientific reductionism. In short, this neo-conservative political ideology supported the breakdown of traditional sector boundaries between universities and industry, which led to the adaptation of science toward private rather than public agendas. The belief structure of neo-conservatives is rooted in the economic theories of Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman. Hayek wrote in his book The Constitution of Liberty that we Science as Culture Vol. 14, No. 4, 309–323, December 2005