# *Genome 2 Phenome 4 Non-Biologists Workshop*: Ethics, April 8, 2021

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## Ethics and Social Considerations
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### Learning Objectives:

* Contextualize societal disinterest in traditional plant and animal breeding
* Understand how technology applications drive divergent human viewpoints and ethical considerations
* Be able to compare and contrast the viewpoints of scientists vs. the general public
* Know the roll of science communication in providing information regarding new, and potentially controversial, tachnologies

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### Question 1:
**What were the origins of public opposition to GMOs?**

* Breakout Room 1:
* Suggested that the BSE episode in the UK was the origin of this GMO opposition
* Could have started before BSE with agent orange + Monsanto
* Silent Spring by Rachel Carson

* Breakout Room 2:

* The BSE and mad cow disease incident
* FrankenCorn myths and stories being put out specially the control of big Pharma - big Ag over farmers and the consumers.
* Forst resistance strawberry story: DNA from the food would incorporate with Human that eats it.
* Resistance to scientific explanations and just being scared of new technologies. Documentaries have affected society's psyche overall given the uncertainly regarding the prospect of using new technology and what the new looks like.
* People don't want to lose control over what they eat. There is always resistence against management of natural systems. e.g Starling corn, california wild fires

* Breakout Room 3:
* The BSE episode; misinformation and people not understanding the science;

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### Question 2:
**Consider regulation versus non-regulation of new technologies such as gene-editing. Which approach will increase societal acceptance? Should societal acceptance be a consideration?**

* Breakout Room 1:
* Have to consider public opinion, ex. GMO's and public reaction to Bt corn
* Misinformation RE: gain of function gene editing with COVID
* Similar to Bt corn, but different context
* Regulation helps ensure public has some say in process
* Would we have more success making the introduction of GMO's a democratic process? Public could have say in what is modified.

* Breakout Room 2:
* Progressive versus conservative argument. Including both sides is imperative and yes societal acceptance should be considered.
* Overton window for making policies could be helpful in targeting and approach to affecting policies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window#:~:text=The%20Overton%20window%20is%20the,American%20policy%20analyst%20Joseph%20P.

* Breakout Room 3:
* Yes, social acceptance should be considered.
* If there was no regulation, divisions in society could be greater. there is a product of gene editing that should be regulated and a part not regulated. Gene-editing has so many novel approaches that we don't know about yet, hard to regulate that.

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### Question 3:
**The EU has just formalized public involvement in food safety risk assessments. Should there be public involvement in setting research priorities?**

* Breakout Room 1:
* Open forums are necessary, but whether the public gets to vote on what moves forward is different
* Not science direction so much as regulatory approval
* Maybe input into GM crops or not, not necessarily methods used by researchers
* Quantitative risk assessment is complex, how does this public input work in practice?

* Breakout Room 2:
* Yes and they should take input from the range of the public e.g. https://www.embopress.org/doi/full/10.15252/embr.201947812

* Breakout Room 3:
* Public ignorance of science is still an issue. They need to think positively about the science first. Conversations are needed between scientists and public.

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### Comments:

* Breakout Room 1:

* Breakout Room 2:

* Breakout Room 3:

* Breakout Room 4:

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**Resources for Further Learning:**

- [Governance Framework Options for GMO's](https://www.embopress.org/doi/full/10.15252/embr.201947812)

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