Chapter Four (continued)
Interesting, Amusing, Depressing and Gross Conversation Over Another Long Lunch Break

(To recap: The previous page ended with one of the group claiming that rice contains small amounts of arsenic and another one being skeptical of the claim, after yet another one tells the rest that some scientists are working on genetically engineering some rice to contain vitamin A to help people in developing countries.)

The Students Discuss Malnutrition, and Becky Explains Why it Seems to Be on the Rise in Rich Countries

Mark said, "Well I don't know if it's true, but anyway, I'm only using this rice as an example. Besides, I'm sure this rice with vitamin A genetically engineered into it could cure a whole lot more sickness than it could ever cause. Vitamin A deficiency can be really serious; it can cause irreversible blindness, and people even die. A lot of foods contain it, or something that the body converts to it, so it's probably almost unknown for anyone in this country not to get enough. But in countries where poor people don't get that much choice about what to eat, especially at times of year when fresh vegetables aren't in season, getting too little of it can happen much more easily.

"I've read statistics that say that in some parts of the world it's common not to be able to get enough vitamin A in the diet, and a severe deficiency of it kills 670 thousand children under five a year, and lots more people besides! It's estimated that about half a million people a year go permanently blind because of it in countries where it's common not to get enough, and millions more get less severe eye problems.

"I don't know what year those statistics came from, come to think of it, so it's possible things have been improving in recent years. But I wouldn't be surprised if the problem's still bad."

"Somehow I still don't feel like finishing my dinner," one student remarked. "Still, what a horrible thing to happen! Why does the rest of the world allow it? Or why don't the people in those countries grow other things that do have vitamin A in them?"

No one knew.

Then another Student said to Mark, "Don't be so sure things like that couldn't happen here. Malnutrition's on the rise in this country. I read that since this government came to power, it's gone up quite a lot. So you can see what damage they're doing to this country!"

Becky said, "I heard about malnutrition going up too. When I first heard it I thought it might be something to do with the government cutting benefits and things too; but then the radio programme I heard it on explained the real reasons. It might be partly to do with what the government's done, but a lot of it has to do with other things. I realised it just shows it's best to look for evidence and the causes of things before jumping to conclusions.

"It said that malnutrition's mostly risen in old people, and that has a lot to do with the number of old people itself rising as people live longer, since people suffer from more and more health problems as they get older that stop them eating as healthily as they used to, partly because some of them lose interest in eating the variety of food they used to because they lose their sense of taste, and they get sick with problems that stop them eating too. They can get too ill to feel like eating, or they can't prepare food as easily as they could before so they don't eat as much or as healthily.

"And I've heard that some babies have been born with vitamin D deficiency, because their mums wanted to protect themselves from sun damage, so they put lots of sun block on when they went in the sun, but while it protected them from sunburn and skin cancer, they didn't realise it was stopping their bodies making vitamin D because the sun wasn't shining directly on their skin any more, so their growing babies didn't get enough, since it's quite hard to get vitamin D because there aren't many foods that contain it, although it's put in some of them artificially.

"But I've heard that you only need about a quarter of an hour a day's exposure to the sun to get enough vitamin D, between about April and October when there's enough of it around to make any difference, or longer for dark-skinned people, because they've got some in-built sun protection, because they or their ancestors come from much sunnier parts of the world than here, but it does mean their bodies can't make it as fast.

"But I've heard that the Department of Health recommends that people who are elderly or don't get much sun, and pregnant and breast-feeding women and little children, take vitamin D supplements, though I don't know how much they publicise that advice or how much people are supposed to take. But that way, they don't need to worry about getting enough sun to matter but not so much it's bad for them. I've heard someone in my family say it's very easy to accidentally stay out too long in the sun and get sunburned without sun cream on.

"But anyway, when old people get malnutrition, it can be for a few different reasons, and doctors are finding more of it now, partly because the government and other organisations have been campaigning for it to be treated more, so hospitals screen lots of people for it now that they didn't before. So a lot of people who go in for something completely different will be checked for malnutrition, so they're finding more of it.

"And the government introduced a system where hospitals are paid more the more things they treat, so it's in their interests to find more things wrong with a person."

The students thought that was interesting. One teased another one, saying, "Hey I bet You've got malnutrition; you seem to live almost entirely on egg on toast."

That was an exaggeration. The student joked back, "Hang on, I think you're being really unfair here. ... I mean, I often eat the egg and the toast separately, which isn't exactly 'egg On toast!"

"Like that makes it more nutritious!" said Becky, screwing up her face in disgust at the attempt at a joke.

"I didn't say it did!" protested the egg-loving student.

The Students Joke About What It Would Be Like To Live On What Plants Live On

One student said, "I wonder if the world would be a better place if people didn't need food to survive but humans lived off sunlight instead, like plants do. You wouldn't get these famines and this malnutrition we get now."

Another student said with a smile, "I think you might need to think that idea through a bit more. For one thing, everyone in this country would be like zombies, almost dead most of the year round, starved of sunshine, just making an effort all the time to muster up the energy to haul themselves along, and then bursting into life for a short time every summer.

"Mind you, maybe someone in some other country where they had more sun to keep them going would invent some amazing method of transporting sunlight from there to here and sell it to us ... for lots of money!

"But for another thing, plants don't just live off sunlight; they need water and all the nutrients they get from the earth they're growing in too."

"Oh yeah," said the student who'd brought up the idea.

One of them grinned and said, "Oh just imagine if We got our nutrients from the mud on the ground too! Instead of tucking into a burger and chips or whatever, we'd be digging up handfuls of earth and swallowing those, or more like sucking them in the hope of getting the nutrients out and then spitting most of the earth back out again."

"Oh yuck," said another student, chuckling. "Imagine walking around dodging all the spat-out earth! And even the very poshest people at their poshest earth-banquets would be spitting mud out all the time. Maybe they'd have big buckets on each table, and everyone on the table would keep spitting their earth into them. And then if they were still hungry at the end, they'd just grab a handful of earth off the floor, or do their best to lift up any concrete that was there in the hope of finding earth underneath it, and then shove that in their mouths! Maybe the royal family and especially posh people would have specially scented earth at Their banquets, and people would go around sniffing different bits of mud before picking up handfuls of the mud they liked the smell of and swilling it around their mouths before spitting it back out!"

One student said with a grin, "It would probably be bad manners Not to spit your earth out! And children would be told off by their parents if they were too embarrassed to spit their earth out in front of everyone! Mums would be saying sternly at the dinner table, 'You're a bad-mannered child! Spit your earth back onto your plate!'"

They laughed.

Mark Talks About the Kind of Film He Thinks Could Be Made to Make the Public Sympathetic to Things They Disapproved of Before

"Anyway, about this idea of scientists teaming up with a film maker," said Mark, who'd been waiting patiently to finish what he'd been saying. "Do you still want to hear about it?"

The others apologised for having interrupted, and he continued, immediately turning the conversation from light-hearted to a bit gruesome:

"I was thinking that Any film scientists made with a film director about how genetic engineering of foods could improve some people's lives a lot, just supposing it was about the efforts of scientists to genetically engineer rice to have more vitamin A in it, could maybe show scientists discussing the nasty statistics about the numbers of people who die and go blind because they don't get enough vitamin A, and being keen to try to solve the problem, after it shows the family the film's about with the children playing and then they get sick. Then they could show the scientists trying to grow some genetically engineered rice in a test to see if it contains as much vitamin A as they think it will and to make sure it's safe, and environmentalists destroy it. Then they could go back to a scene with the suffering family again.

"Then the story could have a scientist arranging a debate with a leading environmentalist about genetic engineering and this rice in particular, where the environmentalist puts forward all the arguments as to why it might not be a good idea, and the scientist gives all the evidence as to why there's a lot less to worry about than some people think, and answers all the points the environmentalist makes.

"And it isn't just films scientists could use to help people understand what they're doing and get them on side. They could raise money to make adverts that could be like the ones charities make, where they show people's suffering at its worst or show the worst cases, to get people's sympathy. Or they could write articles for the papers where they tell the stories of families who'd really benefit if the developments they're working on come into existence, before explaining about them. That's the kind of thing journalists and TV presenters who do consumer programmes do when they want to bring something home to people and get attention - they show stories that'll tug on the heartstrings before explaining what they want to talk about, thinking that'll make people understand why it's worth caring and pay attention."

The Students Make Jokes, Imagining Life If Scientists Could Do Really Bizarre Things With Genetic Engineering

The students thought what Mark was saying sounded like a good idea. But they couldn't help wondering how they'd feel if they knew their dinner had been genetically engineered. One asked Mark, "How would you feel if you knew your burger had been genetically modified with chicken DNA to change its flavour or something?"

"That would be yummy!" said Mark. "I like the taste of chicken!"

A smile crept over Becky's face that slowly broadened into a grin, and she said, "Hey, imagine if they managed to genetically modify chicken so it tasted like ice-cream!" Suddenly she regained her appetite for her dinner, pulled it towards her and started eating it again.

Another student said with a laugh, "What, would you want to eat chicken in a cone, with a bit of chocolate sticking out the top and strawberry sauce on it?"

Becky seemed to like the idea. Then she said, "Or what if they genetically modified chicken so it tasted like apple crumble! Then we could eat chicken with custard instead of gravy!"

The students laughed, and one said, "Hey imagine if scientists genetically engineered cows so they had wings and feathers, and sang like birds instead of mooed!"

"Wouldn't that be spooky!" said another student. Then she said, "I don't suppose cows would be able to fly though; they're probably way too big to get themselves off the ground."

"I don't know!" said another student. "Imagine if they had really big wings! They might be better at flying than birds, so they could fly right up into space!"

Another student grinned and said, "Wow, imagine millions and millions of pounds was spent on inventing a spaceship that could take people to Mars, and they spent months and months getting there, only to find a herd of cows had beaten them to it!"

The students giggled. Then one said, "They would have to be cows that were specially adapted to the freezing cold and lack of oxygen up there, plus being adapted to not eating, since no food would grow up there!"

"Well maybe scientists would have genetically engineered them to do those things to!" said another student.

They all laughed again, and one said, "Hey imagine if they genetically modified corn to form itself into bits of bread or toast on the plant, so you'd be walking past a field looking at masses of big bits of toast growing on great big plants all over it!"

Another student said, "It would be even better if they genetically modified it so bits would jump off the plant and butter themselves at your command!"

They laughed, and another one said, "Imagine if they genetically modified Brussels sprouts to taste really sweet. People would start eating them for pudding. Brussels sprouts, meringue and cream!"

One of them said, "You could already have parsnips with ice-cream and meringue, they're so sweet!"

Another one said, "I heard that carrots and parsnips used to be a lot more similar to what they are now. People think of genetic engineering as something new and scary, but I heard that farmers have been doing a form of it for centuries, trying to cross-breed plants and animals with the best ones in their stock so they could improve their quality. ... I mean the best ones that are in the same species as the ones they're trying to improve, of course, not any old ones - I don't mean farmers have been trying to breed sheep with horses to try and get massive sheep they could get a lot more wool from or something - although maybe some have been trying to do that, who knows!"

He grinned. Another student said, "Hey, if things like that were possible, just think what you might get! Rabbits the size of elephants roaming around the countryside!"

"Wow, imagine falling in an elephant-rabbit hole, or having an elephant-rabbit dig one in your garden!" laughed another student.

"There wouldn't be much left of your garden after that!" laughed another one.

"Imagine if it was possible to breed carrots with watermelons!" said another student. "Imagine trying to eat a carrot the size of a watermelon!"

"Or imagine trying to eat as many watermelon-sized carrots in one go as you might eat carrots in one go now!" said another. "Ouch!"

One said, "Imagine if carrots were somehow bred with apples, and then you got carrots growing on trees!"

Another one said with a smile, "Or here's a frightening thought: What about if Brussels sprouts were bred with pumpkins and grew to the size of them! My mum said that when she was little she didn't like Brussels sprouts, and one day at school she didn't eat the ones on her dinner plate at first, and they made her stay there for hours till she did. If they'd been the size of pumpkins, she might still be there now trying to finish them!"

The students laughed. Then one said, "Wow, just imagine how big people's stomachs would be if it was possible for kids to eat sprouts that big without bursting! Imagine having half a dozen on your plate at once! People's tummies would grow so big they'd be like bouncy castles! If you sat down, you could maybe get half a dozen smaller kids all bouncing up and down on your tummy!"

Another student said, "But they'd all have huge stomachs too, if they'd been made to eat their pumpkin-sprouts as well. Then their stomachs would hit you in the face every time they bounced. Imagine half a dozen massive stomachs all hitting you in the face in quick succession as their owners bounced up and down on you!"

One student said, "And your own stomach might be so huge that children could lie down and go to sleep on it! Imagine having a little child and saying to your partner, 'I think he's getting a bit big for a cot now; let's go out and buy him a bed', and your partner says to you, 'Oh don't worry about that; just go to bed at the same time he does, and he can lie on your stomach; there'll be plenty of room for him to stretch out there.'"

One Student Tells the Rest About How Some Vegetables Have Changed a Lot Over the Centuries

Then one student turned serious and said to the one who'd first started talking about cross-breeding vegetables, "What were you saying about parsnips once being like carrots?"

The student who'd started talking about it said, "Well, I heard that a lot of vegetables were different in the old days, and most of them didn't taste that nice. Humans have been tampering with plants for thousands of years, and that's how some of them got to be the way they are today.

"Modern cabbage and broccoli and Brussels sprouts could even be called man-made in a way. They all came from a wild plant that would only grow by the sea originally, because it didn't like growing among other plants, and it would only get cabbages on it every two years.

"Some people decided they wanted to try and improve it. They first grew it in patches they watched over, and when the plants grew, they took away the ones they didn't like the look or taste of, and kept the ones that seemed to be the best together so they bred - or whatever plants do - together, so the plants that grew from them would hopefully be as good as the best of the original ones. Then they took the best of the plants that had grown from them and left them to breed together, while they took the ones that weren't so good away, so the ones that grew from those would have the best characteristics. Then they put the best of the ones that had grown together to breed or whatever plants do.

"And they did that lots and lots and lots of times, over years and centuries - well, it must have been different people carrying it on, of course, not just one person; but over time, the plants got bigger and tastier and more tender so they weren't as tough to eat, and they got to look a lot different from the originals too sometimes.

"The same things happened with carrots and other things. Original carrots were small and bitter-tasting, and they've grown bigger and sweeter throughout the centuries, as well as changing colour. They used to look a lot more like parsnips, or so I heard. In Roman times, some people even called them by the same name, so that seems to suggest carrots have developed a lot since then.

"With genetic engineering, it's a bit different because they're transferring genes from one species to another. But it's not always as different as you might think. I mean, I've heard about this golden rice Mark's been talking about, and about all scientists have done is transferred some carrot genes into the rice to make it grow with more vitamin A in it. It's just carrot gene! People wouldn't have a problem with eating rice and carrots in the same meal, so both their genes are mingling together in their stomachs. So I don't understand what people's problem is with putting carrot and rice genes together in the same plant.

"I mean, if a scientist wants to do something that sounds really weird, like putting a gene from a catfish into a cat or something, then yeah, I think a lot of questions should be asked. But I expect most scientists just want to do things that seem safe and sensible, to help humanity."

The Students Talk About Space Travel, and Then Have a Laugh

One student said, "Oh I don't know about that! I mean, think about these space scientists, for example. Of what earthly use is space travel? I mean, countries spend billions on it, just to get nice pictures or something. What's the point? There are more worthwhile things they could be spending the money on."

Another student said, "I don't know, but maybe one day they'll find all kinds of minerals on other planets they could mine and bring back here, and they could be really useful, especially if they're minerals that aren't found very often on earth."

One of the students said, "It would be difficult to set up mining operations on some planet where there's no atmosphere so no one could breathe unless they had a constant supply of oxygen being piped in for everyone though. Hey imagine pipes that were millions of miles long going from earth to some other planet in space!"

The student who said that grinned. Then another one grinned and joked, "Or maybe they'd find a way of towing the planet to earth. They could bring it into our atmosphere and then bring it to rest next to us. Maybe they'd find a way to attach it to the earth, and then loads of people could go and live there. And maybe if that was successful, they'd do that to all the planets, till they were all attached to earth! And they could do that with a load of stars too! And the moon, and all the other planets' moons.

"Then earth might be about 100 times the size it is now or something! I wonder if it would still manage to rotate with all that extra weight! But then any time companies wanted some new minerals, they could just go and chisel bits off the new planets. They might end up totally different shapes to the ones they are now. Or maybe they'd mine them or grow food on them and things.

"But just imagine if the other planets had all kinds of weird dormant life on them, and the things all came to life when the planets had been attached to earth! You might get weird trees that were part animal and would chirp like birds or roar like lions!"

Another student smiled and said, "I've heard something about there being a lot of helium on the moon or on some planets or something. Imagine if these chirping roaring trees had so much helium in them they could lift themselves out of the ground and fly! Or imagine if they stayed where they were but their seeds and leaves all flew miles and miles when they came off, and landed on earth. Imagine if loads came down around people's houses, and the trees were so tall they grew and were much taller than all the houses around them. They'd block out all the light, and anyone who wanted some would have to go and live in one, above the level of their roof. Maybe loads of people would make nests in the trees to live in like birds.

"Or what if loads of their seeds and leaves landed in our seas, and there ended up being so many leaves in them they rotted down and turned into loads of compost, and loads of trees grew in it and sucked up the seawater or whatever trees do, and they grew miles high, till the seas turned into forests! Imagine if they only grew for about five hours and then stopped, but they grew at about two miles an hour, so by the end of about five hours their tops would be way above even the deepest parts of the oceans!"

"Wow!" said another student. "If you wanted to get across the sea you'd have to swing from tree to tree instead of going by ship! Imagine trying to get across the Atlantic ocean by swinging from tree to tree. You'd have to sleep in the treetops every night. Imagine if the trees had some intelligence and could learn languages, and every time you swung onto one, it shouted, 'Oy, get off!'

"Imagine what a shock you'd get the first time you climbed on a tree, if it said in a really gruff voice, 'What do you think you're doing! Get off!' and then you quickly climbed on the next tree and it said the same thing in a really deep voice, and then it threatened to shake you off! You'd be so scared, you might carry on going till you got all the way to the other side without stopping, even if it took months! Actually, more likely, you'd try making some kind of deal with a tree, like, 'Hey, if you let me sleep here, I'll take some of your seeds and plant them in a different sea, so That'll eventually turn into a tree forest too, and a lot of the trees will have come from your seeds.'"

One Student Tells the Others About Objections People Have to Genetic Engineering That Are Unrelated to What Scientists Have Done

The students grinned. But after a pause of a few seconds, the conversation got serious again as one said:

"About this genetic engineering technology though, I heard that some people don't object to eating genetically modified foods because of what's in them, but because apparently one or two of the biggest companies who make them sell them to people in poor countries, but they've got patent rights on the genetically enhanced crops they've created, so no one else can create them for years, so they're the only ones who can so they get all the money for them; and that even means that the people who grow their crops have to throw away all the seeds from them and then buy more from them every year so they won't be making more themselves! And in poor countries, that gets to be quite a burden on farmers!

"There might be other reasons why the companies have that policy too, but from what I've read, I think it has a lot to do with their patent rights.

"But it's not just in poor countries. These companies have got a reputation for intimidating farmers in America who they accuse of using their seeds; I've heard they send private investigators out to watch them, and a lot of farmers have been accused of using their seeds without permission and been threatened with court action, and a lot of them have just paid them to go away because they're worried about having to pay massive legal fees that'll bankrupt them if they get taken to court.

"Some farmers have been so worried about being sued if stray pollen or seeds from the fields of farmers growing genetically modified plants waft into theirs so some of their crops end up with the new genes in them that they've started growing different crops entirely, even when they make them less money. And if genetically modified crops were just left to fertilise whatever other farmers' crops they happened to be near, these big companies might just demand royalty payments from more and more people whose crops ended up with the new genes in them, for all we know.

"And for years after farmers have deliberately started growing their crops, these companies demand they pay royalties on the seeds. In poor countries, that just isn't fair, because farmers can't really afford it."

The Student Tells the Others About Some Surprising Reasons Why a Lot of People in the World Go Hungry

Coincidentally, just as the student said that, one of the others pulled a tissue out of his pocket, and accidentally pulled a few coins out at the same time that dropped on the floor and rolled under the table. He crawled under it to pick them up, and as he got up, one of the others grinned and said, "You want to be careful! If that happens with notes, and not just coins, imagine how much you might end up losing! Imagine if you walk down the street one day, and you kept needing to get things out of your pocket, and every time you did, a ten pound note fell out, and eventually there was a great long trail of them all the way down the street!"

The students giggled, and the one who'd dropped the coins said, "It would be nice to have that kind of money in the first place!"

Then he felt a bit guilty about saying that, thinking about people who had far less, and he said, "Anyway, let's hear more about these people having problems growing a lot of food and things."

The student who'd been talking about that before the interruption said, "Perhaps you ought to put your money in a wallet so it's in something heavy enough that it doesn't fly off somewhere when you take something out of your pocket! But anyway, I've read that the main reason so many people go hungry in poor countries isn't that there isn't enough food available, but it's that it's too expensive for them. Some farmers can't afford the price of new seeds, and a lot of small farmers who manage to grow enough that they could sell food to make money lose a lot of their crops because they're stored in warehouses that aren't fit for purpose; governments haven't made laws ordering warehouse owners to make sure the quality of them is good.

"And if those countries had better roads, farmers would be able to more easily travel to other places to sell their crops, and more people would travel to where they lived to sell them food and bring them new technologies and seeds and things, and farmers would more easily be able to travel to places where they could be educated about new farming techniques too. but a lot of those countries don't have many roads in rural areas. African governments could help farmers in rural areas in their countries more, but the people there don't have as much power to persuade their governments to do things as people in urban areas, maybe because there aren't as many people there so they'd be unlikely to be able to vote them out, so the governments tend not to pay so much attention to their needs.

"I've read that about one in nine of the world's population regularly goes hungry, and over a third of children under five in some countries aren't Growing properly because they don't get decent food, about twenty-five million of them! But the countries where they live would grow a lot more food if just some basic improvements were made, like better-quality warehouses so crops would keep in them for longer."

One student said, "Wow, so even just some simple things could make a big difference!"

Another student said, "I've heard of charities who are working to help local farmers improve things though, so it's not all doom and gloom."

One Student Tells an Upsetting Story About Scientists Not Being Allowed to Help People In Need

One student said, "That's awful about the big companies making farmers pay for new seeds every year and suing people after genetically modified seeds or pollen have just blown into their fields and mixed with the crops already there! But still, that's not a criticism of genetic engineering itself. I reckon a lot of good could come from that. I mean, I heard about this horrible disease that infected banana plants in Uganda not too long ago. It was caused by bacteria and made the fruit rot and the leaves wilt, and the plants died in the end. Farmers tried to get rid of it but it just wouldn't go away. Pesticides wouldn't kill it, and they tried burning plants infected by it but it kept coming back. Sometimes whole fields' worth of crops were ruined. Uganda only managed to produce about half the number of bananas that had been produced before. That was bad, because bananas are an important part of a lot of people's diets in Uganda.

"But Ugandan scientists managed to make a banana strain that was resistant to the nasty bacteria, by putting a gene from a green pepper into the DNA of some bananas, that seemed to kill cells infected by it before much damage could be done so the plants were saved. They wanted to give the plants away for free, but Uganda had signed an international agreement that meant being cautious about excepting any genetically modified products in case they weren't safe, so they weren't allowed to.

"The Ugandan government was thinking of relaxing the law so it would allow distribution of genetically modified plants, but some scientists were worried that allowing people to use them would mean those big companies that make people buy seeds from them every year if they want to use them at all might do big marketing campaigns in Uganda, and a lot of farmers would buy their seeds because of their benefits, but end up dependent on the companies to supply new seeds every year, having to throw the ones they already had away or risk being prosecuted. So I don't think they allowed the distribution of the banana plants in the end. Why they couldn't have just allowed that but not other things, I don't know."

Another student said, "That sounds absolutely daft! I think the law should be changed so companies can't make people buy new seeds from them every year and throw away the ones they've already got."

One student said, "I think the reason they have patent laws is so companies don't spend a lot of money developing new things, only to have other people start making their products when they come on the market, and selling them more cheaply than they're trying to sell them for, which they'll likely be able to do because they won't have to make enough money to make up for the costs of the development of the things and include those costs in the price, and that'll mean customers will likely go for theirs, so the company where they were invented will risk not making much money from them themselves, after all the money and effort they put into developing the things.

"If that kind of thing started happening to companies because patent laws got scrapped, a lot of them would probably stop bothering to develop new things, because their bosses might think it was more money than it was worth, because they might not even make enough money from them to make up for the money they'd spent on developing them. And if companies stopped developing new things, it might stop a lot of people's quality of life improving. Still, it does sound as if some abuse of the system's going on."

The Students Discuss What They Think Is the Absurdity of Objecting to Scientific Developments Just Because It's Possible Things Might Go Wrong

One student said, "Wow! Well I can understand people objecting to growing genetically modified crops for reasons like that!

"But then, it seems a lot of people are against genetic engineering without knowing about any evidence it could do any harm. That's the impression I've got from things I've heard.

"I think the reason some people object to modern developments like genetic engineering is because they're just worried about what might happen in the future; they haven't got any actual evidence that anything will ever go wrong; they're just a bit scared that it might one day, and it bothers them so much that even if a technology could lead to the feeding of millions who wouldn't otherwise get well fed, or could wipe out diseases in plants or in humans, that somehow isn't as important to them as their worry that sometime, somehow, something bad might happen."

Another student said, "Well we've always had to take that risk all through time, whatever's been developed. I mean, can you imagine where the world would be now if before the stone age, when fire was first being invented, the chiefs had said, 'Gosh you can't do that! Yes, it might help us survive because it could keep us warm and it could be used to cook food, which might kill some of the pathogens in raw meat and other raw food that could kill Us otherwise, but just imagine the tragedies that could happen if it got out of hand! I simply can't allow fires to be started; they're going to be outlawed from now on, and anyone starting a fire, however responsibly, will be imprisoned and sentenced to a year's hard labour!'

"Well of course, a lot of tragedies Have happened because of fires; but if fire had never been discovered, where would the human race be now? I don't know, but maybe people would have all died of hypothermia and food poisoning before we ever got out of the stone age! But would these people who object to any genetic engineering have objected to fire ever being used if they'd been around at the time? Maybe. But if they wouldn't have, why in the world would they object to one thing and not the other?"

One student said, "Gosh, what must it have been like to live in the stone age! I suppose a lot of people must have lived in caves. It must have been hard to find food and keep warm sometimes!"

A Student Complaining About a Cold Shower Cubicle Sparks Off a Few Minutes of Joking

Another student said, "I don't know why, but the shower cubicle in my student halls is so cold till the water's warmed it up, I feel as if I'm walking into a cave every time I go in!"

One student joked, "Does it have stalactites hanging down from the ceiling, or whatever they're called - those things in caves made of minerals left behind when water drips down and evaporates, or whatever it does?"

The student who'd complained about the shower cubicle joked, "Not Yet! But give it time, and there probably will be some!"

One student joked, "Maybe you could open it to tourists: 'Come and see the famous student cave-shower!'"

The student who'd complained about it joked, "I don't know if any of them would dare go in; if they'd heard about its reputation, they might worry they'd die of hypothermia!"

One student joked, "If they did, you'd wish for the days when all you had to worry about was the cold, if you had to haul dead tourists out of the shower every morning before you could go in it."

The students laughed, and one made a face and said, "Ugh, don't be disgusting!"

The Conversation Turns to Discussion of Genetic Modifications to Eliminate Nasty Diseases in Humans, and Then to Other Things, Such as Powerful Painkillers

When the laughter died down, the student who'd been criticising people who disapprove of genetic modifications just because they're worried about what might happen in the future got serious again and said:

"Anyway, about genetic modifications and things: Scientists could do a lot more good things than they do now if the law allowed them to. There are poor little kids with horrible painful genetic diseases, and if scientists were allowed, they could develop treatments that might stop any more of that happening.

"I mean, for instance, there are some diseases that are caused because there's something wrong with the DNA in a part of every cell some people have, except in the red blood cells, which is called the mitochondria, which is where the cells produce almost all the body's energy. The disease is passed down from a mother to a child in her DNA. It can be really serious, because if the cells aren't being given as much energy as they need, they can't function properly. So all sorts of horrible things can happen, depending on whether the bits of mitochondria are totally non-functional, or whether they can work a bit but they're less efficient than they should be, in which case, the symptoms will depend on how much less efficient they are.

"But the problems will likely especially affect the parts of the body that need energy the most, like the brain, the muscles, the heart, the liver and the kidneys. Kids can develop muscle weakness and pain, stomach troubles and difficulty swallowing, problems growing, sight and hearing difficulties, brain damage, heart and liver disease, and other things.

"Scientists are trying to develop ways of stopping people being born with the mitochondria problem. If they think a woman might be carrying the faulty gene that causes it and might pass it on to some of her children, they think they can take some of her eggs, along with eggs from a healthy woman who's donated them, and take out the part of a donated egg with the genetic coding for things like personality and appearance so the child won't have the other woman's genes for those things, and put the part of the wannabe mum's egg with that information in its place so the baby will have hers instead, leaving the part of the mum's egg with the faulty mitochondria gene in it and throwing it away. Then they can implant the donated egg with most of the mum's genes in it but the other woman's mitochondria in it into her womb so it grows into a baby there. So any baby born will have the donor woman's mitochondria, but its mum's other genes.

"I know that might sound horrible. I've heard that some people object to it because they think that to do it, scientists have to destroy the life that might otherwise have been able to grow from the donor woman's egg. But I've read that nature destroys most eggs anyway; even about two thirds of all fertilised ones just get flushed out of the system very soon afterwards before anyone realises they were fertilised. And they won't have developed brains or nervous systems by the time scientists do what they want to do with them, so they won't ever even know anything happened to them, or even that they existed. It's not like when foetuses are aborted later in a pregnancy when they're developing nervous systems so they can actually feel the pain of being aborted. That sounds horrendous!

"But there are so many kinds of suffering someone born with another person's healthy mitochondria genes would be spared, but some people don't believe it should ever happen, just because they're worried that maybe one day, somewhere, somehow, something might go wrong.

"I mean, it's fair enough to object to procedures like that if you Know about specific things that have a fair chance of going wrong and causing problems; then it would mean scientists need to do more research before trying anything. But objecting to that kind of thing in principle is just bad!

"I heard someone on the radio who did that. She said she thought it was good to have compassion for people who've had to grow up with horrible painful genetic diseases, but she would never approve of anything that could stop babies being born with them, because we just don't know where it would lead. I thought, 'Well what's the good of your compassion if you're trying to block the development of the very thing that could help people like them the most?'"

One student said, "If she disapproves of scientists trying to do those things to stop the problem, despite knowing of people suffering horribly, maybe nothing would change her mind ... unless one day a close relative of hers was diagnosed with a disease like that, maybe, and she had to see its effects first-hand! I wonder if that would change the minds of people who think like that.

"Still, maybe touching films that brought home to people just how other people could benefit from new developments in gene therapy and that kind of thing would help change some of these people's minds. Who knows!"

Another student said, "This mitochondrial replacement thing sounds like a faffy complicated way of doing things though; why doesn't a family with the problem in their genes just make sure they never have children and adopt someone else's?"

One student said, "I'm not sure. But I've heard that because it's easy to get abortions nowadays, and because it's more acceptable for unmarried mums to look after their kids on their own than it was once, most of the kids up for adoption nowadays aren't newborn babies, but kids in care who've often been abused and neglected by parents before they got taken away from them, and they can have a lot of problems because they're emotionally disturbed because of that, so adoptive parents can struggle. And some of the newborn babies that are available for adoption were born to mums who drank a lot or were addicted to drugs when they were pregnant, so the baby will be withdrawing from the drugs or drink, and it'll have damaged them in some ways so they might have behaviour problems or physical problems when they're growing up."

The students were quiet and thoughtful for a few seconds, thinking about that.

Then one of them said, "If you were adopted at a young age because of reasons like that, I wonder if you'd want to know much about your real parents when you grew up, or whether you'd prefer not to know about what kind of people they were. I suppose some people would want one thing, and some would want the other.

"My parents got genetic tests done recently to see where their ancestors came from, just out of curiosity. My dad said the results came back saying that one of his ancestors, centuries ago, came from somewhere in or near Russia. We didn't expect that!"

One of the group said, "I was thinking just the other day: If you met someone from, say, South America, you might not be able to understand a word they said, and you might think you probably didn't have much in common with them, but you might find out that some of your genes were quite similar, because you both had ancestors that emigrated from the same part of the same country a couple of hundred years ago."

The students thought that was interesting to think about. But then one, who lived on the same corridor as the one who'd just spoken, teased with a grin, "I bet you've got some of the genes of a toilet roll, since half of them will have been passed down to you from your mum, and she's probably part toilet roll, judging by the amount she went to the loo when she was here to help you move in! If she had a genetic test done on her, they'd probably find out she had some toilet roll genes."

The student who'd just been insulted smirked and said sarcastically, "You reckon? It might have escaped your notice, but toilet rolls can't pass on their genes, because they can't breed. Not even with each other. Is that what they taught you at school then, that toilet rolls can breed with people and pass down their genes to generations and generations of people who come afterwards? What kind of school did you go to?"

They all laughed, and Becky said, "Imagine if it actually said that kind of thing in a medical textbook that people had to read for medical degrees! Imagine if people were reading this textbook, and it was full of technical details about diseases, that they all thought they needed to take very seriously, and suddenly it said that the reason some people need to go to the loo a lot is because they're genetically related to toilet rolls!

"And imagine if it said other weird things as well, in the middle of things that sounded as if they needed to be taken really seriously, like, 'The reason some people often feel sleepy is because when they're in bed, tiny fibres from their pillows get absorbed under the skin of their necks into the bases of their skulls, and they build up till they form something very much like a comfortable soft little pillow, that cosily wraps itself around their brain stems, and it constantly suggests to their brains that they really want to be snuggling down and going to sleep.'

"I wonder what medical students would do if they read things like that, in textbooks they'd just assumed they could trust because they were recommended by their medical tutors! Maybe some of them would go to them feeling puzzled, and say, 'Could this really be true?'"

They giggled.

But then the mood became a lot more serious, when one of them said, "Mind you, I wonder if you could look at medical textbooks from, say, fifty years ago, and read things that made you think, 'That's not true!' I heard something horrible about a belief that was going around for years for some reason, that new-born babies couldn't feel pain, and that when they cried, it was just some kind of reflex; so some babies even had operations done on them with hardly any anaesthetic, mostly just a muscle relaxant to stop them moving and crying. Goodness knows how that belief came into being in the first place!"

The students were a bit shocked and upset at the thought of things like that happening to babies. Then one said, "I think something a bit like that might go on nowadays in some countries. At least, I heard that in a lot of developing countries, people can't get painkilling medication for serious pain, not because it's too expensive for them to afford, - I heard that morphine tablets are pretty cheap; but it's apparently something to do with some international conference years ago where politicians decided they needed to do everything to restrict the supply of addictive substances, and that included morphine, because it's related to heroin. Something like that. I don't know that much about it, but I think some countries have stricter rules about it than others or something, so it's very difficult to get hold of the most powerful painkillers, even for people who are in constant severe pain or dying in agony. Imagine a politician saying to someone who was dying a terrible death, 'But we couldn't possibly allow you to have morphine, or you might become addicted!' As if it would matter! Or as if there would even be time!'"

The students sniggered; but they all agreed that it was terrible that a lot of people were being deprived of cheap powerful painkilling medication, and that something seriously needed to be changed.

The Students Start Joking, Imagining Really Weird Weather

Just then, one of them said, "Oh yuck, it looks as if it's beginning to snow outside!"

Another one said, "Well, that's a lot better than it snowing Inside! Imagine that! People might be drinking cups of tea, and snow would fall in them and cool them down! Or people might be eating chips, and snow would fall in them and make them soggy!"

The students smiled. One said, "Hey imagine if when the sun shone, it meant sunflakes were falling from the sky, so if the sun shone for hours, there might be a six-inch layer of sunflakes on the ground, and it would look as if the sun was shining up from the ground. And if people went outdoors while the sun was shining, they'd get sunflakes on them, so when they came indoors they'd shine like the sun too! So places like this would be full of bright light some days. And imagine if people could pick up armfuls of sunflakes from the ground and take them into their houses, and then sprinkle them around or put them in a box near them, and they would shine for years!"

"What would people do with all the sunflakes no one picked up?" asked one student, grinning. "If we ever had a sunny summer, they might be up to the tops of the houses if no one cleared them away. Where would we put all of them?"

One student said, "Maybe that would never happen, because so many people would want to gather armfuls of them and take them into their houses to brighten them up."

Another student said, "Wow, if we ever wanted to get any sleep, we'd have to get really thick curtains for our rooms, and families would have to designate their bedrooms sunflake-free zones! They'd probably be shining all night outside, and in the other rooms!"

One said, "Maybe clouds would sweep along the ground a lot, and whenever they moved over the sunflakes, they'd squish them, so it would be as if it put them out for a while, like it seems now in the sky."

One student said, "Ugh! I wouldn't fancy walking along, and finding clouds sweeping up to me and wrapping themselves around my ankles!"

Another student said, "Just imagine if once they'd done that, you couldn't get them off!"

A few of the students shuddered, and one said, "This could be the makings of a horror film!"

The Students Talk About How Governments Could Make Some Policies More Popular By Making Films Bringing the Need For Them Home to People

They laughed. But when the laughter died down, one turned the conversation serious again by saying:

"Talking of making films, we were talking about how films that tugged on the heartstrings might make people more enthusiastic about genetic engineering, but it's not just scientists who might be able to change the public's minds about things they think ought to be done if they made films and things that made people realise how valuable they could be.

"I mean, for one thing, you sometimes hear that politicians should be doing something that they won't do because it would be unpopular with the voters, and of course they want to get into power at the next election! But just because it's unpopular now, it doesn't mean it has to stay unpopular. I mean, for instance, maybe the health service could be really improved if more money was spent on it, but politicians don't want to do that because raising taxes to pay for it might lose them votes. But they might not if they classed the tax as a health tax, and made short films that were broadcast when millions would be watching, about the kinds of improvements the money would be spent on and the people whose lives would be made better because of them.

"Or I heard about young women who come to this country with rich foreign - often Arab - businessmen or diplomats or people like that, to work as their servants, doing housework for them and looking after their children; But sometimes they're badly mistreated and made to work inhumanly long hours. But they're only allowed into this country for as long as they're working for the people they came to this country with, so if they run away, they're classed as illegal immigrants and can be arrested.

"People say the government would never change the law to let them stay legally so they can run away without worrying about being arrested, at least near an election, because so many people want the government to be reducing immigration, not letting more people in, so it would be bad publicity for them. But that makes it sound as if they think the people of this country haven't got any feelings! I bet if the government made short programmes or films publicising the problem, interviewing some of the young women who've been mistreated about what it was like, and they said they were going to do something to help young women like them, by letting them stay if they ran away without being scared of being arrested, people would be pleased they were doing it and they might become More popular, not less! A lot of people might praise them, saying it was nice to hear about politicians having compassion for people."

The students agreed.

The Students Start Joking About Amusing Ideas Again, and Telling Funny Stories

One said, "You know, I was thinking the other day, some people really object to illegal immigrants, and actually any immigrants, but a lot of people have gone abroad from this country, and the ones that settled in America and Australia where there were other people living before anyone from here went there could be called illegal immigrants. I mean, I know there were no written laws saying they couldn't go there, but the people who were there first didn't want them there, I don't think, and today it would be against international law to do things like that. Just imagine if all their descendants were ordered to come back, because they were there illegally!"

"Wow, where would we put them all?" asked one student with a chuckle, joking, "We'd have to build skyscrapers about 900 storeys high all over the place or something! ... Or better still, maybe we could reclaim land from the sea for them to all go in. Hey yeah! Imagine if we said they could all come here, but they'd have to bring the land they lived on with them, so we could have enough to raise the land they could live on above the sea. America and Australia would end up full of big holes, while tons and tons of land was shipped across the oceans to here.

"Maybe we could say they had to pull their houses down and bring them too, along with their foundations, so there would be enough houses to go around, and they could rebuild them in all the land they put in the seas around our coasts. Just imagine how big Britain would end up, and how strange Australia and America would end up looking when they were full of deep holes!"

The students giggled. Then one said, "But loads of Americans and Australians probably have ancestors from lots of different countries in Europe, not just Britain. What would They do?"

Another student joked with a grin, "Maybe they could all be put on ships that would go to and fro between all the countries their ancestors came from, and they'd have to get off in each country and live there for a little while, before leaving and being shipped to the next country some of their ancestors came from, and so on, for the rest of their lives. So anyone who had ancestors from about 20 countries in Europe - if there are that many - would only be able to live in one country for a few weeks each time the ship docked there before they had to move on again."

The students chuckled, and then one said, "That reminds me of a story I once heard, which I think is true, about a man in America years and years and years ago who kept criticising the place, till the authorities got really fed up, and they sentenced him to be put on a ship that would never land in America, and he had to spend his whole life on it, never setting foot in America again. At first he said he didn't mind a bit, but as he grew older, he began to really miss the place, and started regretting being so nasty about it."

"Talk about the punishment fitting the crime!" said one student. "That reminds me of something I read, about how parents who punish their children should try to make the punishment fit the offence, because otherwise they can do things in anger like smacking them a lot harder than they deserve. So it can be better if they don't punish them immediately they find out they've done something wrong, but just tell them off and then decide what to do when they've calmed down a bit, and make the punishment fit the offence. So, for example, if a teenager's learned to drive and they take their parents' car out for the evening without their permission, they could ban them from using the car for a few days. Or if they invite friends around and leave the house a complete mess, they could have to clean it all up and not be allowed friends in the house for a few weeks or something."

One student said, "OK, and what if they and their friends leave the whole town a complete mess or something?"

"Then they can be made to emigrate!" said one student, chuckling.

Another one said, grinning, "Who would want them? Maybe they'd be passed from country to country all over Europe because no country wanted them, and they'd mess up the entire continent!"

The students laughed.

Then one of them said, "I read a funny story on the Internet, where a woman said she was working in a shop in America, when a man came in and complained. There are quite a lot of immigrants in North America from Latin America, especially down south near the Mexican border, I think. Anyway, a man came into a shop where there were signs up in Spanish as well as English so they could understand them easily, and he went up to one of the shop staff and said with annoyance that he wanted to know why they catered to the Mexicans. The shop assistant said they thought of it as good customer service and they even had a phone line that would translate things for them.

"The man said that shouldn't happen. He said, 'We are in America and people should speak American!'

"The shop assistant said she didn't even speak American herself; she spoke English. The man said, 'So you're one of those Brits! You probably came over here to take a good American job just like the rest of them!'

"The shop assistant said she wasn't British, but that she'd been born and raised in that very town.

"The customer asked her why, in that case, she didn't speak American.

"Her co-worker, who'd heard the conversation, said, 'Because American isn't a language.'

"The man said, 'Yes it is! You accursed foreign people are taking over! I'm never shopping here again!'

"And he left."

The students laughed.