New Scientist

Friendly Fire; Have Stray Bullets From The 'Frankenfood' Affair Killed Off A Force For Good?

One small British company has been working away with just such a product in mind. By using plant viruses engineered to produce some of the protein fragments from disease-causing organisms, it has been able to create food plants, such as potatoes and bananas, that stimulate the immune system when they are eaten.

Earlier this year, Axis Genetics began clinical trials of the world's first oral vaccine against hepatitis B at two biomedical institutes in New York state. But now the company has gone under after trying to raise the 10 million it needed to fund the next phase of development. Investors were apparently frightened of any corporate portfolio that had both "genetic engineering" and "food" in it.

If true, then the company has become the first innocent victim of the European outcry over "Frankenfoods". Other companies working with genetic engineering techniques to make drugs that have successfully distanced themselves from the furore over food crops must now grow nervous.

So, too, must governments. For it is a simple consequence of the shrinking world we live in that companies can simply move elsewhere when their aims are thwarted.

At the annual festival of science organised by the British Association this week, Richard Sykes, head of the drugs giant Glaxo Wellcome, warned that because of the hostile public attitude towards genetically modified foods in Britain "technical expertise will dissipate, funding by major international companies will be withdrawn ... [but] what is certain is that the development of this technology will continue elsewhere in the world".

But is it really so certain? For it is another consequence of a shrinking world that ideas fly across national barriers and pressure groups can be as international as any large corporation. In the US, where Europe's apparent technophobia has long been regarded with bemusement, there are now the first rumblings of opposition and concern over GM crops.

It is not so clear that running away from parts of the world where there is opposition will provide more than a temporary solution. Much better that agricultural biotechnology companies do what we've been urging for the past few years: create some products that genuinely demonstrate how genetic engineering can improve the environment and people's lives rather than simply strengthen the corporate grip on the farmer. It is a sad irony that one company that might have provided one such product has been the first to go under.