End of the Rainbow

Gutin, Joann C. (1994) "End of the Rainbow." Discover. November 1994.

Joann Gutin's "End of the Rainbow" presents the arguments of bioethicists, geneticists, cultural and biological anthropologists, indigenous people, agricultural and human rights activists exploring the debates that surround the initiation of the Human Genome Diversity Project (HGDP). The article suggests that are two ways of looking at the HDGP: either it represents a kind of "scientific colonialism" or, conversely, "the 1990s [are simply] an impossible moment in human history to launch a project touching on the rawest of nerves in the culture: genes and race?" (70). I want to suggest that offering these two possibilities as a binary in which only one is "allowed" to be true sets up a troublesome and unfair opposition.

The HGDP was begun as a result of a letter from a number of prominent geneticists published in Genomics and arguing that the human species "has reached a critical juncture: indigenous peoples are being absorbed into the larger gene pool at an escalating rate, and if the information contained in their DNA is not collected quickly it may be lost to humankind forever" (70). The collection of samples of said DNA was urgently encouraged and huge funding agencies stepped in to foot the bill, arguing that this was a necessary adjunct to the Human Genome Project, necessary because that project to map "the" human genome, was (and is) in actual fact analysing 23 chromosome pairs donated by a "mere handful of U.S. and European scientists" (71). The HGDP, it was argued, "would supplement, particularize and colorize the chromosome maps drawn by the Human Genome project" (71, my emphasis).

Proponents of the HGDP argue that participation in the project will be voluntary, that strict guidelines will be established for researchers, and that the "property rights of donor populations to their DNA will be protected" (71). The academic and political credentials of the initiators of the project are described as "irreproachable" (70), and their "science" is said to be sound. Nonetheless, the HGDP is being met with heavy criticism. This is unsurprising, I think, considering that the highly reductionist approach of projects of this type are fundamentally at odds with the knowledge systems of many of the groups that it seeks to target. As Jason Clay, an indigenous rights activist points out, "Some of these groups don't know about germs, much less about genes or property rights. . . . What could 'informed consent' possibly mean to them?" (73).

The Rural Advancement Foundation International (RAFI) has also been instrumental in leading the fight against the HGDP. Despite protests from project proponents who argue that, "There's no commercial money in the project, no pharmaceutical-industry backing. This is pure science" (74), RAFI warns of unscrupulous parties who could, among other things, use the information in the development of cheap and effective biological weapons.

Perhaps one of the most telling comments in the article, however, comes in the next to last paragraph, when a proponent of the HGDP says that he endorses the project because "you can never have enough scientific data" (74). The Enlightenment imperative writ short, this is frequently the driving force behind the HGDP and other projects like it. I believe that this statement reconciles (if reconcile is the word) the false opposition that I identified in the opening paragraph. Is the HGDP scientific colonialism? Yes, I believe it is. Is this a particularly difficult historical moment for open discussion of issues surrounding race and gene? Also, yes. To suggest that only one or the other may be true trivialises the objections to the HGDP and dismisses the deeply considered analyses of historical trends in social, political and scientific trends that demand such objections.