Crossing the Biotech Rubicon: Plunging on beyond the Point of No Return

An Interview with Carl B. Feldbaum
President
Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO)

by Mark Compton

If there's anyone who could have possibly been prepared for the tragic events of September 11, Carl Feldbaum is probably the guy. With roots that run deep into the defense and intelligence worlds, he's seen and heard much concerning matters most of us would just as soon not know about. And he's been asked to think through many different scenarios, some horrific beyond imagining.

In Mr. Feldbaum's current role as President of the Biotechnology Industry Organization, he's being asked to do a lot of thinking these days, mostly about the unthinkable. About bioterrorism, in particular. It's a topic that's on the minds of many now in Washington D.C.

Mr. Feldbaum's own introduction to Washington came nearly 30 years ago when he was hired by Archibald Cox as an assistant special prosecutor on the Watergate task force. Since then, he's served as the Inspector General for Defense Intelligence, assistant to the Secretary of Energy and chief of staff for Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania. Before assuming his current role, Mr. Feldbaum also founded and presided over the Palomar Corporation, a national security think tank based in Washington.

[Mark Compton]: In light of the recent attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, I expect your agenda has substantially altered.

[Carl B. Feldbaum]: Yes, of course. But actually, some 20 years ago when much the same cabinet-level team was in place, I was hired by [Defense Secretary Donald] Rumsfeld to be his Inspector General for Intelligence. And it was in that capacity that I first started thinking in terms of biological, chemical and nuclear warfare.

That's all come back to the forefront, of course, since over the past week, I've had a number of meetings with Defense Department folks regarding Biotech's changing relationship with the DOD--particularly in regard to heightened national security concerns about the potential for bioterrorism.

Have those discussions focused on how to prevent bioterrorism or how to respond once attacks have already been perpetrated?

More broadly, we've been talking about how to bring biotech thinking and research into the overall defense equation--one that heretofore has revolved chiefly around engineering, physics and chemistry.

As President of the Biotechnology Industry Organization, are you concerned that--with all the current speculation about the potential for bioterrorism--the very word "bio" might be at some risk of becoming as toxic in the public mind as, say, "nuclear"? And what, if anything, can be done to combat that?

I think we should not overworry that one, and I'll tell you why: the fact is that many folks, whether they know it or not, are already benefiting from biotech drugs. I think we've already established our bona fides, let me put it that way--both in terms of the political goodwill the industry has engendered and the benefits we're already delivering. And I think now, with increased defense involvement and cooperation, we can be quite helpful on the defensive side of bioterrorism in terms of developing vaccines, antibiotics and antidotes.

Do you also foresee a role for the industry in terms of helping to shore up counter-terrorism intelligence?

Well, no matter how good your intelligence, you can't predict everything that might happen. All you can do is prepare yourself for the worst--or maybe even worse than the worst. I think that's the lesson of the Pentagon and the WTC attacks. Those proved to be far worse than most people--even those in the know--could have ever foreseen. And now I think our collective mindset has been forever altered, which at least serves to prepare us for some truly deep thinking about what's really at risk here.

Certainly, our imaginations have been extended. But this whole area can be a bit overwhelming. In fact, with reference to all the excitement generated by the success of the Human Genome Project, you recently cautioned members of the biotechnology community "not to confuse the profundities of science with the depths of faith". Can you expand on what you meant by that?

The biotech industry in particular lives in the political world. If we could put the events of September 11th aside--which we cannot--the idea of a US President, any US President, pre-empting primetime television as President Bush did on the evening of August 9th to talk not about troop deployments in Bosnia, not about a missile strike against a US plane over China, but rather to talk about stem cell research--that really has to be considered a signal event. I think the industry went primetime that night. President Bush really crossed a Rubicon. And he essentially broke ranks with one of his key conservative constituencies by allowing the federal funding of any stem cell research whatsoever. Some folks may complain that 60 cell lines are not enough, but the important point is that the door is open for federally funded research.

But with regard to your cautionary remarks regarding the religious faithful--who certainly have to be considered part of that conservative political bloc--weren't you suggesting to your colleagues in the biotech community that they shouldn't necessarily expect the whole world to applaud their achievements?

Right. First of all, we live in a political, democratic world, and even though you may be a scientist, what you do and how you do it and how it's funded and the pace at which your research proceeds is essentially determined in the political arena. And you need to be involved in that, distasteful as it may sound. And within that political arena, you'll find patient groups and religious organizations. Scientists simply cannot afford to be isolated or parochial in their thinking. And they also shouldn't expect to get universal applause for every announcement. The ongoing exploration and research into stem cells gets us quite close to the vortex of one of the prime dividers of American society: the abortion debate. Controversy inevitably follows.

Well, that is a deeply personal matter.

Absolutely. And that's why I'm urging folks in the industry to be really mindful of religious beliefs--as well as the history of the interactions between science and religion. There are many lessons to be learned from that history. One of them is that Galileo didn't so much upset the Church with his whole notion of a solar system and his scheme for planetary motion as he did with his arrogant manner. It was that arrogance that really hacked off the Church, which at the time had all the political power.

But playing devil's advocate, I have to observe that there are people to this day who continue to challenge Darwin's work for religious reasons, and yet the life sciences still manage to march forward. So at some level, why should the scientists care one fig about what the ill-informed public thinks?

Well, you know what? If you march over the public at large, eventually your arrogance will offend the majority. And then democracy kicks in and you get your butt whipped, even if your position is scientifically sound.

Are we talking about democracy or mob rule?

However you wish to characterize it, although I would say "democracy" or "majority rule".

Shades of "Frankenstein". Sooner or later, there comes that point when the peasants congregate at the gates with their burning torches, their scythes and their rakes.

Oh right-- the rakes. Never forget the rakes. But--how to put this delicately--it's not the rabble, it's democracy that we're talking about here. It's one woman/one man/one vote. And however worthy you think your research is, you can get knocked out of the ballpark if you run afoul of the sensibilities of those who don't understand what you're doing or why. And if we don't deign to give religious and political leaders the respect of at least attempting to explain ourselves, we're likely to pay dearly for our arrogance.

Now I can well imagine that you've heard from people in your organization involved in stem cell research or therapeutic cloning who make the argument that terrible diseases claim more people every day and that there's really no time to lose.

Well, we're the champions of those very people. And we've actually been rather successful in winning converts--among them Sen. Bill Frist of Tennessee and Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah. Nancy Reagan ended up writing a letter to President Bush alerting him to the potential for finding answers to Alzheimers through stem cell research. The thing is: the country really wants to be behind us, but first they want us to tell them why they ought to be. And if we just say, "Well, you're just too stupid to understand" or "We're not going to take the time away from our labs to try to explain it to you", then I think we're really asking for it.

Do you think, in particular, that there are any lessons to be drawn from the way the marketing of genetically modified foods was handled--or rather, mishandled--in Europe?

Absolutely. The first and perhaps most obvious lesson--although it's rarely commented upon--is that after the fall of the Soviet Union, the US became the world's unquestioned major superpower ... militarily, economically and geopolitically--and also in terms of biomedical research and biotechnology. So to think that everybody is going to love us for that position of pre-eminence--that, I think, would be hopelessly naive.

You're saying that people are no more willing to choke down our technology than they are to embrace our culture?

Exactly, and they certainly have plenty to complain about. Some don't like our television shows, and some complain about McDonalds. There seems to be something to irritate just about everybody. Call it "cultural imperialism" or whatever. But the fact is that we're not all that popular. So the onus is really on us to prove that what we have to offer is something that truly stands to benefit everybody. And I'm not sure we've done that--particularly in the area of genetically modified foods. When it comes to eating, people can get pretty particular.

Well, it's just another one of those deeply personal things--not only in terms of preference, but also in terms of health.

And also in terms of agriculture. I actually think we've been pretty candid about having messed up on that one. And we've really regrouped. Frankly, Monsanto has become one of the most progressive companies in that regard, having invested a tremendous amount of time and effort to thoroughly reevaluate their strategies. But unfortunately, it took a hard whack for all of us to learn an important lesson there.

Have you also considered that one of the operative dynamics here might simply be the innate desire to flaunt authority--to subvert the dominant paradigm?

Yes, I really do believe that's one of the driving forces.

Just by virtue of being the dominant culture and the dominant exporter of technology, it seems almost inevitable that you're going to end up tickling the gag reflex in a lot of other cultures.

Well put. I actually marched in the first Earth Day demonstration--back on April 18, 1970--and one my favorite bumper stickers from those days that I still remember was the one that read: "Question Authority". I believe--I hope--that impulse will always be with us.

With that in mind, it's been widely speculated that bio-identification systems may soon be deployed in response to the recent attacks as part of an effort to bolster security at all manner of public facilities--airports, stadiums, courthouses and the like. How likely does that seem to you? And given that the evolution of such a surveillance society would be at odds with the privacy and civil liberties Americans have come to take as birthrights, how would you expect the biotechnology industry to respond?

I'm a former constitutional lawyer myself--one who traces the right to privacy back to an article published by a minor lawyer in the Boston area named Louis Brandeis on Dec. 15, 1890. That's when the first important article on the right of privacy was published in the Harvard Law Review. And the concern Brandeis voiced at that time about privacy had to do with a new technological innovation called the "box camera", since for the first time someone using such a camera could actually take another person's picture without that person being aware of it. The potential for abuse gave Brandeis a queasy gut feeling, which is why he chose to write an article that's served us quite well over the years.

The point is that privacy is ever being challenged by new advances in technology. Which means we've all grown up with a privacy tradition in this culture that may change rather substantially over the next 50 years--or 150 years--but that's for others to deal with. For now, I think folks have reason to expect something to be done to protect their privacy--particularly with regard to the health predilections revealed by their DNA. It's reasonable for people to demand the ability to protect that information from the prying eyes of insurers, educators and employers. I think over the next decade--or even over the next five years--we'll need a piece of civil rights legislation that speaks to that. Because, believe me, all of us have some predilections we don't want made public.

Do you think that privacy sensitivities might change as people come to understand that DNA is not necessarily deterministic?

Yes, I think that will certainly be one factor. But another issue I'm really concerned about now is that with the current passion for national security, civil liberties in this area may start to erode. That would be a mistake.

I'd say that's a genuine concern. Given the current reactionary climate, can a national identification program be all that far in the offing?

Actually, I don't see anything inherently wrong with a national ID system. The real issue is how that information gets used--or, more to the point--abused. I think we need to construct barriers to that sort of abuse, while not impeding access to the information itself. We've still got a long way to go before we're ready to implement any such system intelligently.

An even more immediate example comes to mind, however, with regard to the WTC collapse. It appears the authorities in New York are asking for families of the missing to bring in toothbrushes, hairbrushes or anything else that might yield some DNA for identification purposes. But doesn't that run the risk of betraying private information about the entire family tree?

That might be true someday. But fortunately, we don't know enough yet to really be able to breech any family member's privacy. What we're talking about here is the very same thing we've talked about before. Maybe a millennium ago, the authorities fretted over how to control the use of fire. Sure, it was good for cooking food and heating homes, but something had to be done to let people know it would be wrong to burn down a house. The same thing went for knives. Yes, you could cut your food with a knife, but you really should remember never to stab anybody. So my point is that our understanding of the tools of technology tends to build incrementally--as do our ethical and social abilities to distinguish between the uses that should be considered acceptable and those that are clearly unacceptable and those that are downright criminal. We still have a long way to go in that regard on the DNA front.

A reporter once asked me, "Won't big insurance companies seek to take advantage of DNA information, and won't people get hurt as a result?" I said that might be the insurers' instinct, but I doubt any insurance company CEO is going to be all that keen on spending time in a high-security federal penitentiary. Laws that protect the privacy of citizens can act as a very effective deterrent in that regard. As a former criminal lawyer, I can tell you that white-collar types are not at all heartened at the prospect of hard time in a federal prison.

The point I think we're driving toward here is that there's a vast corpus of public policy that's going to need to evolve over the next few years.

Absolutely. And I think the push for that is going to be very high profile.

So the question is: to what degree and in what way will the public--which is admittedly not all that well educated about biotechnology--manage to participate in the development of appropriate policies?

We have to be very careful not to overreach. The fact of the matter is that an organization such as BIO is never going to have the manpower or the other resources required to educate the entire US population. That much is clear. But we do educate wherever we can--and wherever we feel we can have the greatest impact. Right now, my audience is the President of the US, the Vice President, the Cabinet and Congress. And, wherever possible, we also work to raise the awareness of certain editors and reporters.

On the assumption that the information will ultimately seep down to the general populace?

I'll be damned if we have the resources to accomplish that. But yes, the idea is to work at the top and hope that some of that information finds its way into other parts of society.

Well, it's easy enough to see how educational curricula can be changed. But how to reach all those folks who are no longer in school?

I'll tell you, when we canvass people to ask, "How do you get your science information?" people generally tell us it's by watching the Discovery Channel.

Better than nothing, I suppose.

A lot better. I also do a lot of radio talk shows in communities all across the country. But the small biotech industry doesn't really have the resources to do a whole lot more than that--particularly given the acute national security crisis we're facing right now. With all that going on, how are we going to get much attention?

Be that as it may, there are advocates of participatory democracy who believe that while most citizens are unlikely to ever master the details of biotechnology, the values they hold dear must still be reflected somehow in the development of public policy. The trick is: how to determine what those public values are?

The answer is: you ask people. You get out there. You go to Rotary Club, Lions Club and Elks Club meetings. You do radio talk shows and you take questions from people from all walks of life. There's just no other way. And you don't hire somebody to go do that for you. You've got to go do it yourself. There's an interesting German phrase: Fingerspitzengefuehl--which is like the 6th sense out just at the end of your fingertips. If you aren't out there to take in those sorts of impressions, that's the sort of thing that can't be interpreted or reported back to you. You've got to be out there to feel it for yourself.

Does the Internet have a role to play in all that?

Absolutely, which is why we're continually upgrading our Internet presence. That's an important part of our advocacy program--although I'd just as soon not use the word "advocacy".

Call it "education" then.

I hesitate to.

Why? If it's just neutral information, what's the concern?

We'd like to think it's neutral. Certainly, the very worst thing we could do would be to put out something that's artfully spun--something that's essentially untruthful.

Yes. It turns out that people--even people with a very limited education--have really good bullshit antennae.

Right. They can smell it a mile away. I totally agree with you there.

Still, interacting with people from outside the field can be extremely tricky. How, for example, do you manage to maintain civil, civic dialogue when people come to the discussion with a wide spectrum of preset biases and ideologically rigid positions? Discussions can degenerate into placard waving and name calling pretty quickly.

Blows even. I have tuned into the Indian parliament and watched as fistfights broke out right in the middle of a session. Well, I personally don't face those sorts of tensions all that often since I've found that talking to members of Congress is not necessarily the best use of my time. I find I tend to get better mileage out of talking to journalists because those are the people who can proliferate knowledge and filter information in some reasonable way.

If, in fact, this is the Biotech Century--as Time called it a couple of years ago--the issues you want to talk about should be important stories for decades to come.

And I think the press is actually beginning to get it. I think they understand, for one thing, that despite all the hype around Biotech, it's still actually significantly under-hyped.

Still, I doubt you want to rely on the press entirely. In accomplishing your goals of educating the public and identifying those values which have broad support, what role do you see for participatory democracy groups?

A central role, actually. Our industry--like many others--is widely viewed as a blue-suited horde of profit mongerers. Academia, meanwhile, comes off as detached and aloof. So I see a bridging function that needs to be fulfilled. And, speaking for the industry, I can say I have no fear whatsoever about having all the issues laid out on the table. But I also know that neither industry nor academia can be the ones to actually lay them on the table--because neither has complete credibility with the public. It's only the trusted intermediaries who can perform that function...and I think Geneforum fits that role.

About the Interviewer

Mark Compton monitors trends in information technology and
biotechnology from a comfortable perch midway between the Silicon
Valley and Oregon's Silicon Forest.