Team:UCSC/Sandra

Sandra Driesbach

   The question of ‘What is Natural?’ is deep rooted within American culture, and has become a highly influential marketing tactic used to either persuade consumers to buy one product or persuade consumers to avoid another. Writers and online bloggers have also adopted the term as salient way to connect with reader’s emotions, most notably fear, in order to persuade their thinking of controversial issues such as vaccines, GMOs, or alternative/artificial sweeteners. Since the core of our project relies upon genetic engineering, we decided to first explore how public perception of ‘Natural’ influences their thoughts on GMOs. For this we spoke with Sandra Dreisbach, professor of Bioethics at the University of California, Santa Cruz. As a passionate and vocal contributor to public discussions on GMOs, our team was grateful to have had the opportunity to pick her mind and discuss our project’s moral considerations. Very well versed on these topics, Sandra was able to consistently elicit intriguing and controversial discussions amongst the team; many of which helped formed the basis of our Human Practices journey.

   In our interview, Sandra helped us understand that a significant amount of public resistance to GMOs was due to a lack of education amongst the general public. Many of the vocal opponents, she explained, simply did not recognize the fundamental science behind genetic engineering; in fact, she stated that many may not even know what ‘GMO’ stood for. This information did not bode well for the team, especially given our project’s circumstances. Since our project utilized genetic modification solely in the synthesis of our erythritol, were interested in exploring the differences in public perception between consuming compounds manufactured with the assistance of GMOs and consuming GMOs themselves. However, we faced the stark reality that much of the opposition simply does not realize this difference exists at all.

   With this new insight, we decided to explore how our laws reflect this pivotal difference.