University of Toronto bioethics professor Peter A. Singer said advances in biotechnology will improve living conditions in the developing world and for the reconciliation of the pros and cons of biotechnology during a talk at the History Corner yesterday afternoon.

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Gus Jewell

ioethics professor Peter A. Singer of the University of Toronto spoke yesterday afternoon about the harmful potential for biotechnology in future global affairs. Although he claimed such advancements do a great deal of good, he also cautioned that this kind of technology could be hard to control.

Singer cited the new Hepatitis B vaccine created by the Indian company Shanta Biotechnics as an example of one way that the new technology has benefited poorer nations.

He cautioned that while the advances in technology can have great potential, they can also be abused. He referenced the 2002 anthrax scare as an example of the dark side of biotechnology.

Singer said biotechnology tools are more easily replicated — and, thus, possibly more dangerous — than nuclear weapons.

“You get the Nobel Prize for PCR [a biochemistry tool],” he said, “and two, three years later PCR is in high school biology labs.”

Because of the diffuse nature of biotechnology research, Singer warned that preventing the spread of harmful biochemical knowledge could become next to impossible. In an effort to balance the new technology’s dangers and benefits, Singer called on the global community to create a forum to discuss ethics in the life sciences and on leaders to instill a sense of responsibility in young scientists .

In particular, he said, a prominent official in the global community, such as the United Nations secretary general, should be “at the nexus of development and security.”