By Rachel Brahinsky

Biotechnology: will it heal the sick, feed the poor, and revolutionize the way we live for the greater good? Or will it permanently alter the food supply, pollute our air and water, and swoop through San Francisco with a development spree akin to the unchecked days of the dot-com boom?

Depends who you ask.

Boosters of biotech – a broad category that includes manipulations of pharmaceuticals and food, as well as human and animal genes – tout their work on reducing the obesity epidemic and their forays into growing foods that contain medicines to help with malnutrition in developing nations.

As Biotechnology Industry Organization president Carl Feldbaum and BIO chair Richard Pops wrote in a letter to members Jan. 30: "Biotechnology's popularity with the president and other public officials is easy to explain – after all, who isn't in favor of an economic growth engine that is clean, benefits public and individual health, and generates highly skilled jobs? Supporting biotech R&D and the incubation and growth of related companies is a no-brainer."

Yet organizers of multi-day citywide demonstrations against the BIO 2004 conference planned for June 6 through 9 charge that the field is largely made of unproven science, which is being foisted on the world before it's clear what the long-term side effects might be. They also say the companies that dominate the bioscience industry are further quickening the pace of corporate globalization, cutting down on democracy, and increasing the gap between the rich and poor, while degrading the environment in the process.

The demonstrators, who plan to swarm the city with a diverse range of political actions, are taking on more than just the BIO conference. They have broader concerns and are tying the local conference, which is expected to be the industry's largest ever, with the concurrent summit meeting of the Group of Eight (G8) Nations (the international trade alliance made up of Japan, Germany, France, Britain, Italy, Canada, the United States, and Russia), which is taking place on Sea Island, off the coast of Georgia, June 8 through 10.

It's a lot to take on all at once. As San Francisco-based activist and writer Starhawk said at a recent press conference, the demonstrations are aimed at building a "new social movement that we see as the next phase of the global justice movement.... We intend not just to shut down the conference, [but to push] the city to envision what is possible on a much broader level."

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A key element of the demonstrations will be a discussion about the possible impact a large influx of biotech firms would have on the San Francisco economy, as some local officials hope to see. Mayor Gavin Newsom, in establishing his Office of Economic and Job Development earlier this year, suggested offering payroll tax credits, permitting assistance, and reworked zoning classifications to attract the industry. And Sup. Michela Alioto-Pier last month introduced legislation seeking to attract biotech firms by eliminating their obligation to cough up payroll taxes for their first 10 years in the city.

Others are taking a more cautious approach. Sup. Sophie Maxwell created a city task force that began meeting last year to look at how to control land-use and environmental impacts from biotechnology companies. It's a sensitive issue. "We lived through the dot-com and live-work [era], and we don't need to go through that again here," Maxwell's legislative aide Greg Asay told the Bay Guardian. Maxwell – whose district contains most of the city's "developable" land – isn't opposed to biotech, he said, but wants the city to move thoughtfully so that it's allowed only under a publicly vetted and approved plan.

Public acceptance is important, but it's not guaranteed. While most of the focus in San Francisco is on medical biotech, consumers have resisted accepting the form of biotechnology that probably has the furthest reach into our daily lives: genetically engineered foods. In agricultural Mendocino County last year, voters passed the first U.S. ban of the stuff; about a dozen other California counties are considering a similar ban, according to the Organic Consumers Association.

On the medical side, activists are pointing out conflicts for companies that BIO organizers aren't mentioning. At the conference, author Luke Anderson told us in an e-mail, "there are going to be corporations who produce chemicals known to cause cancer, and who also sell drugs for cancer treatment, telling us all that they don't understand why we could possibly want to protest." Anderson's book Genetic Engineering, Food, and Our Environment, which is highly critical of the industry, was published in 1999.

As with any industry marked by continuous mergers, there are also links between pharmaceutical and agricultural biotech companies. Take the Bayer Global corporation. Bayer has a health care division but also produces pesticides and other chemicals. In 2001 the company purchased the CropScience division of Aventis, the firm best known for its Starlink genetically modified corn, which was released into the food supply even though it hadn't been approved for human consumption.

Biotech-medicine making, Anderson points out, is also linked to increased corporate control over health care. You only have to follow the logic: if an industry controlled by a few large corporations is responsible for creating cures to diseases, those few companies will have an inordinate amount of control over the costs of those drugs.