Let's Look Before We Leap into Biotech

by Donella H. Meadows 03.20.00

Biotech stocks plummeted last week as President Clinton and British Prime Minister Tony Blair requested that companies make their data on the human genome public.

Private firms are racing madly to read and patent the genetic code that makes you you and me me. They are trying to beat publicly funded labs, which are required as a condition of their grants to publish the gene sequences they unravel. One company, Celera Genomics, is funded by drug companies with the understanding that the funders will see the code before anyone else does.

If it strikes you as alarming that private investors can patent, keep secret, and sell something that sits within every cell of your body, you ought to pay much closer attention to the new, jaw-dropping biotech industry. I have just spent several weeks with my students listening to biotech enthusiasts, critics, and a lot of folks in between. There were three particular moments I'd like to tell you about, all of them moments of stunned silence.

The first came when we heard from an ecologist who sits on a USDA panel that approves the release of genetically engineered crop plants. Of the 71 applications currently pending, one is for the implantation of the gene by which scorpions make their toxin. Splice that gene into a plant, and anything that nibbles on a leaf, from woodchucks to bugs, falls down dead. Of course people who eat the plant fall down dead too, so there must also be a package of genes to turn the scorpion gene on and off. Turn it on in the roots and leaves and stems, turn it off in the flower and fruit.

But what happens to the poison, the students asked, when roots or leaves decompose in the soil? What happens if the turn-off gene doesn't work infallibly? Would we have to check every fruit or grain for traces of scorpion poison?

"Don't know," said the ecologist.

Silence.

The second moment came when a geneticist described a new rice with a pasted-in gene that allows the plant to make and store beta-carotene, the yellow pigment from which our bodies make vitamin A. Thousands of poor children in Asia, who eat little but rice, go blind or die for lack of vitamin A. The "golden rice" could solve that problem.

A hand went up, and one of the students asked, "Why not just splice the beta-carotene gene into the child?"

Silence. Finally another visiting expert said, "Within five years that could be possible. Fasten your seat belts."

More silence. I guess everyone's mind was racing as mine was. I was picturing golden children. Then I thought, why not splice in the gene for chlorophyll while we're at it, and just send the kids out in the sun to photosynthesize their lunch? Gold-green children.

Moment number three came when I showed the students a documentary called The Day After Trinity. It's the story of J. Robert Oppenheimer, the developer of the atomic bomb, told through interviews with some of the great physicists who worked with him at Los Alamos during the Second World War.

The cause was compelling: to stop Hitler. The science was thrilling. The effort was tremendous. The bomb was nearing completion when Hitler surrendered in May, 1945.

That surrender did not cause any slowdown in the work at Los Alamos. There was too much excitement. It was nearly time for the first test, called Trinity, which took place at Alamagordo, N.M., on July 16. The scientists said that on that day, as they watched the first atom bomb explosion in history, their reaction was joyous. "It worked!"

Less than a month later, when a similar bomb incinerated 100,000 people at Hiroshima, one scientist said his first thought was, "Thank goodness it wasn't a dud." His second thought was, "Oh my God, what have we done?"

The film ends with Oppenheimer testifying in Washington two decades later. When asked by a senator how to contain the nuclear arms race, Oppenheimer answered, "It's 20 years too late. We should have done it the day after Trinity."

I turned on the lights. The students just sat there. Didn't move. Didn't say a word. I couldn't either.

Geneticists are already cloning sheep and cows and mice and pigs. They can pick out a trait from almost any creature and paste it into any other, and they are on the verge of being able to turn a gene on or off at will. We already plant gene-spliced crops on tens of millions of acres. We can order genes from catalogs. Within a few years we will be able to read the code for our very selves and reach in and tinker with it. It is only a matter of time before hackers appear who think it might be fun, as computer hackers do, to create and release their own viruses.

The stock market is speculating on this stuff. National leaders ask companies, politely, to make their knowledge available to all. We need to do much more than that, more than just fasten our seatbelts and go along for the ride. We need to slow down and think together about where this technology is going and who should own it and who should make these decisions.

For genomics it is still the day after Trinity. We don't want or need to have to ask, helplessly, "Oh my God, what have we done?"

- - - - - - - - -

Donella H. Meadows is director of the Sustainability Institute and an adjunct professor of environmental studies at Dartmouth College.

-- (Hallyx@aol.com), March 22, 2000

Answers

Hallyx, this is scary. I first became alarmed about this stuff when I read Algeny by Jeremy Rifkin, written in 1983. I'll never forget what he said, "Beyond the promise of miracles,may lie the reality of extinction."

But what alarms me even more, is the thought of mistakes that might be made with genetic engineering. The resulting humans, plants and animals that might be, either accidentally or intentionally, genetically engineered into monsters could cause horrors that no mad scientist could imagine.

There are too many unknowns. Also there are too many greedy corporations wanting to place patents on everything we need for a quality life on this planet, that are racing to develop this stuff.

Monsanto has tried to get farmers hooked on GM seeds, so they will have to continue buying GM seeds from Monsanto. If they get patents on the seeds, the public will be held hostage to food.

-- gilda (jess@listbot.com), March 22, 2000.

I had a discussion about a month ago with a person who sits on various agricultural boards at the state level. So she's not just a hobby farmer like we are. She insisted that only corn and soybeans were GM. I had remembered reading about more crops than just those two and set out to prove my point. The following is a site that has the most comprehensive directory of articles I found. It has them listed by year from 1997 to 2000. Even glancing at the titles of these articles left me astounded. I hope someone else finds it useful. http://www.netlink.de/gen/Zeitung/1999/home.html

-- Pam (jpjgood@penn.com), March 22, 2000.

"And this too shall pass."

-- Very (Grateful@still.here), March 22, 2000.

This book is very sexist

-- (bride@frank.enstein), March 22, 2000.

Pam, thanks for the link. I've added it to my favorites. The titles were very scary.

-- gilda (jess@listbot.com), March 22, 2000.

BBC News radio ran an excellent series of reports within the last six months on GM crops in China. They quoted staggering statistics on those already in use, and projections for the near future.

The effects on population sustainability, movement, and water use issues were also addressed.

Does some smartypants out there know if the BBC stuff is on Real Audio { & happen to have an address handy for a good search? Thanks!}

-- flora (***@__._), March 22, 2000.

Save your beans. And hope like hell TPTB in charge of biotech regulations aren't all as cocksure and arrogant as Paul Davis, Hoff, Flint and Ken Decker.

-- (@ .), March 22, 2000.

Ah, but what are the bio tech regulations? Who should decide?

I think Jim Cooke made an excellent observation regarding the need for better communication of technical data. He was referring to 'the bug', but here we have a topic which truly affects all people and several other species.

We can't put the genie back in the bottle. Activists recently destroyed experimental crops at one of the Universities here. Meanwhile, experiments go on apparently unmolested at corporate farms.

oops -gotta go...

-- flora (***@__._), March 22, 2000.

Personally, I don't think ANYONE can stop technology from moving in ALL directions. Laws can be passed, but those who have the technology will simply move underground. Results will have both positive and negative effects on mankind and the environment....like it always has.

-- Anita (notgiving@anymore.com), March 22, 2000.

You're probably right, Anita. I think one possible solution is to push for more transparency (see David Brin's book: The Transparent Society). I think the Internet is playing a big part in that already and will do even more so in the future.

-- Jim Morris (prism@bevcomm.net), March 22, 2000.

I see we get our usual cast of characters here. The visionaries who focus on the benefits, but who are able to recognize the costs and dangers and work to minimize them. The bean counters, who focus on the costs, but who are able to recognize the benefits and work to maximize them. And finally the paranoids, who focus on unsupported worst-case speculations and are neither willing nor able to recognize anything else at all.

We need to *know* the costs and benefits of every possibility we pursue, in great detail, before we can make the policy decision to go ahead or not. Why inhibit this process through fear backed by misinformation? Where no risk is allowed, no gain is possible.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), March 22, 2000.

A Tale of Two Botanies

By Amory B. Lovins and L. Hunter Lovins

Plants, shaped into incredible diversity by 3.8 billion years of evolution, make possible all life and are resilient against almost any threat - except human destructiveness. From botany came the genetics of Mendel and Lamarck, formalizing the patient plant- breeding that created 10,000 years of agriculture.

Now, however, in the name of feeding a growing human population, a completely different kind of botany, in the Cartesian tradition of reducing complex wholes to simple parts, strives to alter isolated genes while disregarding the interactive totality of ecosystems. Its ambition is to replace nature's wisdom with people's cleverness; to treat nature not as model and mentor but as a set of limits to be evaded when inconvenient; not to study nature but to restructure it.

The new botany aligns the development of plants with their economic, not evolutionary, success: survival not of the fittest but of the fattest. High-yield, open-pollinated seeds abound; the new crops were created not because they're productive but because they're patentable. Their economic value is oriented not toward helping subsistence farmers to feed themselves but toward feeding more livestock for the already overfed rich. Most worryingly, the transformation of plant genetics is being accelerated from the measured pace of biological evolution to the speed of next quarter's earnings report. Such haste makes it impossible to foresee and forestall: Unintended consequences appear only later, when they may not be fixable, because novel lifeforms aren't recallable.

In nature, all experiments are rigorously tested over eons. Single mutations venture into an unforgiving ecosystem and test their mettle. What's alive today is what worked; only successes yield progeny. But in the brave new world of artifice, organisms are briefly tested by their creators in laboratory and field, then mass- marketed worldwide. The USDA has already approved about 50 genetically engineered crops for unlimited release; US researchers have tested about 4,500 more. Over half the world's soybeans and a third of the corn now contain genes spliced in from other forms of life. You've probably eaten some lately - unwittingly. The official assumption is that they're different enough to patent but similar enough to make identical food; Europe's insistence on labeling, to let people choose what they're eating, is considered an irrational barrier to free trade.

Traditional agronomy transfers genes between plants whose kinship lets them interbreed. The new botany mechanically transfers genes between organisms that can never mate naturally: An antifreeze gene from a fish becomes part of a strawberry. Such patchwork, done by people who've seldom studied evolutionary biology and ecology, uses so-called "genetic engineering" - a double misnomer. It moves genes but is not about genetics. "Engineering" implies understanding of the causal mechanisms that link actions to effects, but nobody understands the mechanisms by which genes, interacting with each other and the environment, express traits. Transgenic manipulation inserts foreign genes into random locations in a plant's DNA to see what happens. That's not engineering; it's the industrialization of life by people with a narrow understanding of it.

The results, too, are more worrisome than those of mere mechanical tinkering, because unlike mechanical contrivances, genetically modified organisms reproduce, genes spread, and mistakes literally take on a life of their own. Herbicide-resistance genes may escape to make "superweeds." Insecticide-making genes may kill beyond their intended targets. Both these problems have already occurred; their ecological effects are not yet known. Among other recent unpleasant surprises, spliced genes seem unusually likely to spread to other organisms. Canola pollen can waft spliced genes more than a mile, and common crops can hybridize with completely unrelated weeds. Gene- spliced Bt insecticide in corn pollen kills monarch butterflies; that insecticide, unlike its natural forebear, can build up in soil; and corn borers' resistance to it is apparently a dominant trait, so planned anti-resistance procedures won't work.

It could get worse. Division into species seems to be nature's way of keeping pathogens in a box where they behave properly (they learn that it's a bad strategy to kill your host). Transgenics may let pathogens vault the species barrier and enter new realms where they have no idea how to behave. It's so hard to eradicate an unwanted wild gene that we've intentionally done it only once - with the smallpox virus.

Since evolution is a fundamental process, it must occur at every scale at which it's physically possible, down to and including the nanoecosystem of the genome. It's unwise to assume, as "genetic engineers" generally do, that 90-plus percent of the genome is "garbage" or "junk" because they don't know its function. That mysterious, messy, ancient stuff is the context that influences how genes express traits. It's the genetic version of biodiversity, which in larger ecosystems is the source of resilience and endurance.

Transgenics is showing disturbing historical parallels to another problematic invention, nuclear fission. In both enterprises, technical ability has evolved faster than social institutions; skill has outrun wisdom. Both have overlooked fundamentals, often from other disciplines wrongly deemed irrelevant. Both have overreached - too far, too fast, too uncritical.

Our key choices now are not between unwelcome alternatives - nuclear power or freezing in the dark, transgenic crops or starvation - but between those bad choices and attractive ones outside the orthodoxy. For crops, the best choice would be fairer distribution of food grown by a respectful and biologically informed agriculture that stops treating soil like dirt. But sound choices tend to emerge and get adopted in time only if we take seriously the discipline of mindful markets and the wisdom of informed democracy. Botanists have a professional duty to help us all understand the vital differences between biology and biotechnology - between the foundations of their traditional science and the scientifically immature but commercially hell-for-leather enterprise, a billion times younger, that aims to replace it. ----------

Amory Lovins, a physicist and MacArthur Fellow, and Hunter Lovins, a lawyer and social scientist, are cofounders of Rocky Mountain Institute, the copyright holder. An unabridged version is available at www.rmi.org/biotechnology/twobotanies.html

-- Celia Thaxter (celiathaxter@yahoo.com), March 22, 2000.

Thanks for posting this Celia. I very much admire the Lovins. They wrote the definitive work on energy.

Flint, this should address some of your concerns.

-- gilda (jess@listbot.com), March 22, 2000.

Celia:

It seems as though the older methods of crop rotation, etc. have been left behind. I remember years ago folks stating that a carrot offered NOTHING in nutritional value, because the vitamins in the soil had already been depleted. This argument, of course, led to the booming business on which we now rely for our quota of vitamins...supplements. Carrots are now eaten for their flavor [if so enjoyed], but a vitamin supplement is strongly recommended.

WHAT IF [sound familiar?] we could modify carrots to produce the same nutritional value that they once obtained from the soil using new technology? We'd be able to grow carrots without crop rotation, and the carrots we grew would provide the vitamins they once did. If this technology extended to OTHER crops, we could find ourselves again eating for nutrition instead of paying for vitamins and eating for the simple pleasure of the foods enjoyed.

Since we seem to already have raped the earth of nutrition, it seems only fair that we replace in whatever way we can the benefits once served.

-- Anita (notgiving@anymore.thingee), March 22, 2000.

I have a concern that fear and lack of understanding might close down funding for valuable and necessary scientific studies. I know of an endangered species fostering project that was effectively shut down by {IMHO} misguided and myopic 'activists'.

In a topic with such potentially serious ramifications, how is it possible to maintain equilibrium with public opinion and emotions?

-- flora (***@__._), March 22, 2000.

Sorry to have killed your thread, Hallyx. In a brief but unsuccessful attempt to track down the BBC report above, I turned up this recent article I thought you might find of interest.

http://news2.thls.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid% 5F647000/647070.stm

"The world's biggest producers of genetically-modified crops are planning to sharply reduce their planting this year, evidence from the US suggests.

The move is in response to widespread consumer resistance in Europe and Japan, and an international agreement last month allowing countries to restrict imports of GM foods.

Farmers in the United States, Canada and Argentina are expected to reduce plantings by 20% to 25%, Washington-based environmental group Worldwatch predicted..."

-- flora (***@__._), March 22, 2000.

You have not killed "my" thread, Flora. You have added valuable input to "our" discussion---as have you all.

Setting aside, for a moment, the cost/benefit analysis of any new technology, one of the reasons consumers worldwide are having a hard time accepting this particular new technology is the high-handed, condescending manner in which the biotech corps, in collusion with government agencies, have handled this entire affair.

Flint makes a trenchant point, "We need to *know* the costs and benefits of every possibility we pursue, in great detail, before we can make the policy decision to go ahead or not. Why inhibit this process through fear backed by misinformation?"

And how are we supposed to "know" when the corporations are pushing this down our throats (literally) without complete and comprehensive research into the possible outcomes, and the FDA and other responsible agencies are merely rubber-stampimg their assertions of safety? Small wonder there is global consumer retiscence to accepting an unknown technology of such potential scope and portent. This is not, after all, merely a better refrigerator or mousetrap.

Fear derives from lack of knowledge. Lack of knowledge in this case results from corporate policies which obfuscate, confuse and condescend. In other words, from which side of the issue is misinformation coming from? Have we no right to fear "their" lack of knowledge?

In a letter written in 1820 Thomas Jefferson, one of the U.S. "Founding Fathers" wrote: I know of no safe depository of the ultimate powers of society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion.

The government, under the influence of their corporate henchmen, have abdicated their responsibility to inform our discretion. It's entirely up to us to ferret out the truth in this issue as, regrettably, in so many others.

Hallyx

"Somebody has to do something, and it's just incredibly pathetic that it has to be us." -- Jerry Garcia

-- (Hallyx@aol.com), March 22, 2000.

Hallyx:

Your statement that "the FDA and other responsible agencies are merely rubber-stampimg their assertions of safety" surprises me. I've seen many criticisms of the FDA, and all of them have been exactly the opposite -- that the bureaucrats at FDA take half of forever to approve anything. And that to get something approved, you must prove safety out the wazoo, with overkill levels of studies from every angle, replicated several times, along with a mountain of red tape. I know David Kessler who headed FDA for a long time was *hated*, because the impediments he posed for approval of agricultural or pharmacological products were so slow and expensive that US concerns couldn't compete with Europeans who didn't have to jump through so many expensive hoops for so long. Kessler was even accused of delaying approval for personal reasons -- so long as you needed to go through him for approval, he held power over you and he loved that power.

So either the FDA has suddenly changed character completely (and in a very unbureaucratic direction), or else your term "rubber stamp" applies to *ANY* GM approval, however thoroughly studied and understood.

I really don't know (nor does my background qualify me to understand) the necessary details. Gene splicing is not my field. But it does sound to me like you oppose it in principle, rendering the actual procedures irrelevant to you. And I always bear in mind that the principles in these corporations must also eat the foods they modify, and so must their children.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), March 22, 2000.

Flint said:

And I always bear in mind that the principles in these corporations must also eat the foods they modify, and so must their children.

You know as well as I do that those greedy bastards would sell their grandmothers if it would net them a quick buck. See the definition for "lawyer".

-- (@ .), March 22, 2000.

This is an article from 1997 but it contains some interesting information.

USA Today March 6, 1997 Genetically Altered Food: Buyer Beware

By John Fagan

(Dr. John B. Fagan is a molecular biologist who has conducted research using recombinant DNA techniques.)

There's a war on in Europe, and most Americans have hardly heard about it. It concerns the safety of something very basic to human life: our food. Why are we so uninformed while European consumers are up in arms and their governments are taking swift action against the uncontrolled introduction of genetically modified foods?

Mention genetically altered foods to most Americans, and you will get a blank stare. A genetically cloned sheep has stolen the headlines. Yet with each passing day, we are filling our grocery carts with these foods in ever-increasing percentages without our knowledge or consent.

In Europe, shiploads of these products have been halted at borders. Supermarket chains and food producers have banned these products from their shelves or promised consumers that they will label these foods conspicuously. In fact, several nations are enacting stringent labeling requirements.

What is at the core of the fear about these new foods? And should this concern derail work some claim will increase agricultural efficiency and reduce world hunger? Scientific journals and leading scientists have joined in the chorus to urge definitive research into the possible risks in advance of mass use by humans.

Scientists have altered foods by inserting into them genes from bacteria and viruses. Many more such products containing foreign DNA from insects, fish and even humans are in the R&D pipeline and soon will be headed for our dinner plates.

Foods altered through genetic engineering often contain proteins and other components that have never before been part of the human diet: proteins from bacteria and viruses and, in the future, proteins from insects, scorpions and people. There is no way to predict whether those foods are safe to eat. The only way to tell is to test them rigorously. Yet our government does not require such testing.

The risks are not hypothetical. Any unbiased scientist familiar with the technology will admit that genetic engineering can give rise to unanticipated allergens and toxins. Already we have seen this scenario in action. In 1989, a dietary supplement, L-tryptophan, caused 37 U.S. deaths and 1,511 nonfatal cases of a disease called eosinophilia-myalgia syndrome (EMS). The Centers for Disease Control linked these cases to tryptophan manufactured using genetically engineered bacteria. A study published in Science in 1990 confirmed that the tryptophan was contaminated with a toxic "novel amino acid" not present in tryptophan produced by other methods.

How could this problem have been prevented? Routine food-safety tests could not have done the job. They can only detect the presence of toxins or allergens known to be present in common foods such as shellfish and peanuts. Such tests on the genetically altered tryptophan would not have registered a blip. Only biological and clinical tests on humans would have revealed the truth. Unfortunately, these tests were not done. Moreover, they are still not required for other genetically engineered foods. Advocates maintain that the risk from any given genetically engineered food is small and argue, therefore, that it is unnecessary to carry out stringent safety testing.

This view is not scientifically responsible. Thousands of these foods products will be brought to market over the next several years. When we do the math, the small risk that any given product will produce unanticipated effects translates into virtual certainty of harm when many new genetically engineered foods have become part of the diet of large populations over extended periods of time.

What is the solution? Given that billions of dollars have been invested in developing these products, we cannot exclude them from the market. Nonetheless, consumer safety must be protected. Here are three suggestions to address both issues:

Safety testing must be made more stringent.

The only scientifically valid approach is to feed these foods to human volunteers and see how they respond. Such testing is required by the FDA before new foods or additives produced by other methods can be marketed. Why should genetically altered foods be an exception?

All genetically engineered foods must be labeled as such.

Safety testing can never give us a guarantee with 100% certainty. For example, tests extending over three years may fail to detect harmful effects that require five years to emerge. Mandatory labeling gives the consumer choice in whether to accept that risk. Health officials can also better trace the source of any problems if the products are labeled.

The public must be properly informed about the benefits and risks.

Informed choice by consumers will protect the integrity of the biotechnology and food industries and maintain confidence in the American food supply.

- --------------

Sidebar:

Coming Soon...

Genetically modified foods that have been approved, are awaiting approval or are under development in the USA:

Apples Rice Barley Soybeans Beans Squash Chestnuts Stawberries Corn Sugar cane Cucumbers Sunflower Lettuce Tomatoes Melons Tobacco Peppers Walnuts Papayas Watermelons Potatoes Wheat

Source: U.S. Department of Agriculture

Dr. John B. Fagan is a molecular biologist who has conducted research using recombinant DNA techniques.

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Overview

-- Pam (jpjgood@penn.com), March 22, 2000.

Jim Morris:

Perhaps the reason Mr. Brin's book price keeps coming down is that his thoughts on the Transparent Society have already taken place? How did anyone know that Rodney King had been beaten by his captors? [Someone video-taped them so doing.] The news is replete with similar examples of common people with video cameras capturing the news of the moment. It's not the officials in Washington or the media that are observing our every move. It's the guy/gal down the street.

Flint:

I agree. The FDA either has extremely rigid requirements, or it simply sits on new requests for approval until the rest of the world [where new methods are more welcomed] publishes the downside. Either way, they're in a win-win situation. They refuse to authorize too early. The same could be said for the AMA. It takes an act of God for them to approve alternative therapies, etc., and they suffer a great deal of criticism for this. It's suggested by some that they simply don't want competition, yet [much like the FDA], the rest of the world moves along with the alternative therapies and folks desiring the drugs or the seeds simply purchase them outside the U.S.

-- Anita (notgiving@anymore.thingee), March 22, 2000.

Flint says, "I've seen many criticisms of the FDA, and all of them have been exactly the opposite -- that the bureaucrats at FDA take half of forever to approve anything."

In this instance, the FDA has accepted without ample consideration Monsanto et al's assurances that GM foods are "substantially equivalent," thus abandoning their heretofore conservative approach to approval. Other agencies, including the EPA, Dept of Agriculture and even the WTO, are involved in this complicated affair.

Flint continues: "I really don't know (nor does my background qualify me to understand) the necessary details. Gene splicing is not my field."

This problem transcends the mere application of scientific technique. You're dealing with an issue that cuts to fundamental considerations of humanity, nature and life itself. The cavalier, mercenary attitude of the industries involved is enough, by itself, to warrant scepticism on the part of consumers and citizens.

I know you pride yourself on informed opinion, Flint. It is neither my job nor responsibility to inform you. You have access to the same information as do I; you need only spend the time and effort to research it, as have I. If you'd like, I would gladly pass along to you any references, articles and URLs which cross my monitor addressing this vital issue.

Hitting below the belt, Flint continues: "But it does sound to me like you oppose it in principle, rendering the actual procedures irrelevant to you."

To the contrary, as an engineer, avid science and technology afficianado, and 20th century Western man, I appreciate technology intrinsically and value the benefits derived from it. However, as a sensitive aware H. Sap, I am increasingly cognizant of the deleterious effects of technology inappropriately or thoughtlessly applied with little or no consideration to its effects on me, my grandkids or my planet.

Hallyx

"Just because you can, does that mean you should?"

-- (Hallyx@aol.com), March 22, 2000.