Peter PringleBesprekingen

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Sympathetic portrait of one of the leading Russian scientists of the 20th century, whose downfall in the 1930s was a personal tragedy, and a tragedy for Russian agriculture, as it led the way for the rise of the charlatan Trofim Lysenko. Amazingly, and I think unlike many other victims of the Great Purge, Vavilov left behind a number of traces, and his great work, the seed collection of his institute, largely survived intact. Of note was the reaction of scientists abroad to his demise -- would any victim fare this well today?½

In Food, Inc. Peter Pringle explains the scientific, political, and legal history of genetically modified foods. The book was written in 2003, so it is incredibly dated as far as the subject matter goes, but I was looking for a book that was somewhat unbiased, and they are few and far between with this incredibly controversial issue.

I don’t think I will ever completely understand how genetics works or how scientists have been able to do all that they have with genomes, but this book did enhance my understanding of the scientific process of genetic modification. It also refreshed my memory on some of the legal battles surrounding GM foods and scientific studies that have been done on these foods.

Overall, I found the book to be readable and well-researched.

A few opinions (mostly on the issues rather than the book….)

Since GM foods are considered “substantially equivalent” to their non-GM counterparts, there is no compulsory testing by U.S. regulatory agencies. Companies that manufacture genetically modified seeds are responsible for testing for safety themselves before releasing them to the public. I’m not saying GM foods are inherently unsafe, but should we really trust corporations to do their own testing?

The whole patenting of genetic materials/seeds/living things bothers me. I am not completely up to date on current legal issues regarding patents on genetic material and since this book has been published several of more ridiculous patents have been revoked, but there still seem to be some problems.

Human ingenuity blows my mind. People can be really, really smart. They can also be really, really greedy, and therein lies the problem. If only scientists could just be scientists and learn, innovate, and discover without interference from big money.

But alas, that is not the world we live in.

It is hard to know the long term consequences of our actions as a society. It is impossible to tell in what direction science will take us. The genes we modify today may come back to haunt us twenty years. Or they may save us from mass starvation. Time will tell. I realize this science could hold a lot of promise. I just wish we’d proceed with a little more caution and a lot less greed.

A Russian scientist, brilliant maintains a single of desire: to breed different varieties of plants from around the world that might help to end starvation. He found plants in different parts of the world with characteristics that fit the area and created the world's largest seed bank and began trying to help Russia feed itself and hoping someday to feed the world.

Sadly, his story does not end well. A political opportunist arose who was able to discredit him with a competing view of the way plants grow and change over time. While this competing view had significant problems it was politically palatable and became the view of the Russian government. Ending with Nikolai Vavilov being sent to prison, condemned to death and ultimately he starved to death in jail in 1943. Ironic that the man who spent his whole adult life only caring about plants and trying to feed the world was killed by his government by starvation in a prison cell.

His seed banks were in many cases preserved. Even to the point of several parts living thru the siege of Leningrad. Some of scientists starved to death and afterwards the seeds they preserved were found. Rice and other grains they refused to die instead of eat to preserve.

Another bloody blot on the history of communism.

This book is less about the science of genetically modified food, and more about the politics, presenting incidents that entered mainstream news reports, and delving into behind-the-scenes actions and motivations of the various players: scientists, corporations, activists. Not wholly satisfying if one is seeking a definitive conclusion, but useful to get a sense of what’s fact and what’s spin.

This book outlines the discovery of streptomycin, the first cure discovered for tuberculosis, and the ensuing controversy between Albert Schatz and Selman Waksman. As a Ph.D. student, Schatz was working on a project for microbiology professor Waksman. During his eleventh experiment, he discovered streptomycin. Waksman took credit for the discovery and worked to undermine Schatz credibility. Outraged, Schatz sued Waksman, and was awarded the title of co-discoverer. Several years later Waksman alone received the Nobel Prize for streptomycin.

I found the book to be fascinating. I had no idea that farmers and agriculturalists were involved with medicine and microbiology. Although the book was slow at times, it was easy to read and did not bog me down with scientific terms and phrases. Overall, I recommend this to anyone with an interest in the history of medicine.

I have heard about Lysenko and his destruction of Soviet biology, but just little fragments. Vavilov was the leading enemy of Lysenko, at least that's the picture painted by this book. Vavilov was a proponent of Mendel's theories of genetics - the combining and recombining of discrete elements, genes, where the genes are faithfully carried from one generation to the next. Lysenko believed that external conditions could redirect inherited characteristics bit by bit.

The discussion of Vavilov's travels to collect seeds is delightful. The tale of Lysenko and Stalin and the whole murderous Soviet regime is utterly chilling. Probably nothing really new here, but the concrete details really do give the story impact.

Politics and science still collide today. Probably climate science is the scariest arena. Medicine might be even more twisted - there is so much money at stake, so many lobbyists. The stakes with climate science may be higher in the end, but still the "alarmists" are essentially powerless. The battles in medicine are quieter, which probably means more serious winning and losing is happening.

What else can we do with the kind of tragedy we learn about in this book? Let us do what we can not to repeat it, but to support and encourage the kind of heroism personified by Vavilov.

I had high hopes for this book from reading some reviews and descriptions of this book. Overall, I would say I was disappointed. This is a biography of the Russian scientist and botanist, Vavilov. The book, however, mainly focuses on Vavilov's problems with the Soviet regime throughout his career and his arrest and torture by the Soviet's. It unfortunately spends little time exploring the scientific achievements of this botanist. I came away actually wondering what he did for the world of botany that was really so great. This is unfortunate because I'm pretty sure that he did make large and significant contributions to science. You'd think that a biography of a scientist would cover more of his career. It was interesting to read about the techniques that the USSR used to control science, but I don't think that topic should have taken as much precedence over Vavilov's scientific achievements as it did. I guess the title of the book should have tipped me off, but I still thought that botany should have had a bigger role in the book.½

Pringle moves fast across the emerging technology of Genetically Modified (GM) foods, also known by the term 'transgenic'. This brief book is an excellent introduction to the history and current (as of 2003) landscape. It hits on the goals and effects of the post WWII Green Revolution, which boosted worldwide grain production while at the same time encouraging megafarms (smaller farmers were less able to afford the costly packages of new hybrid seed and speciallized pesticides and hardware).

The author is very careful not to present the situation with an overt bias, offering all sides of the argument, though Pringle is clearly someone who believes the benefits of GM food production are worth serious and long-term efforts. Overall an excellent and quick-reading on GM, biotech in general, and the many challenges facing the world food supply. Four Stars.

Day Of The Dandelion by Peter Pringle. It was a good mild mystery.

Arthur Hemmings, works as a researcher at the Royal Botanic Gardens, but is also a spy for the British Secret Service, which sends him after a greedy multinational corporation that has nasty plans. The theft of some seeds at an Oxford University botanical laboratory nearly results in some decidedly bad guys gaining monopolistic control of the world's food supply. The Dandelion is one of a few plants that is asexual, meaning it does not have to have the pollen of a male plant to fertilize the seed of a female plant. An asexual plant actually clones itself so that it's a perfect reproduction. If scientists could discover this gene, then they could make any plants such as corn clone itself. Scientists could design plants and they would clone themselves. This could bring about specialized plants that could produce medicines, cures, etc. Whichever country or company finds the gene would have a monopoly and could make billions of dollars. When Professor Scott finds the gene, he becomes the interest of the big countries and companies. When he turns up dead, England calls in Arthur Hemmings.

The author, Peter Pringle, was a foreigh correspondent for the Sunday Times (London) and The Observer (UK) and a former Mosco bureau chief for The Independent (UK). He has authored or co-authored 9 previous books and has written for The NY Times, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, The New Republic, and The Nation.

In this book Pringle writes about a world reknown botanist and scientist, Nikolai Ivanovich Vavilov. Nikolai Ivanovich ("Ivanovich" is a patronymic meaning "son of Ivan") Vavilov was born in 1887 to Ivan Ilyich Vavilov and Alexandra Mikhailovna (again, a patronymic meaning "daughter of Mikhail") Postnikov. Ilyich and Alexandra were married 1/8/1884. They had 7 children but only 4 lived to adulthood: Nikolai, Sergei, Alexandra and Lydia. Ilyich was a director of a trading company that sold products made by Trekhgornaya Manufaktura (Three Hills Mfg). They lived in Middle Presnya and he was well to do for the times. He had built 3 houses on their land. Middle Presnya was a suburb of Moscow.

The book starts with the First Russian Revolution in December 1905. Nikolai was 18 yrs old and finishing high school. Sergei was 14 yrs old. In January of that year, the Tsarist's Palace Guards fired on a peaceful demonstration that was demanding an end to the monarchy. One hundred and thirty people were killed that day. The killings led to a worker's strike in major cities and peasant revolts in Easter Russia. Despite the Tsar's reforms, the fighting continued in Moscow and, in December, it hit Middle Presnya. An artillery barrage started before dawn and continued for 14 hours and the resistance crumbled. Nikolai and his family lived right in the middle of it.

Nikolai and his siblings were brilliant, even genius. Nikolai came to be the famous botanist and scientist and Sergei became a well known physicist. The two daughters became medical doctors. They were raised with a loving mother and strong father and taught the Russian Orthodox religion although Nikolai became an atheist. Nikolai studied agriculture in Petrovskaya Agricultural Academy "Petrovka" in Moscow and met Yekaterina Nikolayevna Sakharova, "Katya". She was from a higher social class and was a year ahead of him in Petrovka, she had excellent grades, was an orphan and was active in radical politics. They were not in love but had a friendship and respect for each other and they married. They had a little boy named Oleg. Later, he met an attractive student in Saratova named Yelena Barulina. By then, he and Katya were separated and they eventually divorced. Nikolai and Yelena lived together but never married. They had a son named Yuri. Katya and Oleg lived in one of the family houses in Middle Presnya until later. They stayed with Nikolai's mother until her death and his brother, Sergei, always preferred Katya to Yelena because Katya was Nikolai's official wife and Yelena never was. But, Sergei did help Yelena and Yuri after the arrest and murder of Nikolai.

Nikolai was taught the new Darwinian theories. As you can imagine, atheists were desperate for an explanation of origin that did not include God. When Darwin came along, his theories were snapped up and have been held as sacred ever since. He has become a god to the atheists. This was particularly true in Soviet Russia after the Revolution of 1917-1918. God could not be allowed in Soviet Russia, He must be deleted from anything and everything. So students were encouraged in the Darwinist theories and Nikolai had a passion for Darwin. Vavilov determined to explain the mechanism of heredity which Darwin had not explained with his theory. "The question for geneticists was how to meld Mendel's theory of heredity with the fact of evolution. At the turn of the century, William Bateson, the fiercely independent English evolutionary biologist, was the preeminent promoter of Mendel's work and became a firm friend of the young Vavilov." (Notice the use of "the fact of evolution" when evolution is a THEORY!) He visited Darwin's library in a visit to Cambridge, England. Beginning in 1913, he traveled across Europe to learn. He went to libraries, laboratories and met some of the most progressive biologists of the time. He absorbed knowledge and learned from everyone.

He began to collect seeds. He soon had a desire to have the largest seed collection in the world and to include rare and unusual specimens. He traveled to Afghanistan, Japan, America, Africa, Mexico, etc. He would tramp to the outermost parts of the world looking for specimens and bringing them back with his notes. Then he ran experimental stations all over Russia to experiment with these seeds with the intent of producing more foods or even superfoods so that he could stop the famines and hunger in his country and throughout the world. He was a solid believer in the Revolution and the communist agenda. He didn't like how it was being used but he loved his country. He was patriotic to the end.

But, he had enemies. Trofim Denisovich Lysenko was a peasant farmer who had greater ambitions. He took a job at a plant breeding station in Gandzha, Azerbaijan. His first job was planting green peas to see if they would grow through the mild winters and provide forage for cattle and produce green manure that was rich in compost for spring planting. It was successful. Pravda wrote an article on him praising his humble beginnings and called him the "barefoot scientist". He became the new mascot of the Communists. A young peasant who was a practical applicationist vs a university trained theorist. For some reason, Stalin really took to this Lysenko and he was promoted way beyond his capabilities and his lust for power and ambition would push him to become a back stabber to keep his precarious place. With Stalin's fist of terror and Lysenko's back stabbing, Vavilov didn't have a chance. He wasn't arrested for a long time because of his famous, international friends. But, with the use of terror and torture, they were able to gain enough witness accounts to arrest him. He was tortured for nearly a year and confessed to anything and named names. He was imprisoned and starved for 2 more yrs before dying of starvation. No one told his family where he was or when he died but they finally did get the official notice of his death and where he was buried in a mass grave with other prisoners. Later, his adult son, Oleg died on a ski trip. His wife, Lidia, went looking for his body and personally found him. He had a blow to his head that resembled an ice pick blow and the family thinks he was murdered although officially it was called an accidental death from a fall. Pringle did not say how Yuri died so he may still be alive.

This was a sad story and sad ending of a brilliant man. I hope he came to accept God as his Savior before he died. As Ecclesiastes says, all else is vanity, we are but dust in the wind. He was raised in the Christian faith so we can hope that this came back to him in his darkest hours and he gave his heart to Christ. But we will never know this side of Glory.

The story was an interesting piece of history but Pringle didn't make it alive. I finished it because I was learning but Pringle didn't capture me. I kept looking to see how far I was from the end. I wanted to get it over with. And that doesn't say much for the writing.

The Murder of Nikolai Vavilov is a very readable account, not merely of the death of Vavilov, but of his life. Of course, the main interest is in the battle between Lysenko (and the Lamarkians) and Vavilov (and the geneticists) for control of biological science in the Stalin era Soviet Union.
Ultimately Lysenko triumphed over Vavilov largely because his pseudo-science matched the politics of the era. Also fundamental to Vavilov's downfall was the extreme paranoia of the State - for ten years informers supplied information on Vavilov's professional activities. Many of these informers were colleagues and acted for the state for self-preservation. It's easy to criticise such activities until one considers what one might do in the same circumstances.
Most harrowing are the details of Vavilov's interrogation. As with many totalitarian regimes, stupendous quantities of records were kept - much of the official record of Vavilov's interrogation was used by Pringle in reconstructing the events following his arrest.
Perhaps wisely, detailed discussion of the science is avoided - Pringle keeps this often in the background, preferring to describe Vavilov's general goals, and the overll political battle. One interesting and ironic observation that might be made is that Vavilov's rise to prominence came about not just because of the quality of his science and the extraordinary vigour with which he conducted his science, but also a degree of political patronage

Un thriller a sfondo scientifico, dove l'intreccio ruota intorno agli studi su un gene che è in grado di controllare la riproduzione e le cui applicazioni risolverebbero il problema della fame nel mondo. La caccia a questo prezioso gene diventerà pericolosa e mortale per alcuni dei protagonisti della storia.