Ethics and nutrigenomics

Picture: Former Bishop's Palace, Lund University. Workshop 17-18 August 2007.

I came back from Sweden yesterday where I participated in an expert workshop on “Ethical Issues raised by Personalized Nutrition”. It was organized by Ulf Görman of the Department of Ethics at Lund University and sponsored by NuGO (the EU Network of Excellence on Nutrigenomics research). With 23 speakers, including me, within two days, it was pretty intense. Ten nationalities were represented including German, Belgian, French, British, Swedish, Danish, Deutsch etc were invited. Experts came from the major disciplines involved in the development of this new platform of knowledge: philosophers, ethicists, sociologists, ethnologists, geneticists, micro-biologists, occupational health physicians, journalists, marketing managers etc. The food industry (DSM, Genek, Probi), NGOs (Gene Watch UK), public/private research (NUGO, ESBIO, EURRECA, EPIC, ETC) and academics sectors, each of them had at least one representative. The only person missing, I believe, was someone from the European Commission. I don't think anyone was invited. But this is a delicate issue and I won't develop here, I shall reserve this point for a future blog.

In short, a rather eclectic bunch of people gathered to discuss the future of personalized nutrition based on nutrigenomics new knowledge. So what was the conclusion you might ask? Well, it is difficult to say as there was still much confusion about what is nutrigenomics itself and what products might derive from it and for what purpose. Many experts agreed, however, on the fast moving pace of discovery and the potential to give more specific dietary recommendations related to monogenic diseases (e.g. PKU). As for complex diseases such as CVD, obesity etc, many were still rather dubious of the need of further nutrigenomics developments public health benefit while phenotype data were sufficient to determine the risk susceptibility and therefore to tailor dietary advice on this basis.

Some of us raised the issue of the need for the science to be grounded in social reality and the risk to deceive the public if allegations were made without proper evidence to substantiate them, which was still, at least for the prevention of complex disease, the case. The lack of public engagement was also raised as an important point. Many scientists still believe that lay people are not “clever” enough to understand the complexity of the science. Therefore, they believe that their opinions are not relevant to determine what trajectories the science should follow. The question of interaction between experts from the different fields involved was also pointed as a source of problem, as well as the need for politicians to be more open to broader ethical issues to inform their decision- making at the very early stage of risk/benefit assessment of a technology.

The participants intend to publish a workshop report which will summarize the main points raised and the presentations should be available soon online. I will keep you posted!