In her San Francisco dining room lab, for example, 31-year-old computer programmer Meredith L. Patterson is trying to develop genetically altered yogurt bacteria that will glow green to signal the presence of melamine, the chemical that turned Chinese-made baby formula and pet food deadly.

The associated Slashdot thread includes an alarming post:

Take botulism toxin: the DNA encoding it is well known, and short enough that one could order it directly from a DNA synthesis company.... That entire process could be done with someone with basic college level biology and about $5k... I could produce enough to kill my entire university, starting from scratch, in about 2 weeks, give or take, maybe faster.

If this is correct, significant steps may need to be taken to accelerate the process of developing regulations in this area. Unlike Bill Joy, my preference is a regulatory regime that is focused on controlling access to raw materials and tools, rather than one that focuses on controlling access to information. It remains to be seen whether the former is workable, but Joy's perspective seems to be that this isn't a question worth asking.

The article juxtaposes these experimenters with a voice that seems rather shrill:

Jim Thomas of ETC Group, a biotechnology watchdog organization, warned that synthetic organisms in the hands of amateurs could escape and cause outbreaks of incurable diseases or unpredictable environmental damage.

ETC Group has the following to say about biotechnology:

ETC group is not fundamentally opposed to genetic engineering, but we have profound concerns about the way it is being foisted upon the world. In the current social, economic and political context, genetic engineering is not safe, and involves unacceptable levels of risk to people and the environment. For ETC group, the fundamental issue is control.

Am I being unreasonable in retranslating that as follows: "We're not opposed to genetic engineering outright, we're just opposed to capitalism and modern liberal democracy, and so we're opposed to any and all genetic engineering while we live under a capitalist/democratic system."

Such perspectives are self-discrediting. Genuine concerns about the risks posed by amateur biology labs aren't going to turn into practical regulations unless they are voiced in a serious way by serious people who are not also interested in destroying the entire social order of the modern world.

There seems to be a vaccum here that is begging to be filled by a voice that is less arrogant that Joy, less partisan than ETC Group, and more urgent that the slowly moving idustry process in the biological materials supply business.

Amateurs are trying genetic engineering at home - Yahoo! News