Biotechnological Progress and Poverty. An Ethical Reflection

Abstract

Our culture associates progress with scientific development and particularly with technological development. In the Latin Americancontext, this association is not as definitive as it seems to be for the “developed” countries. When attempting to integrate thebiotechnological-progress equation into the reality of life in Latin America, all sorts of conflicts emerge, especially ethical ones, suchas transforming agricultural traditions with genetically modified seeds and using our people as objects of experimentation. Thereis no ethical justification for taking advantage of the difficulties suffered by the majority of the world’s population, including LatinAmericans, for the benefit of only a few. The proposal is to turn these communities into protagonists. They should not be recipientsof a cultural tradition that often is foreign to them.