On Amy Gutmann's "The Ethics of Synthetic Biology, Guiding principles for emerging technologies"

It is good that Amy Gutmann's counsel sought to  layout some principles to guide deliberations about the complex issue of biotechnology, but I feel as though the guidelines they laid out were too vague, and a bit too geared toward pacification to be truly pragmatic, especially if they only remain guidelines. 

For example, the proposed principle Public Beneficence (that is minimizing the risk to the public and maximizing the benefit) sounds really comforting at first, but one just has to look at the Superfund sites in poor neighborhoods to realize the risk will not be bared proportionately should some environmental disaster occur.

Responsible Stewardship may work great for stary-eyed, public-minded researchers but the moment biotechnology become highly profitable this concept will be dust in the wind. BP let oil guzzle into the ocean for weeks and not only moved slowly and reacted callously, but were barely punished.

Fairness and Justice also seemed like a pipe dream. How can one expect fairness and justice from a culture who's CEOs earn over 400 times more than an average employee in the same company? When half of the voting block is still convinced Trickle Down economics are a good idea, then we'll never realize a future in which "the unavoidable burdens of technological advances do not fall disproportionately on any particular individual or group."

Additionally, There's no guarantee that firms will follow these guidelines unless they are enforced by law, and even then it may be hard to monitor until it's too late. In many cases, we only find out about shady business dealing after they've caused some sort of disaster. (See: General Electric or the aforementioned BP) One thing that comes to mind: I recently saw a schematic of a proposed bio-fuel farm in which synthetic bacteria designed to excrete ethanol would live in acres of racks, soaking up sun. But what happens if there's a leak? Do we get a self-replicating oil spill? What if a greedy company head decides to use a public water source irresponsibly and the bacteria are ingested? Projects of this magnitude should be closely monitored and strictly punishable, in my opinion.