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The View from New York, By Ned GrothAmericans and Their Food, Part 3: Genetically Modified FoodsEuropean consumers are generally skeptical of GM foods, and many refuse to buy them. Consumers’ rights to be informed when foods contain GM ingredients have carried great weight in Europe. Things are very different in America. Scientific and value concerns underlie consumer resistance. GM foods that contain novel proteins might pose risks of allergies or other food safety hazards. GM crop traits such as herbicide resistance or toxicity to insects may spread through ecosystems, with ecological consequences that are hard to determine. Many people prefer less technologically-intense food production, or find it ethically unsound to “tinker with nature” by manipulating the genome of a food plant or animal. Consumers like to “vote with our dollars (or Euros).” American consumer NGOs are concerned with these questions, just as our counterparts in Europe are. But your governments have listened to and responded to these concerns. Ours has largely turned a deaf ear. Europe requires a government food-safety approval before a GM crop can be planted by European farmers. Only a few GM crop varieties have made it through this process thus far, and adoption by farmers has been slow due to consumer acceptance concerns. The EU also requires labeling of GM ingredients. With these safeguards, Europe has moved ahead cautiously, trying to balance competing interests. Perhaps this EU approach has its down sides; comments from Europeans are welcomed. In contrast to Europe’s approach, which at least seems designed to offer balanced social decisions, successive US administrations have devoted their prime efforts to promoting the success of the US biotechnology industry. Agricultural biotechnology was seen as a “cutting edge” science that could help restore America to a position of world leadership in technology and innovation. The government expected biotech to provide a cornucopia of benefits for farmers and American business interests, and believed from the outset that any risks it might pose would be minimal and acceptable. When the first GM crops were developed in the early 1990s, the Clinton Administration quickly granted necessary permits for field trials, then approved commercial use of GM corn (maize), cotton and soy varieties. The US Food and Drug Administration delegated responsibility for assuring the food safety of new crop varieties to the biotech companies that developed them. FDA offered to review evidence companies voluntarily shared with the agency and advise the companies of safety concerns. But the US government does not approve GM foods as “safe to eat.” In the 1990s, the government supported a standing committee at the National Academy of Sciences with a mandate to investigate health and environmental issues about agricultural biotechnology, which published several excellent reports. But the Bush Administration has showed no interest in scientific analysis of GM risk/benefit issues. It cut off funding for the NAS committee, which was quietly disbanded. Most frustrating has been our government’s attitude on labeling. FDA has insisted that it cannot require GM foods to be labeled, because they are no less safe than conventionally-bred varieties. When some food processors have labeled products as “GM-free,” the FDA (and Monsanto) objected strongly, saying that such labeling implies that GM-free food is safer than GM-containing foods. Such aggressive disapproval (based on the pretense that only food safety “matters” about GM foods) discouraged the use of “no-GM” labeling as a marketing strategy. Public surveys have repeatedly shown that 75 to 95 percent of US consumers want GM labeling. Most say they think GM foods are safe and they would probably buy them, but they want to know what they are eating. FDA has repeatedly considered GM labeling, and listened to insistent public demands for labeling, then taken no action. The biotech industry acts as if labeling a food as GM is the same as putting the word “poison” on the package. Congress has considered legislation to require labeling, but has not overcome industry and Administration resistance. GM crops are so popular with US farmers that 80 percent of the US supply of corn and 90 percent of soybeans grown here are now GM varieties. Because corn sugar, corn and soy oils and soy protein are used so many foods, 60 to 70 percent of the processed foods in US supermarkets now contain GM ingredients. Americans eat GM foods many times daily, mostly without knowing it. Could that be harmful? Unless some devastating, unique form of health damage traced to a GM crop emerges (which seems very unlikely), we’ll never know. The contrast, then, is stark. Europe has forged ahead, deliberately, with GM technology, trying to balance the competing societal interests involved. America has left those issues to the market to decide, but has blocked consumers’ buying power from guiding market trends. For better or for worse, the resulting farmer- and biotech-company- driven market has given us a food supply laced with GM ingredients, in much the same way it has given us gas-guzzling SUV’s and sprawling suburbs full of air-conditioned McMansions. That’s my view of GM foods, from here in New York. For more information: Biotech info at the FDA Ned, a biologist by training, worked for many years at Consumer Union, the US sister of Consumentenbond, and has advised WHO and FAO on food safety issues. It goes without saying that Ned and his wife, who live just outside New York City, adhere to the principles of CSR: Consumer Social Responsibility. Feel free to respond to this column at info@schuttelaar.nl. |
Ned Groth |
