Governors hear both sides on genetically modified foods

Peter B Lord / Providence Journal 7aug01

A panel of experts discusses the benefits and dangers of the new technology.

PROVIDENCE -- Most Americans eat genetically modified foods every day without knowing it. Yet most other countries are so opposed to such foods they won't allow them to be grown or even imported.

That dichotomy of attitudes about genetically modified foods was presented to a committee of the National Governors Association yesterday by a panel of experts. They warned that the use of such foods in the United States is increasing dramatically and policymakers should be prepared.

Any discussion of genetically modified foods was squeezed out when Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham showed up and the focus of the meeting turned to national energy policies.

But Iowa Gov. Thomas J. Vilsack, chairman of the Committee on Natural Resources, responded "all of us as policymakers need to take this issue much more seriously because it affects our food supply and economics."

Some of the nation's big agricultural corporations recently formed the Council for Biotechnology Information to promote genetically modified foods.

Linda Thrane, the council's executive director, told the governors that modifying food crops to resist insects allows farmers to use less pesticides, produce vegetables with more nutrition and increase production that will help feed the world.

She said the more people know about biotechnology, the more they accept it. Her council is promoting biotechnology with everything from coloring books for children to television ads for adults in every state.

Gwen Action, assistant director of the Functional Genomics Program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said that two-thirds of the food products on the shelves of American supermarkets contain genetically modified vegetables. Half of the soy and one-third of the corn grown in the United States is genetically modified, she said.

But surveys show that two-thirds of Americans are opposed to genetically modified foods. And our key trading partners in Europe as well as Japan prohibit imports of genetically modified products.

She said policymakers need to determine whether such crops pose health risks to humans or threaten the environment. And they need to ensure the products are properly regulated.

Robert Paarlberg, a professor of political science at Wellesley College, said that 98 percent of the world's genetically modified crops are grown in just three countries: the United States, Canada and Argentina.

Such crops suffered from bad timing during their introduction to Europe, Paarlberg said. The outbreak of mad cow disease caused a loss of public confidence in regulators who insisted Europe's meat was safe. Few believed them when they said genetically modified foods were safe, too.

Another problem, he said, is that even though there is no evidence that modified foods are unsafe, the media are quick to jump on any speculation of problems.

Two years ago, a scientist reported that in a laboratory experiment, monarch butterly caterpillars died when they came in contact with corn modified with a bacteria to resist insects. That story was big news, he said. There wasn't much coverage when subsequent field studies showed only 1 in 100,000 caterpillars were affected, he said.