Why Not Genetically Engineered Foods? 

Paul Goettlich / South Bend Tribune 15may00

[Also see: Will Genetically Engineered Foods Feed the World?]

On the surface, genetically engineered (GE) crops make sense - designed to be disease and insect resistant, to be strong and bountiful in order to feed the world's swelling populations, and to use a minimum of pesticides and fertilizer so the earth gets polluted less. But these justifications for GE products are myths contrived by corporate public relations departments applying a positive spin.

A substantial percentage of research money is spent on genetic traits that are less than benevolent. One such trait is "terminator technology," which produces crops with sterile seeds. Farmers in developing countries would effectively be chained to that corporation, buying seed and pesticides rather than saving seed from previous seasons and using sustainable pest control, such as intercropping or rotation. Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman said, "It threatens to make [family farmers] servants to bigger masters, rather than masters of their own domains."

Considerable amounts of money are also being pumped into making crops resistant to the same corporation's pesticide. Again, the farmer is forced to buy from one source, the one that designed the crop and pesticide together. Monsanto, one of the largest biotech corporations recently petitioned the EPA and won the right to increase the allowable residue of glyphosate, the active ingredient in its popular herbicide Roundup from 6 parts to 20 parts per million, a more than three-fold increase in herbicide residue on crops at the supermarket. That doesn't sound like reduced pesticides to me.

In Time magazine polls, 81 percent of Americans believe GE foods should be labeled. Consumer Reports strongly supports labeling. And Secretary Glickman stated, "The concept of labeling particular products is not a radical one. What we cannot do is take consumers for granted... But, to build consumer confidence consumers must have trust in the regulatory process. That trust is built upon openness."

Growing opposition to GE food is replacing consumers' complacency, which is based on a deep-seated belief that the government (EPA, FDA, USDA) is protecting them. The FDA declared GE crops as GRAS, or "generally regarded as safe." But confidential documents made public in an ongoing class action lawsuit, revealed the FDA's own scientists don't agree with this determination. Dr. Linda Kahl, an FDA compliance officer, objected that the agency's determination was "...trying to fit a square peg into a round hole ... [by] trying to force an ultimate conclusion that there is no difference between foods modified by genetic engineering and foods modified by traditional breeding practices".

Traditional breeding practices operate within established natural boundaries allowing reproduction only between closely related forms. In natural settings, tomatoes cross-pollinate with tomatoes, but never with fish. Over millions of years of evolution genes have been finely tuned to work harmoniously. Genetic engineering crosses genes between unrelated species which never cross-breed naturally. When industry wants to avoid precautionary safeguards they proclaim GE crops are the same as conventional crops. Yet, they've created a paradox by insisting that the very same GE crop is unique in order to protect their investment with a patent.

One thing that history has shown us: we shouldn't rely on industry's claims of product safety. Perfect examples are DDT, DES, PCBs, cigarettes, and asbestos. Europe's unwillingness to accept GE foods goes much deeper than merely being "a thinly disguised trade war." The memories of Nazi experimentation, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, the human equivalent of "mad cow" disease, and seeing US regulatory agencies acquiesce to industry play heavily on their distrust of GE foods.

Contrary to industry's mantra, world hunger is caused by warfare, undemocratic government, inequality and lack of access, not a lack of food production capacity. Many countries with starving people are net food exporters. According to the American Association for the Advancement of Science, 78 percent of all malnourished children under the age of five live in countries with food surpluses. What's worse, food that's exported generally feeds livestock of developed countries, which has a higher profit than feeding children. I doubt the benevolence of corporations to feed the world's masses. More believable is they're keeping stockholders' earnings up.

In August, 1998, more than 24 leading African agriculturists and environmental scientists representing their countries at a UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Commission specializing in plant genetic resources, farmers' rights, access and benefit sharing, issued a statement to counter biotech industry arguments. "We do not believe that such companies or gene technologies will help our farmers to produce the food that is needed in the 21st century. On the contrary, we think it will destroy the diversity, the local knowledge and the sustainable agricultural systems that our farmers have developed for millennia and that it will thus undermine our capacity to feed ourselves."

Finally, the precaution must be utilized in the face of this extreme uncertainty. According to The Science and Environmental Health Network, "key elements of the principle include taking precaution in the face of scientific uncertainty; exploring alternatives to possibly harmful actions; placing the burden of proof on proponents of an activity rather than on victims or potential victims of the activity; and using democratic processes to carry out and enforce the principle-including the public right to informed consent. It's the common sense idea behind many adages: 'Be careful', 'Better safe than sorry.', and 'Look before you leap.'" 

• Please read: Precautionary Approaches to the Appraisal of Risk: A Case Study of a Genetically Modified Crop Andy Stirling, Ph.D., Sue Mayer, Ph.D., International Journal of Occupational and Environmental Health Oct/Dec00 v.6, n.4

• For further reading see other files on the precautionary principle.