Tighten the Reins on Biofoods
It came as a shock to many when a Clinton administration science official acknowledged in a report last week by Times staff writer Aaron Zitner that Washington is all but unable to assess whether genetically modified plants and animals are harming ecosystems in unforeseen ways. The statement shows the breadth of a problem that the Bush administration will be forced to confront.
Bush’s nominee to head the Agriculture Department, Ann M. Veneman, is well poised to take up the challenge, having been a director for the biotechnology company Calgene before heading California’s state agriculture department under then-Gov. Pete Wilson. Veneman, who said last fall that “we simply will not be able to feed the world without biotechnology,” is a champion of genetically modified food. But she also understands that only responsible government oversight can quell market fears about gene-altered products.
Even agriculture industry officials once opposed to government regulation have been calling for sharper federal oversight since last year, when StarLink, a modified form of corn not intended for human consumption, was found in taco shells. The problem is rooted in a muddled regulatory scheme implemented by the Reagan administration in 1986, giving oversight of so-called GM plants and animals to three federal agencies--the Environmental Protection Agency, the Food and Drug Administration and the Department of Agriculture.
Today more than one-quarter of the corn and soybeans grown in the United States comes from genetically modified seeds, and modified foods have been used safely by humans since 1992. However, two major academic studies in 1999 left scientists concerned that GM foods could irrevocably alter ecosystems, even destabilize the food chain.
The first, by Purdue University population geneticist William Muir, showed that GM versions of a small Japanese freshwater fish, the medaka, could wipe out its wild cousins. Muir’s research has raised warnings about the harm that could result if more common fish like salmon and catfish escape from the fish farms where they are being genetically altered today.
The second study, by researchers at Cornell University, showed that a variety of corn engineered to kill pests like the corn borer could also harm the monarch butterfly, a Bambi of the insect world.
Both studies have roused concern about regulation. William Brown, science advisor to Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt, told Zitner, “The system is full of holes.”
Last year after the StarLink debacle, European nations, which have long required modified crops to be carefully segregated, canceled orders for U.S. corn. The market will never robustly develop without consumer confidence. For starters, the FDA should allow companies to sell gene-altered fish only after they have been rendered sterile in the lab. A longer-term guideline comes from recommendations late last month by a joint U.S.-European advisory panel for “a comprehensive and rigorous examination to ensure safety for human health and the environment” before altered foods are marketed.
The Bush administration should also clear up the current three-way muddle by naming one federal agency as lead regulator. The Department of Agriculture is best suited for the job because it has more trained geneticists than the EPA and the FDA.
