Modify Biotech’s Sales Pitch Too
Revelations this week that 400,000 bags of corn seed, as well as vegetarian corn dogs marketed as health foods, include a kind of genetically modified corn not approved for human consumption show it’s certainly not true that, as a leading biotech scientist said recently, “all the variables have been controlled for.”
The immediate effect of the mix-ups should be to prompt Bush administration officials to tighten rules requiring grain handlers to segregate products. More fundamentally, the mix-ups show why better regulation of so-called “GM foods,” and more honest discussion of their likely risks and benefits, are needed to protect consumer confidence.
Currently, biotech food product developers consult with federal officials on a voluntary basis, usually issuing vague, scientifically unfounded assurances, like Monsanto’s recent promise that its genetically engineered products will not “harm wildlife.” That assurance is particularly suspect because Monsanto’s best-selling products, such as the herbicide-resistant Roundup Ready crops, are popular precisely because they alter natural ecology.
The biotech industry fears that stricter regulation will somehow turn public sentiment against modified foods. Thus it has lobbied against an FDA rule proposed in January to require agriculture companies to notify the agency four months before marketing a GM crop and to put the scientific data about the crop on the Internet. The industry also opposes recent proposals in Congress to require that genetically modified foods be labeled as “bioengineered.”
In recent years, about 70% of foods on supermarket shelves have come to incorporate some genetic modification. These include corn and other grains, cheese, papayas and tomatoes. The food industry does not want to do anything to jeopardize its planned roll-out soon of bioengineered bananas, apples and salmon.
Modified foods are more common than most Americans may realize. However, contrary to the industry’s fear, greater awareness of them would likely lead to more support for them than exists now. Consumers would see the immediate benefits--such as keeping worms out of apples and cholesterol out of eggs and dramatically boosting farm productivity--as well as more vague and distant risks, like the chance that they will alter ecosystems. What is certain is that lack of information will lead to hostility.
The presence of the genetically modified corn, called StarLink, was announced this week by the anti-biotech group Greenpeace--the same organization that first detected StarLink in taco shells last year. The group’s work is a great public service, putting much-needed pressure on the biotech industry to improve safety testing and heighten public disclosure. But despite Greenpeace’s staunch anti-biotech rhetoric, its analysis is not an indictment of genetically modified food itself.
The lessons of the StarLink debacles are that better science is needed and should be publicly debated.
