May 2000
American Friends Service Committee Peacework Magazine Patrica Watson, Editor Sara Burke, Assistant Editor Pat Farren, Founding Editor
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Fax number: pwork@igc.org Peacework has been published monthly since 1972, intended to serve as a source of dependable information to those who strive for peace and justice and are committed to furthering the nonviolent social change necessary to achieve them. Rooted in Quaker values and informed by AFSC experience and initiatives, Peacework offers a forum for organizers, fostering coalition-building and teaching the methods and strategies that work in the global and local community. Peacework seeks to serve as an incubator for social transformation, introducing a younger generation to a deeper analysis of problems and issues, reminding and re-inspiring long-term activists, encouraging the generations to listen to each other, and creating space for the voices of the disenfranchised. Views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily of the AFSC. |
The Politics of Genetically Engineered Foods: Phil Bereano <phil@uwtc.washington.edu> is a professor at the University of Washington in Seattle specializing in technology and public policy. He is active in the Council for Responsible Genetics <www.gene-watch.org>. Florian Kraus is a German Fulbright scholar at the University of Washington. An edited version of this essay appeared in the Seattle Times 11/8/99. The Loka Institute, which submitted this essay, is a nonprofit dedicated to making research, science, and technology responsive to democratically decided social and environmental concerns.The Loka Institute, PO Box 355, Amherst, MA 01004; 413-559-5860 <Loka@Loka.org> www.Loka.org
"Why are people in the United States seemingly untroubled
by a technology that causes Europeans so many difficulties?"
The clash over foods made from genetically modified plants ("gene foods") highlights the conflict among economic, scientific, and cultural interests in the world that is being shaped by the World Trade Organization. US agricultural exports were worth $50 billion last year, more than 7% of the nation's total exports. And Deputy Treasury Secretary Stuart Eizenstat has warned that the resistance of the European Union (EU) consumers to genetically modified crops "is the single greatest trade threat that we face." "In Europe, across the whole food technology front, confusion and hysteria have displaced reason and economics, with incalculable costs to those who are trying to bring new and beneficial innovations to the market," editorialized The Wall Street Journal. The Journal referred to the "Luddite tides," charging that "in Europe, on matters of trade and technology, the mob has been running the show for a while."
This growing controversy over genetically altered foods has recently
occupied US media. In June, when the EU's environmental
ministers agreed to a de facto moratorium on the approval of genetic
foods for several years, the San Francisco Examiner noted
that "the biotechnology industry--led by Monsanto,
Novartis, Dow, DuPont, AgrEvo, and Zeneca--calls rising
criticism in Europe 'hysteria and hype' from the food
scare over 'mad cow' disease in England and dioxin
in feed, poultry, beef, and butter in Belgium." The "Official Line" The biotech industry and US government officials have united in denying that genetically engineered foods are significantly different from natural ones. "A tomato is a tomato is a tomato," said Brian Sansoni, of the Grocery Manufacturers of America. Trying to quarantine the "contagion" of skepticism that threatens American exports and corporate profits, they portray the Europeans as technophobic, anti-American, and distrustful of government regulators. "Agricultural protectionism" is the diagnosis offered by the New York Times: "Europe resents the fact that many of the patents on genetically modified crops with bred-in high yields and resistance to parasites are held by American companies like Monsanto, DuPont and Dow." Science magazine, on the other hand, blames distrust of regulatory agencies. According to Secretary of Agriculture Dan Glickman, the Europeans "just don't have, really, the same kind of sophisticated mechanism to scientifically examine food products and determine if they're safe that we do." This ignores the fact that 76 million Americans annually are poisoned by food.
US consumers are concerned about genetically engineered
foods. Why, then, has it been so easy to establish the myth that
Americans are "accepting" of this technology? Unlike
Europeans, a very large proportion of Americans are ignorant about
the extent to which genetic engineering is affecting the foods
they already consume; there has been active corporate-governmental
collusion (with media cooperation) to pacify the development and
expression of any such concerns; and American political culture
provides a limited range of possibilities for such concerns to
be expressed and debated. Ignorance and Collusion A poll this summer by the world's largest independent public relations firm found that 62% of Americans were unaware that gene foods were already being marketed here. Actually, 35% percent of the 1999 US corn acreage and 55% of soy acreage has been genetically modified. It is estimated that approximately 60% of the processed foods in a US consumer's shopping cart may have genetically engineered constituents. In the 1980s, the Republican Administration decided that the new technology of genetic engineering should be handled by using existing regulatory statutes rather than--as in Europe--going to the legislature for a new comprehensive law. As a result, there was little public discussion and the resulting US "regulatory" scheme is makeshift, full of absurdities and loopholes, as a cover story in The New York Times Magazine, entitled "Playing God in the Garden," documented a year ago. Based on a policy authored by his industry-based Council on Competitiveness, then-Vice President Dan Quayle announced in May 1992 that the US government would consider genetically engineered crops to be no different from those grown traditionally. The Food & Drug Administration (FDA) asserted that "the agency is not aware of any information showing that foods derived by these new methods differ from other foods in any meaningful or uniform way." In fact, however, records uncovered in the course of a pending lawsuit show that the US government ignored the advice of its own FDA scientists, who had recommended that gene foods get special evaluation because of their risks of producing toxins and allergies. One FDA scientist wrote: "there is a profound difference between the types of unexpected effects from traditional breeding and genetic engineering, which...may be more hazardous." Another staffer characterized the FDA as "trying to fit a square peg into a round hole," concluding that "the processes of genetic engineering and traditional breeding are different, and, according to the technical experts in the agency, they lead to different risks."
Agriculture Secretary Glickman has railed against Europe's
apprehensions, saying, "We will not be pushed into allowing
political science to govern these concerns." The new US
ambassador to the EU has chided Europeans for failing to "separate
science-based risk assessment and regulations from the political
process." And recently three top officials of the US Commerce
Department lectured Europeans to abandon their "irrational
and collective fear" and adopt a process "based on
science and not on anxiety." Yet it is the US government
that has hypocritically elevated politics and economics above
a reasoned scientific assessment of gene foods. US Citizen Concerns Actually, there has been a considerable amount of US citizen concern about the applications of new biotechnologies, as even The Wall Street Journal has noted. Numerous consumer surveys have shown that huge majorities of Americans support mandatory labeling of genetically modified foods and would avoid buying them if they were clearly labeled. Two years ago, even biotech giant Novartis found 93% of Americans in favor of labeling; the last poll conducted by the US Department of Agriculture, in 1995, found 84% in favor, and a Time magazine survey within the past year put the percentage at 81. Why aren't these polls more effective in determining US policy? Dick Morris, former policy director in the Clinton White House (who relied extensively on surveys and focus groups for advising the President) has indicated that government officials ignore such majorities to pursue the goals of elite minorities, "just as they ignore the 72% who want to increase taxes on the wealthy, and the 77% who feel that corporations have too much power, and the 64% who want guaranteed health care for all."
Consumers Union opposes--on behalf of its 4.7 million member households--US government failures to adequately handle this new technology. In its Sept. 1999 Consumer Reports, it called again for gene food evaluation and labeling. The National Nutritional Foods Association, a trade group representing the retailers and manufacturers of dietary supplements and natural foods, has called for labeling: "the public has a right to know what they are eating."
Last year, almost 270,000 letters opposed a USDA proposal that
would have allowed gene foods to fall within the definition of
"organic." (The agency has now apparently agreed
to exclude them.) In June, a petition carrying 500,000 signatures
in support of labeling was presented to the White House, Congress,
and US governmental agencies. Is US Government Policy Changing? Corn and soy exports from the US have been drastically reduced because US producers have not segregated the genetically engineered varieties. Buyers, especially in the EU, won't buy the tainted mixtures. As a result, US corn farmers have probably lost about $200 million this year. One of the largest domestic exporters, Archer Daniels Midland, has announced that farmers and grain elevators must segregate corn for export; and Gerber Baby Foods is making its domestic and European practices consistent by refusing to use genetically modified ingredients. Such actions by major corporations will bolster the economic value of growing unmodified varieties. Despite efforts by members of Congress (led by Senator John Ashcroft of Missouri, where Monsanto is headquartered) to get the Administration to push for "success in world markets" by "removing unfair trade barriers" to engineered foods in Europe, the Administration may be signaling some change in its policies. Last April, for example, Secretary Glickman stated: "We cannot be science's blind servant. We have to understand its ethical, safety, and environmental implications. Our testing has to be rigorous....We also can't force these new genetically engineered food products down consumers' throats...[D]ismissing the skepticism that is out there is not only arrogant, it's also a bad business strategy....Also, we have to be careful about ratcheting up the expectations on some of these technologies. There is no one silver bullet that will allow us to meet all of tomorrow's agricultural and food security challenges...[L]et's not put all of our eggs in the biotech basket."
Meanwhile, a recent report for Europe's Deutsche Bank recommended
that investors sell their holdings of genetic engineering stocks.
It noted that "the European concerns are very real. In
the past month, a senior manager at a European-based chemical
and ag-biotechnology giant expressed serious reservations to us
about the benignness of GMOs [genetically modified organisms]
and said that given a choice, he would select non-GMOs any day."
US-EU Societal Differences Five areas probably account for the differences between European and American biotech policy: 1) contrasting political mechanisms; 2) the role of industry in the political economy; 3) the role of the media; 4) geographic factors; and 4) historic and cultural factors. 1) Politics In Europe, the electoral system is based on proportional representation. Like-minded groups, such as Greens, are represented in the legislative bodies as long as they attract a sufficient number of votes to cross a relatively low threshold (normally 5%). From this position, they have been able to insert genetic engineering concerns into public discourse. However, due to the "winner take all" electoral system in the US, minorities of 49% (and their issues) can be ignored by legislative representatives. 2) The Agribusiness/Government Revolving Door As the Toronto Globe and Mail has observed, "Monsanto, which makes large donations to both the Democratic and Republican parties and to congressional legislators on food-safety committees, has become a virtual retirement home for members of the Clinton Administration. Trade and environmental protection administrators and other Clinton appointees have left to take up lucrative positions on Monsanto's board, while Monsanto and other biotech executives pass through the same revolving door to take up positions in the administration and its regulatory bodies." One Monsanto Board member is Mickey Kantor, the chairman of Clinton's 1992 presidential campaign and a former US Chief Trade Negotiator. Marcia Hale, another former Clinton aide, is now Monsanto's international regulatory director. When the FDA was drawing up its position against the labeling of gene foods, one of the key decision makers was Michael Taylor, previously a lawyer for Monsanto. When the FDA approved recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone (rBGH) for use in cows in 1993, the regulatory process was guided by former Monsanto employees, then at the FDA, who subsequently went back to work for the company. A 1998 analysis of Monsanto by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch found that "where Monsanto seeks to sow, the US government clears the ground." Administration officials have taken the lead in lobbying for the company and the rest of the biotech industry in confrontations with Europe, New Zealand, and Asia. 3) Role of the Media The variety of opinions reflected in the US media is limited, and coverage of biotech issues has been sporadic and generally uncritical. As the New York Times' Max Frankel has put it, "a corporate plutocracy dominates political speech in America." The choice and coverage of topics in the US media appears dependent upon corporate ownership patterns, interlocking boards of directors, and sources of advertising revenues. Furthermore, the companies controlling US media have steadily consolidated during the last decades. Not so in Europe, where it is nearly impossible to have such a concentration of media power in the hands of a few companies. 4) Geographical Factors Compared to agribusiness in the US, farmland in Europe is much more integrated into citizens' daily lives. Government planning provides sharp urban boundaries where farms exist, and commuters may even pass livestock daily. Europeans also have more contact with farming because more of their relatives still live in rural areas. The production of food is not a mystery, only visible in terms of its output, plastic-wrapped on supermarket shelves. In America, only 2% of the population works on farms. The EU rural population is 50% larger.
5) Cultural and Historic Factors Some have surmised
that in keeping with the American "pioneer" self
image, Americans may be culturally more inclined to embrace new
technology than Europeans are. Yet any visitor to Europe knowas
that it is chock full of powr plants, telecommunications gadgets,
and consumer goodies. The problem with biotechnology may be not
that it is a technology, but that it is dealing with food. In
contrast to the homogenization fostered by US multinationals,
Europeans prize the variety of local foods. For many foodstuffs,
national laws are in place to intricately regulate the wording
on the labels--Appenzeller cheese is only from one placae
in the world, as is Chateau Neuf-du-Pape wine. Technological Fiascos Britain's mismanagement of "mad cow disease" convinced European consumers that it is best to proceed cautiously with food technologies. The recent discoveries of dioxin in Belgian foodstuffs and tainted Coca-Cola have perpetuated this consumer demand for prudence.
Other technologies touted as totally safe and necessary for a
modern economy, most notably nuclear power, have had disastrous
consequences in Europe. The meltdown of the Chernobyl plant in
1986 exposed millions of Europeans to high levels of radiation,
and resulted in the necessary destruction of huge amounts of plant
and animal foodstuffs. Prudence is a virtue According to Gillian K. Hadfield at the University of Toronto: "It's wrong to view consumer resistance as just anti-science hysteria. Many people make food choices based on ethical considerations, deciding not to eat veal, or mass-produced chickens or non-organic produce. If biotechnology raises ethical and environmental concerns for them, it is not irrational for them to act on these." The fundamental ideology in Europe is not "timidity" but rather the Precautionary Principle. Europeans prefer to step back in the face of uncertainty and act prudently rather than recklessly. The US used to abide by this approach in public policy, but it has increasingly abandoned it under pressure from powerful corporations seeking short-term profits. But US public discourse is now approaching that common in Europe. Today, transnational corporations which have agreed to leave genetically engineered components out of their European foods are being pressed to do the same for American stomachs.
In democratic societies, citizens have the right to protect themselves
from having risks thrust upon them for the economic benefits of
others. Requiring adequate risk assessments of genetically altered
foods, requiring the proponents of these technological changes
to demonstrate that they are safe, and requiring labeling so that
citizens can make informed choices are reasonable public policies
on both sides of the ocean.
Resources on Genetically Engineered Foods From Kate Harris and Paul Eagle, 200 Bay Road, Amherst, MA 01002; 413/259-1169; a longer list is available at their web site: earthlovers.org.;
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