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Do the words “Genetically Modified,” “GMO,” or “bioengineered” evoke images of Greenpeace demonstrators pushing props of monstrous tomatoes and corn with teeth? Perhaps they bring to mind packages in the health food aisle or Eurocrats in Brussels, both righteously advertising freedom from this technological taint? These implicit claims, the result of a concerted publicity effort by regulators, activists, and even major agricultural industry conglomerates (a.k.a. agribusinesses), flatly contradict a vast body of scientific evidence. Henry I. Miller of Stanford University’s Hoover Institution and Gregory Conko of the Competitive Enterprise Institute argue that foods modified by recombinant DNA splicing present no new or special dangers, yet they stand to improve the lives of countless millions worldwide. The Frankenfood Myth: How Protest and Politics Threaten the Biotech Revolution provides a sound defense of this technology and a relentless critique of the antiscientific alliance against it. What has made Greenpeace so angry and the Europeans so afraid? The hotly protested technique of recombinant DNA modification involves splicing particular genetic segments out of one organism’s DNA for insertion into another. While opponents charge that scientists might accidentally create a “super-weed” or a pest, recombinant DNA techniques actually promise genetic engineers more control over which characteristics change in an organism, thanks to the extreme precision of selecting individual sequences. The Paris-based Office for Economic Cooperation and Development concluded in 1995 that recombinant DNA techniques created no unique risks over traditional modification methods, and even the exceptionally cautious European Commission reported on these new types of modified crops as “probably … safer than conventional plants and foods.” The forces seeking to eradicate recombinant DNA technology include many of the usual suspects. Groups such as Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace International have resorted to criminal activism on top of their draconian demands, working to seize shipments of GM crops or halt research by swapping entire seed stocks and barricading the gates of facilities. Worse yet, the largest agribusinesses themselves have sometimes been on the front lines against GM technology: they view regulation as a useful tool to raise barriers to entry and limit competition in an industry with very tight profit margins, despite acknowledging that there is no scientific justification for their hurdles. The paperwork and field trials required to clear the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s approval process alone now cost 10 to 20 times more for an organism modified with the new techniques than with conventional ones. The Environmental Protection Agency and the Food and Drug Administration insist on adding their own layers of bureaucratic oversight. The prohibitive costs of development through every stage of review discourage all but the largest agribusinesses from even investing in the research. Despite these regulatory struggles, a simple, sane approach to biotechnology has been with us all along, claim Conko and Miller—it is contained within the principle of proportionality. Instead of an all-or-nothing policy towards innovation, proportionality weighs the speculative risk of a new technology against its potential benefits. Given the risks of recombinant DNA techniques, the official precautions currently in place are wildly out of proportion. The current zero-tolerance attitude—standard in Europe and gaining momentum in North America and South Asia—has a heavy cost: developing nations such as Zambia have begun to reject enormous shipments of American food aid. Why would a famine-stricken nation turn away the donations? “Contamination” of their crops with the modified U.S. grain would permanently shut out their agricultural exports from the European Union market. The Frankenfood Myth serves as a study in how easily bad science and intellectual perfidy can hijack the government’s response to an issue. Most dishearteningly, Conko and Miller add a solemn reminder that the wealthy nations of the world will not suffer the most from a regulatory crush. The greatest benefit of GM agriculture will instead be felt by those at the margins of development, where an increase in crop yield or a decrease in pest damage could mean surplus instead of subsistence— survival instead of starvation. So-called consumer advocates should never fight to obstruct such great humanitarian potential. Rather than showing pictures of impoverished farmers or children blinded by malnutrition, however, these well-fed protesters prefer to carry posters of fanged vegetables. Such scare politics pose a bigger hazard than anything found in Shaw’s produce section. Karen Burke is a junior in Saybrook College and Senior Editor of The Yale Free Press. | ||||||||||||
The authors
begin with a clear message for consumers and policymakers alike: gene
modification is nothing new. Real “GM” agriculture is quite
common and very old. New technologies are part of a continuum of gene-modified
agricultural techniques that have been widely used for decades, sometimes
for centuries. These older techniques are blunt knives: they often cross
or change a wide number of genes in the hopes of reaching a beneficial
result.