May 29, 2012 |
Photo Credit: Africa Studio/ Shutterstock.com
Popular resistance is boiling over on the GMO labeling issue, as the
New York Times reported recently in
a front page story.
More than a million people have asked the U.S. Food and Drug
Administration (FDA) for mandatory labeling of genetically engineered
food on a
legal petition in March and on May 2nd,
nearly a million voter signatures
were submitted in California to place a GMO labeling initiative on
ballot in November. Clearly, Americans believe strongly in their right
to know what's in their food. Ninety percent of US voters want this type
of labeling. Yet we still don't have it. Why?
Twenty years ago this week, then-Vice President Dan Quayle announced
the FDA's policy
on genetically engineered food as part of his "regulatory relief
initiative." The policy, Quayle explained, was based on the idea that
genetic engineering is no different than traditional plant breeding, and
therefore
required no new regulations.
Five years earlier, then-Vice President George H.W. Bush visited a
Monsanto lab for a photo op with the developers of Roundup Ready crops.
According to
a video report
of the meeting, when Monsanto executives worried about the approval
process for their new crops, Bush laughed and told them, "Call me. We're
in the dereg businesses. Maybe we can help."
And help he did - more than anyone could have ever imagined. Today, the
politically motivated policy lives on, even though it contradicts
modern scientific consensus.
How is it possible that the U.S. is making critical decisions about our
food system with a decades-old policy that is at odds with global
opinion? In a word: politics. As Quayle explained in the 1992 press
conference, the American biotechnology industry would reap huge profits
"as long as we resist the spread of unnecessary regulations."
Politics Not Science Set the Agenda
Dan Quayle's 1992 policy announcement is premised on the notion that genetically engineered crops are
"substantially equivalent" to regular crops and thus do not need to be labeled or safety tested. The policy was
crafted by Michael Taylor, a former Monsanto lawyer who was hired by the Bush FDA to fill the newly created position of deputy commissioner of policy.
In an ironic twist, the Obama administration appointed Michael Taylor
as the deputy commissioner of foods in 2009, where he now oversees food
safety policy for the federal government. Taylor's
appointment was highly controversial,
not only for crafting this pseudo-scientific policy, which laid the
groundwork for helping GMOs avoid rigorous scientific testing and
common-sense labeling, but also for
his role in guiding the approval of Monsanto's genetically engineered
synthetic hormone rBGH.
From the start, the policy of "substantial equivalence" had many
critics. The concerns by the FDA's own scientists were summed up in
a memo
by FDA compliance officer Dr. Linda Kahl, who protested that the agency
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."
As Kahl wrote, "The processes of genetic engineering and traditional
breeding are different, and according to the technical experts in the
agency, they lead to different risks."
The FDA itself admitted as much in 2001, with a proposed policy that
companies should notify the government at least 120 days before
commercializing a transgenic plant variety and provide data on each
separate genetic transformation event -- information they said they did
not need for foods derived through traditional cross breeding.
In other words, the FDA said there is a difference between genetic
engineering and traditional plant breeding. In spite of this, the FDA is
still following the Dan Quayle/Michael Taylor inspired policy instead
of its 2001 policy to set the agenda.
Out of Step with World Opinion
Across the world,
there is now agreement
that genetically engineered foods are different from conventionally
bred foods and that all genetically engineered foods should be required
to go through
safety assessments prior to approval.
These positions are spelled out by
Codex Alimentarius,
the food safety standards organization of the United Nations, which the
World Trade Organization considers to be the global, science-based
standards, and thus immune to trade challenges.
But, at present, none of the genetically engineered plants on sale in
the United States can meet this global standard, because - unlike all
other developed countries - the U.S. does not require safety testing of
genetically engineered crops.
The U.S. stands nearly alone on the issue of labeling, too. More than
40 other countries require labeling of genetically engineered foods,
including European Union member nations, Japan, Australia, Russia and
even China, allowing consumers in those countries to make informed
choices about whether or not to buy these foods. Yet we haven't been
able to get labeling here in the U.S., thanks to Dan Quayle and Michael
Taylor's deceptive policy.
Growing Pressure for Change
The FDA position on GMOs is also out of step with the wishes of the
overwhelming majority of Americans, 90% of whom want labeling. The issue
is so reasonable and makes such common sense that in November 2007,
then Senator Barack Obama felt compelled to make a promise to Iowa
farmers
that if elected he'd label GMOs,
saying he'd "let folks know whether their food has been genetically
modified because Americans should know what they're buying."
But lacking the courage or political will to get this done at the
federal level, and stymied in the state legislative area - nearly 20
states have tried to pass labeling mandates and failed due to intense
lobby pressure by special interests - all eyes are now on the
California ballot initiative that will take the issue directly to voters.
As the Times reported, "The most closely watched labeling effort is a
proposed ballot initiative in California that cleared a crucial hurdle
this month, setting the stage for a November vote that could influence
not just food packaging but the future of American agriculture.
The 20th anniversary of Dan Quayle's announcement fell on Memorial Day
weekend, a fitting symbol for the question before us: Will democracy win
out and will Americans have the right to know what's in our food? Or we
will continue to let our food policy be ruled by political decisions
engineered last century in a Monsanto boardroom by corporate lobbyists?
Dave Murphy is the founder of
Food Democracy Now!, a sixth generation Iowan, and an advocate for sustainable agriculture.
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