Flexing its superpower muscle, the United States compromised the safety of the world’s food supply recently by torpedoing global negotiations on a Biosafety Protocol in Cartagena, Colombia. The U.S. government and a handful of other nations derailed safety standards for international trade of genetically modified organisms–seeds, plants and animals that have had their DNA, the blueprint of life, altered. This decision to elevate the interests of powerful biotech corporations over the protection of human health and the environment could return to haunt consumers at home and abroad.
Worldwide, consumers have said an emphatic “no” to genetically modified foods and commodities. Dubbing it “Frankenstein food,” Europeans have urged their governments to ban gene-altered food and have pressured supermarkets to clearly label the products of genetic engineering. Some farmers in India, fearing the consequences for their traditional methods of farming, have set fire to fields of altered crops, and polls conducted in New Zealand, Australia and the United States have all shown that citizens want labeling of genetically engineered foods. This year, a Time magazine poll found that 58 percent of Americans would avoid purchasing genetically altered foods if they were labeled so.
Unfortunately, U.S. consumers are being kept in the dark. Americans already are buying or could soon buy such items as tomatoes with fish genes, potatoes containing chicken genes, and corn with insect genes.
The Food and Drug Administration has been petitioned to require labeling of gene-altered foods, just as sulfites and other additives must be listed on food labels, but no action has been taken. This means there are no requirements for food companies to label foods that have been genetically altered.
The biotechnology industry touts genetically engineered crops as the wave of the future. In truth, bioengineering moves U.S. agriculture away from family farms and organic growing methods that more and more consumers are embracing.
Meddling with nature on the genetic level also poses potential threats to our health and the environment. Scientists predict that “biological pollution” resulting from the release of genetically modified organisms into the environment will pose as significant a risk to humans and the planet as chemical pollution. Living organisms grow and mutate and don’t respect field boundaries or national borders. Once released, they cannot be “mopped up.”
Threats to the environment include plants genetically engineered to produce toxins poisonous to insect predators. These new “insect-resistant” crops are likely to accelerate the natural evolution of “superbugs” that have developed resistance to the plant’s built-in pesticide, and they are likely to kill beneficial insects as well as harmful ones. Despite industry claims to the contrary, genetic engineering offers little prospect for reducing chemical use.
About two-thirds of the genetically engineered crops being grown for commercial use have been engineered to be tolerant of a specific herbicide–a trait that only encourages chemical use.
With so many potential pitfalls and the doubts about its benefits, the U.S. government should take a precautionary approach to genetic engineering.
Any other approach is a gamble with our health and our environment.
