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President Bush should stop telling us what to eat
By Nnimmo Bassey and Lawrence Bohlen
(Friday, June 13, 2003 -- CropChoice guest commentary) -- President Bush thinks all nations, especially those in Africa, should
warmly embrace "bio-crops" produced by the United States. He says that
their refusal to accept genetically engineered crops is not
scientific, but rather a fear of economic loss if the European Union
continues to reject genetically engineered foods. Economic loss is a
real concern, but a closer look at the reasons given by other nations
reveals widely held, scientifically based concerns about potential
health impacts as well.
People around the world find it odd that U.S. government officials are
saying engineered foods are safe, when U.S. scientific bodies like the
National Academy of Sciences and a scientific advisory panel serving
the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) are calling for more safety
testing. The panel wrote that the bacterial toxin placed in most forms
of engineered corn may be a human allergen. Meanwhile, dozens of
severe allergic reactions to corn products in the United States were
reported in 2000, but according to EPA advisors, not adequately
investigated.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has also failed to conduct
its own safety tests of engineered foods. The agency merely asks
biotech companies to voluntarily submit data from their own studies, a
form of corporate self-policing that is not universally accepted.
According to the National Academy of Sciences, the transparency of
data provided by industry is woefully inadequate. Until the FDA
requires independent safety testing, people all over the world will
remain justifiably concerned about engineered foods. They will also be
skeptical as long as the biotech crop producers are Monsanto, Dupont
and others that have polluted the planet with the most toxic chemicals
ever generated -- DDT, PCBs and Agent Orange, to name a few.
Once released, even in small quantities, widespread contamination by
engineered crops can occur, as documented in both the United States
and Mexico. In 2000, StarLink corn, an engineered variety not approved
for human consumption due to the potential to cause life-threatening
allergic reactions, contaminated America's food supply. Just 0.5
percent of the U.S. cornfields were planted with StarLink, yet an
estimated 10 percent of the entire harvest was contaminated.
Real life, not imagined, concerns about remnants of StarLink arose
from a finding in June 2002 by a citizens' group in Bolivia. The group
discovered food aid sent by the U.S. Agency for International
Development contaminated with StarLink engineered corn. More recently,
Japanese importers reported that the corn had contaminated an American
grain shipment. This undesirable engineered crop persists despite a
ban of its planting in Fall 2000, and a declaration by the EPA in July
2001 that no level of StarLink could be determined safe for human
consumption.
The appearance of genetically engineered corn in remote regions of
Mexico, which has banned its cultivation to avoid polluting the origin
of corn, also shows how easily engineered traits can move and
multiply. The source is thought by some scientists to be American
imports for animal feed or food processing inadvertently planted or
spilled during transport.
The Bush administration argues that any health or environmental
concerns held by people in hungry nations are overshadowed by a
shortage of non-engineered corn to feed those who seek it. On the
contrary, there are millions of bushels of non-engineered corn on
commercial markets today in the United States and abroad. For the past
two and a half years, major taco and tortilla producers in the United
States successfully substituted large quantities of conventional white
and yellow corn for the engineered corn they had been using before
StarLink contamination occurred. Additionally, South Africa, Japan,
Holland, Norway and the European Commission were among numerous donors
providing huge amounts of conventional corn over the last year to
Zambia and other southern African nations in need of food aid.
Given the alternatives available to address famine and the very
legitimate concerns about potential health and environmental impacts,
a decision to reject genetically engineered food should be respected.
After all, according to numerous public opinion polls and a recent
United States Department of Agriculture survey of consumer attitudes,
if given the option, the majority of Americans would choose
conventional food over genetically engineered food as well.
About the authors:
Nnimmo Bassey
Lawrence Bohlen | |
