Write to Consumer Reports about their Genetically Engineered Foods article
From: for7gen@idiom.com (Walter Epp) To: Soula Culver <ksvp@sinewave.com> Subject: Consumer Reports & genetic engineering Date: Sat, 23 Oct 1999 04:53:28
Here's a letter I sent to the Consumer Reports editor and to Consumers Union president Rhoda Karpatkin (which is at 101 Truman Ave, Yonkers NY 10703-1057). Feel free to forward or whatever so others can comment and help Consumers Union to take a stronger stand. You may also want to read the article for their tests of GE content of supermarket food and the quotes they got from an interview with USDA's Glickman. Overall, I don't think the article was really bad, as it did mention a number of the problems, but it was a lot weaker than it could and should be.
In their editorial on page 7 they announce a website www.biotech-info.net developed by the Consumers Union Consumer Policy Institute under a grant apparently from the Rockefeller Foundation, or at least, without explicitly saying that's where it came from, immediately preceding the announcement they quote Rockefeller Foundation president Gordon Conway saying there should be a dialog on the consequences of GE with consumer & environmental groups on an equal footing with companies and governments. If this is an area Rockefeller Foundation is interested in, it could be approached for funding other organizations as well. If, as they say, citizen groups should be on an equal footing, then they can be called on to put their money where their mouth is and provide the resources needed for consumer & environmental groups to even the playing field. If Rockefeller is tied in with the biotech industry, it would be good for Consumer Reports to be provided with the details on that so they can be on guard against influence.
The CR website is www.ConsumerReports.org/, but sending email or downloading articles requires being a registered user, which may require being a subscriber. If writing a letter to the editor, they say to include your daytime phone number.
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Editor
Consumer Reports
POB 2015
Yonkers NY 10703
Dear Editor:
The article on genetically engineered food in the September 1999 issue says in 3 separate places that "there's no evidence such foods on the market aren't safe to eat". To say there is no evidence that a new untested technology is unsafe is highly misleading, and is a propaganda line commonly used by proponents of such things. If you release a chemical guaranteed to give everyone a fatal disease after 10 years, you will have no conclusive evidence of damage until it's 10 years too late. Even food that may be safe for the consumer to eat now may not be safe to buy, if by doing so you support the growth of a system which undermines the long-term health of the fabric of life. It is also unbalanced to say there is no proof something is unsafe but neglect to note that there is also no proof it is safe. There is also no evidence (as distinguished from wild speculative pipe-dreams) that genetically engineered food will provide a net benefit over multiple generations to anyone other than the profit-makers.
In any event, the claim there is no evidence of danger is patently false. At least 37 consumers are known to have died from consuming products of genetic engineering, and evidence of genetic engineering causing breast cancer, mutagenic toxins, chronic neurological and autoimmune disorders, and resistant infectious diseases has already been reported in scientific journals such as The Lancet, Microbial Ecology in Health & Disease, and the International Journal of Food Science Technology. For details, see the materials posted on the Physicians and Scientists for Responsible Application of Science and Technology website at www.psrast.org, which provide an excellent must-read introduction to the science - and lack of science - around these issues.
One of the reasons there's not more evidence is that much of the research is performed and/or funded by the companies making the products, clearly a glaring conflict of interest. When scientist Arpad Pusztai came up with evidence of danger he was fired. We can only wonder how many others have censored themselves to keep their jobs, or been censored by publishers or employers. Safety studies commissioned by Monsanto for Roundup, its current cash cow, were littered with fraud, for example substituting rats that died with new live ones in order to produce favorable results. Monsanto employees such as Paul Wright also perpetrated fraud in safety studies.
Given this track record, a critical point missing from your recommendations is that all decisions about whether or under what terms to allow products onto the market must be based on data produced by people who have no direct or indirect connection to the industry producing them. Whenever evidence is presented, we must demand full disclosure of the direct and indirect funding sources, and the employment history of those who produced it.
Another reason you may not have seen more evidence is that Monsanto has been very aggressive in censoring information, succeeding in getting magazines shredded (The Ecologist), canceling publication of a book (Against the Grain), and getting Fox TV reporters fired who tried to report evidence that rBGH increases the risk of cancer. When a company that has hundreds of millions of dollars at its disposal to publicize its side of the story feels a need to use heavy-handed techniques to muzzle critics, we can only wonder what it has to hide. Monsanto also made PCBs and covered up what it knew of their toxicity for 50 years.
I urge you to add to your recommendations a call for an end to all forms of intimidation and censorship in the debate on these issues. For consumers and democratic governments to make good decisions, there must be a free flow of both information and opinions, unhampered by fear of retaliation.
Your recommendation that industry should be held liable for damage from genetic engineering is right on target and of high priority, but would be completely meaningless if they can simply declare bankruptcy and avoid all liability if the damages are substantial. The remedy for this is to require that they post a cash bond sufficient to cover all costs of remediating damages over the indefinite future. In addition we must hold parents, subsidiaries, successors, and all other affiliated corporate entities liable, hold individual principals liable, and hold the entire industry and their corporate affiliates liable in the event that the guilty company and people do not have sufficient resources. Another provision to consider is for all revenues from genetic engineering to be held in escrow until safety has been confirmed over multiple generations. This would be in addition to posting a large bond, since large damages could occur before any significant revenues have accrued. If we as a society are putting our health at risk, the very least business and its people can do is place their monetary resources at risk.
Anything less than these kinds of terms constitutes a subsidy of potentially astronomical proportions. The genetic engineering industry is proposing that it get the benefits (profits) now while the public assume the risks, potentially extending over all future generations. This would be a swindle of unprecedented proportions in human history unless we insist that the risk be matched to the benefit through iron-clad financial guarantees with no loopholes.
There is a bigger issue here not addressed in the article. Tampering with the genetic fabric of life is a completely different order of risk from monkeying with chemicals. Even the nastiest poisons tend to dissipate over time as they are weathered by the elements & microorganisms and settle out of circulation, so there is usually a limit to the total damage. Genetic mutations, on the other hand, could spread and reproduce forever, with no limit on the damage to future generations. Thus releasing artificial mutants that damage health or destabilize the ecological fabric could easily be a much more heinous crime than murder. A murder will hardly be noticed in at least 95 of the next 100 generations, while genes causing ongoing ecological disruption could harm all 100 generations and cause many deaths over time.
Determining whether a mutant damages health or destabilizes the ecological fabric over the long run requires vastly more extensive and longer-term multi-generational analysis than has been done to date. DDT came out in the 1930s. It wasn't until a couple decades later in the 1950s that scientific evidence of the ecological havoc it was wreaking became substantial. It wasn't until a couple decades later in 1972 that the government finally woke up and banned it. It wasn't until a couple decades later, in the 1990s, that science has realized that DDT is linked to breast cancer and endocrine disruption. Thus 6 decades after invention, modern science is only _beginning_ to understand the consequences on human health, and no one knows when full understanding will occur, if ever. Figuring out the consequences of an inanimate chemical is drastically simpler than figuring out the dynamic interactions a new living organism can have in the web of life, so that would take correspondingly longer. It turns out we have evidence to indicate the scale of the time frame. The Dodo was driven to extinction in the 1600s. It wasn't until a couple centuries later that people noticed certain kinds of trees were dying off on that island, and it wasn't until this century that they figured out it was because the seeds had trouble sprouting until they had passed through the digestive tract of the Dodo. If it takes science 3 centuries to figure out a connection as simple as this, how long would it take to figure out more complicated and subtle relationships and consequences?
Thus given this track record, a reasonable rule is to wait a minimum of 4 centuries for the consequences of small-scale tests to be analyzed before allowing large-scale production. A responsible rule would require a longer time to give a meaningful margin of safety and allow detecting non-trivial and delayed interactions.
In the mean time, Nature has a perfectly good process for genetic evolution, and in its wisdom has ordained the appropriate speed at which genetic shift may occur so that the consequences can be factored in before the shift goes too far. This process has withstood the test of time far longer than any human creation, while producing such an abundance of wonders that modern science has been unable to even count the number of species, much less scratch the surface of knowledge and understanding. People have been practicing selective breeding for thousands of years, giving us corn and more than 3,000 varieties of potatoes, and this is the only form of genetic engineering that should be allowed to proceed without the 4-century waiting rule.
Your recommendation that any product that uses genetic engineering or irradiation must be labeled as such is a good one, but must be clarified to require that the labeling be on the label that the consumer actually sees, so for example items sold in bulk must also be labeled at the point of sale, not just labeled on the package that only the wholesaler sees. Preventing labeling is obstruction of the free market and obstruction of freedom of speech. If these things are so wonderful, then they will do well in an honest, open, informed market. If they can only be foisted on the public through devious subterfuges such as prohibiting or restricting labeling indicating they have not been used (such as was done with rBST), or other schemes to pull the wool over the public's eyes, then we know something about how desirable they really are and we know something about the character of those who are trying to push them down our throats.
Your recommendation that government conduct safety reviews makes me queasy. The federal government in general, and especially the FDA in particular, have demonstrated they have so far been incompetent to represent the interest of the public. The democratic process has been badly corrupted by industry influence. Government officials who previously or subsequently were paid by Monsanto include Michael Taylor, Margaret Miller, Suzanne Sechen, John Gibbon, Marcia Hale, Mickey Kantor. In addition, numerous elected officials have been paid by industry campaign contributions. After FDA employee Richard Burroughs challenged Monsanto safety studies that ranged from inadequate to fraudulent, he was fired. FDA employees have been threatened with transfers to other jobs where "they would never be heard of again" if they didn't speed approval of Monsanto products.
Citizens must be informed, vigilant, and active to keep corporate influence from overriding democracy. This is where Consumers Union can play a crucial role. If government fails to do its job, then it's up to citizens to do it themselves, such as through boycotts and other direct actions.
The most fundamental question missing from your article is whether it makes sense to proceed with genetic engineering at all. Energy and ingenuity spent developing mutants and testing their safety and debating how to regulate them would be far better spent developing organic agriculture, permaculture, and other healthier, saner, responsible ways of dealing with nature and nutrition. We as a society have no obligation to accept every technology that comes along no matter how crackpot.
The possible benefits of genetically engineered foods mentioned in your article ("breads that help lower cholesterol or vegetables packed with cancer-fighting ingredients") are staggeringly pathetic compared to the risks of damaging the fundamental genetic and ecological fabric of life. Vegetables are already packed with cancer-fighting ingredients, especially if organically grown. You don't need genetic engineering to get what we already have. Anyone who is truly concerned about the suffering from cancer will not devote their energy to making bandaids, but will work to stop the causes. Most cancer is caused by unhealthy lifestyles and tampering with nature in ways that result in toxic chemicals. The solution is to stop tampering with nature, not to take tampering with nature on a more drastic tangent.
I hope Consumers Union has the integrity and courage to take a strong stand for putting the long-term health of the public and the Earth ahead of the mad rush for short-term profits, and to follow up with ongoing actions to protect the public interest.