Should the
government require that labels on cans of marinara sauce contain information
about whether the tomatoes in it were hand- or machine-picked? No way! Ridiculous
and irrelevant, you’d say. Right on all counts. But that label makes
as little sense as the demands of food activist and Forbes contributor Michelle
Maisto.
Maisto’s latest Forbes article calls for compulsory, government-mandated
labels to indicate foods that have been genetically improved. Yet the foods
that Maisto wants to target are those manipulated with the most modern and
precise gene-splicing techniques — and only those techniques. Such labels
would not only put groundless fears ahead of science — promoting ignorance
and hysteria among consumers — they would also be unconstitutional.
Product labeling that conveys essential information is important, but mandatory
labeling of gene-spliced foods is a bad idea. First, it implies risks for
which there is no evidence. Second, it flies in the face of worldwide scientific
consensus about the appropriate basis of regulation, which focuses palpable
risks, not the use of certain techniques. Third, it would push the costs of
product development into the stratosphere. Finally, the requirement would
constitute a punitive tax on a superior technology.
Maisto is misinformed in so many ways.
Let’s begin with her assertion that there’s “a lot of debate
about whether or not it’s safe to eat GM [genetically modified] foods.”
In the parlance of Maisto and other radical food activists, “GM”
refers to products that come from plants, animals or microorganisms crafted
with sophisticated gene-splicing techniques, in which genes are moved around
precisely and predictably. Without any scientific basis, the term implies
that gene-splicing is a meaningful “category” and that its use
somehow gives rise to products the risks of which are higher or more uncertain
than other techniques for genetic modification. However, a broad and decades-long
scientific consensus holds that modern techniques of genetic modification
are an extension, or refinement – that is, an improvement – on
the kinds of genetic modification that have long been used to enhance plants,
microorganisms, and animals for food.
One has to wonder whether Maisto knows that with the exception of wild game,
wild berries, wild mushrooms and fish and shellfish, all the plant- and animal-derived
foods in our diets – even the overpriced organic stuff at Whole Foods
– have resulted from genetic modification that employs techniques that
are far less precise and predictable than the ones that concern her. Likewise,
is she aware that every major scientific and public health organization that
has studied gene-splicing – from the American Medical Association to
the National Academy of Sciences and dozens more – has concluded that
gene-spliced foods are at least as safe, and probably safer, than conventional
ones?
The safety record of gene-spliced plants and foods derived from them is extraordinary.
After the cultivation of more than 3 billion acres (cumulatively) of gene-spliced
crops worldwide and the consumption of more than 3 trillion servings of food
and food ingredients from such crops by inhabitants of North America alone,
there has not been a single ecosystem disrupted or a single confirmed adverse
reaction.
What are the advantages of gene-spliced crops? Every year, farmers planting
gene-spliced varieties spray millions fewer gallons of chemical pesticides
and prevent less erosion of topsoil. In addition, many gene-spliced varieties
are less susceptible to mold infection and have lower levels of fungal toxins,
making them safer for consumers and livestock.
Now let’s get to the labeling issue.
Maisto complains that “food can be tinkered with at the DNA level and
no one is obligated to say so.” True, but irrelevant. For one thing,
with the exceptions mentioned above, all the foods in our diet have been altered
“at the DNA level” – because that’s how changes in
organisms occur. When plant breeders cross a tangerine with a grapefruit to
get a tangelo or construct a variety of potato resistant to viruses, the genetic
changes are mediated by alterations in the DNA.
There are good reasons that such “tinkering at the DNA level”
need not be revealed on labels. Federal regulation requires that food labels
be truthful and not misleading and prohibits label statements that could be
misunderstood, even if they are strictly accurate. For example, although a
“cholesterol-free” label on a certain variety or batch of fresh
spinach would be accurate, it transgresses the FDA’s rules because it
could be interpreted as implying that spinach usually contains cholesterol,
which it does not.
Following long-standing precedents in food regulation, the FDA requires labeling
only to indicate that a new food raises questions of safety, nutrition or
proper usage. But instead of educating or serving a legitimate consumers’
“need to know” certain information, mandatory labels on gene-spliced
food would imply a warning.
The FDA’s approach to labeling has been upheld both directly and indirectly
by various federal court decisions that have consistently struck down mandatory
labeling not supported by data. In the early 1990s, a group of Wisconsin consumers
sued the FDA, arguing that the agency’s decision not to require the
labeling of dairy products from cows treated with a gene-spliced protein called
bovine somatotropin, or bST, allowed those products to be labeled in a false
and misleading manner. (In other words, the plaintiffs wanted the same sort
of mandatory labeling advocated by Maisto.) However, because the plaintiffs
failed to demonstrate any material difference between milk from treated and
untreated cows the federal court agreed with the FDA, finding that “it
would be misbranding to label the product as different, even if consumers
misperceived the product as different.”
In another federal case several food associations and companies challenged
a Vermont statute that required labeling to identify milk from cows treated
with gene-spliced bST. The U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that
a labeling mandate grounded in consumer perception rather than in a product’s
measurable characteristics raises serious constitutional concerns. Namely,
it violates commercial free speech. The court found both the labeling statute
and companion regulations unconstitutional because they forced producers to
make involuntary statements when there was no material reason to do so.
What’s more, consumers don’t need a mandatory “GM”
label: The First Amendment protects the right of food purveyors to sell non-gene-spliced
products and to advertise that fact to consumers by means of labeling. (This
would be similar to the way that halal and kosher products are offered to
consumers.)
Note to Ms. Maisto: If you really want to influence consumers’ views
on genetic engineering try to gain at least a rudimentary understanding of
the subject. We suggest two ways to start: the film Mandy and Fanny: The Future
of Sustainable Agriculture and the book The Frankenfood Myth: How Protest
and Politics Threaten the Biotech Revolution by the two of us. Maybe then
your articles on this subject won’t mislead your readers.
Henry I. Miller is the Robert Wesson Fellow in Scientific Philosophy and
Public Policy at Stanford University‘s Hoover Institution; he was the
founding director of the FDA’s Office of Biotechnology.
Gregory Conko is a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute.
Source:
Henry Miller and Gregory Conko (8.12.11). Labeling of biotech foods is
unnecessary and unconstitutional. Forbes (http://www.forbes.com/sites/henrymiller/2011/12/08/labeling-of-biotech-foods-is-unnecessary-and-unconstitutional/)
Reproduced by permission of the authors.
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