The Mises Institute monthly, free with membership
June 1999
Volume 17, Number 6
In Defense of
"Frankenfood"
by Brian Doherty
Nowadays every frontier of human achievement faces a regulatory barrier that must be
crossed. Those regulatory barriers
are often prompted by interest group fears based more in political theory than reality. In
particular, biotechnology is one of
the more contested and feared additions to man's arsenal of control over his environment.
Consider the public hysteria over biotech foods, known as "GM" (for genetically modified)
foods. Humans have been,
clumsily and often ignorantly, "genetically modifying" foods since agriculture began, crossing
seed lines and creating
hybrids. All contemporary recombinant DNA technology adds to the mix is precision--we can
now be more careful and
more certain we know what we are doing than ever before when it comes to blending genes in
our foodstuffs.
Scientific, as opposed to popular or political, thought on GM foods is nearly unanimous: we
have no particular reason to
fear GM technologies producing "superweeds," newly pathogenic foods, or any other dreadful
crisis. Yet Europeans
especially are afire with opposition to GM foods.
While the phrase "Luddite" is thrown about perhaps too loosely in debates over the wisdom
and application of new
technologies, some Europeans are employing genuinely Luddite techniques of destruction to
express their unhappiness with
GM foods--burning crop fields, urinating on seeds.
These neo-Luddite lovers of fantasies of an unblemished nature (actual unblemished nature
leaves no room for such
precious concerns) emphatically do not want to be part of any new phase in the Green
Revolution--a market- and
technology-fueled leap in the ability to feed more people while using less land for cultivation.
As Dennis Avery of the Hudson Institute points out, "The same people saying don't use
bioengineered foods are also saying
we must save wildlife, and those are mutually incompatible goals." They prefer a return to
organic foods, which are both
incapable of meeting human food needs for a growing population (or even the current
population) and require vast expanses
of land to grow on. "Going back to organic foods," Avery points out, "with half the yield, we get
both genocide and wildlife
destruction."
That appears to be a price nature-besotted enemies of biotech are willing to pay. England
was abuzz recently with a
quickly-discredited report from one government scientist that an experimental potato which
generated its own pesticide was
causing liver damage in rats. (The scientist went on TV with his sensational results before they'd
been reviewed, and his
own institute disowned the report.) This prompted a consortium of 37 busybody groups to call
for a 5-year moratorium on
even researching GM foods.
In the U.S. last year 60 million acres were seeded with biotech-engineered foods, including
soybeans, corn, tomatoes, and
potatoes. Since in food processing both GM and non-GM sources are mixed, any processed food
with soy or corn
products--which are legion--could well have GM content. Since creating entirely new
transportation and storage systems
for GM crops would be hugely expensive, and since there is no reason to suspect any problem
with GM foods, the
American farm and food processing industries have successfully resisted so far fear-driven
segregation and labeling
recommendations.
The Usual Suspects like Greenpeace are suing to rescind EPA approval of some GM plants
that produce natural pesticides.
Enviros are very much against the indiscriminate dumping of chemical pesticides on food,
worrying about phantasmal
cancer risks and possible water supply contamination. But they also want to drive out of
existence GM foods, which
promise the ability to eliminate profligate use of outside chemicals by making the plants
internally pest-resistant.
Enviro dreams are revealed nakedly here: they want to halt man's mad desire to enjoy foods
that aren't eaten or
contaminated by insect pests (pests which can also spread diseases). When technology finds a
solution to today's
environmental problems--most of which are the result of merely temporary conditions in the state
of the technological
art--enviros are against the solutions as well. While their ultimate motives must remain
unfathomable, it is safe to say
human well-being is not among them.
Currently, U.S. regulation of these biotech foods is relatively benign, or at any rate not as
bad as it could be. For example,
the FDA only requires new-approval processes for biotech foods if they contain substantially
new substances within them
such that it would qualify as a new food additive. (GM foods that have natural pesticides fall
under EPA regulation.) But
Clinton's FDA once tried to toughen regulation of biotech products, largely in response to enviro
interest group hysteria.
In 1995 it attempted to institute pre-approval clinical trials of all recombinant
DNA-products, but backed down when
Congress balked. Premarket regulation is the regulator's dream, covering more and more
products since the 1950s, with a
string of new regulations, mostly under the control of the regulating body and not elected
representatives, requiring
premarket approval for everything from food additives to new drugs to animal feed additives to
any chemical substance to
descriptions of nutrient and medical claims for food supplements.
As former FDA attorney Peter Hutt wrote, "Premarket approval severely limits individual
freedom of choice. Citizens are
simply precluded from obtaining products they wish to purchase, and have no recourse other than
to wait for government
approval. Personal autonomy is subjugated to government regulatory control.... Premarket
approval [makes] the investment
required [for] new products...prohibitive... [and] includes no mechanism for public
accountability."
So far GM foods have evaded this favorite mechanism of the modern regulator, but a Gore
administration would not bode
well for continued sanity in this field. The whole notion that government regulation of our
foodstuffs provides important
and needed help to food consumers is flawed to begin with. Clearly, the desire to keep satisfied
and living customers, and a
reputation for wholesomeness, is far more important to any seller or processor of food than fear
of government's occasional
busybody eye. Like much government regulation, food regulations of any sort add costs to
producers, consumers, and
taxpayers with no commensurate benefits.
American policy is currently reasonably sensible on GM foods. But EU's hysteria could end
up creating regulatory troubles
for the U.S. as well--thanks to WTO standardization attempts, one or the other of the government
parties is going to have
to give. The U.S. lacks a popular constituency for GM foods, since the public is mostly unaware
of the important role they
could play in feeding a growing population.
The big companies like Monsanto that produce them have in the past been willing to
countenance regulation knowing that it
would hobble small start-ups comparatively more than them, so they are not apt to prove a sturdy
defender of their right to
produce and sell their GM products unobstructed. (The Biotech Industry Organization, for
example, actually advocates
case-by-case UN regulation of GM foods! Pro-business lobby and free-market advocacy are
rarely a tight fit.)
Government intervention in the markets in new products once again creates a grotesque
alliance of regulators and big
business in alliance against the interest of both potential customers and potential
competitors--stifling innovation in return
for business cartelization. With big agribusiness, environmentalists, and government bodies all
potentially on the same
page, the GM food revolution could be stymied. And any such regulatory barriers are roadblocks
to a well-fed planet.
They call GM foods "Frankenfoods," these enviro enemies of a fertile and well-fed globe.
The stereotypical enemies of
Frankenstein-- the out-of-control mob storming over the land with torches and pitchforks--are not
exactly a symbol of
reason and logic. In that sense, the enviros' loaded rhetorical attack term is valuable. But it says
more about them than it
does about the beneficial products of human ingenuity they want to destroy.
____________
Brian Doherty is the Warren T. Brookes Fellow in Environmental Journalism at the
Competitive Enterprise Institute.
Back