In case no one told you: The FDA could not be of less relevance when it comes to exports of food. The authority of the FDA is nil when it comes to declaring food safe for anyone but the US.
The WHO did not declare GMO could safely be eaten. It declared that there is as of yet no evidence that it is harmful, and that current pre-market tests should be sufficient to ensure that an ‘as safe as’ unmodified food standard is uphelp. The difference between the two is precisely the cause of plenty of irritations between Europe and the US regarding product safety. The European public supports their governments in a proactive stance towards safety ‘If it isn’t proven safe, we don’t want it’, whereas the US propagates ‘If it isn’t proven harmful, it’s ok.’ That’s a different outlook on risk assessment, and the US has tried to exports its own style of risk assessment. That is unlikely to create demand for US products in European customers. The attitude in the US is frequently ‘Use it, and if something happens, sue them.’ The European attitude is to prevent that something from happening in the first place.
As was pointed out, Europeans would be much more open if there were proper labeling. As it happens, there are pretty stringent labeling rules for food in general, not just for GMO in several European countries. Demanding that GMOs be labeled is merely an extension of ‘knowing what you eat’ labeling.
Not the least, there are people who reject GM food not for safety reasons, but for ethical reasons. They have to be able to make a conscious choice. Failure to label the products deprives them of that choice and forces them to act against their ethic values.
That US companies complain about logistics is irrelevant. If they can’t supply what the market wants, they don’t get to sell their products. It’s as simple as that.
Which is what Mandelstam was talking about - the alleged cavalier attitude of US business towards safety.
Unless you are claiming that Europe has higher standards when it comes to product safety. To which I whisper “thalidomide”.
Or perhaps you are claiming that the scientific standards of the FDA are invalid once you cross the border, and that somehow extensive, objective testing cannot survive the trip.
I believe Europe subsidises farming so heavily mainly to support traditional rural ways of life. Also farmers unions can be quite powerful, especially in France.
I agree totally though - the farming subsidies are not only wasteful and expensive but also harmful to our enviroment and the third world.
So the EU should just accept the jurisdiction of the FDA? Interesting concept. Why won’t the USA accept European jurisdiction instead? Suppose European Authorities declare that pot is not bad for you and should be freely sold. Should the USA go along with that?
All of which is still totally fucking irrelevant in that whether Europeans eat food or shit it is going to have close to no effect in Africa. America wants to sell their stuff and this demagoguery is pathetic.
So the EU should just accept the jurisdiction of the FDA? Interesting concept. Why won’t the USA accept European jurisdiction instead? Suppose European Authorities declare that pot is not bad for you and should be freely sold. Should the USA go along with that?
All of which is still totally fucking irrelevant in that whether Europeans eat food or shit it is going to have close to no effect in Africa. America wants to sell their stuff and this demagoguery is pathetic.
Sorry Shodan, but I’m not satisfied that the FDA has done adequate research here. Not only that, a lot of GM issues are really EPA issues–the greatest fears of harm are to biodiversity and the ecosystem, not to our stomachs. If I can find it on the web I’ll post an article I read recently evidence for how these experimental crops are just not being properly sealed off (if that’s even possible to do in the great outdoors). I assume you know about GM corn showing up in the far reaches of Mexico? And now there are concerned about genetically modified fish who grow and eat faster than the regular variety and, if they end up in the wild, could be harmful to other sea life.
Isn’t most world hunger caused by wars and politics rather than by technology? That is, would the introduction of higher-yielding crops do much to reduce famine in places like central Africa?
Patent law prevents the propagation of GMOs without paying license fees. Most poor farmers save seed from this year’s crop to plant next year, but it wouldn’t be legal to do this with GMOs. Someone would have to buy the seed every year - who would pony up the extra money to do this? Would it be done by foreign aid by wealthier nations?
How would the patent protections be enforced? It seems likely that poor people would break the law and re-plant seed from GMOs if it served their interests. Would there be a program of farm inspections to ensure that patented GMOs were not being illegally propagated? Who would run the program, and what remedy would be used if illegal crops were found? Would the manufacturer sue the farmer? Would the crops be destroyed? Would future aid be withheld?
It seems questionable to me that GMOs could solve the problem of hunger in poor countries. I just don’t think it would work, politically or economically. I think Bush and his advisers know this too, and that his statement is pure cant. They want the Europeans to drop their opposition to GMOs not because it would help solve world hunger, but because it would help companies like Monsanto make money selling to the Europeans.
This issue really has little to do with the potential health concerns of GM foods and everything to do with the fact that Mugabe is a thug who tried to use the health concerns as a smokescreen for starving his political opponents. Remember approx. a year ago when famine (which was a combo of a drought and the resettlement policy) was hitting Zimbabwe pretty badly? We wanted to donate a large amount of grain to help relieve the famine, but Mugabe was refusing to accept it as it was genetically modified. He claimed that if people planted the grain instead of eating it (sure, they’re going to plant grain in the middle of a drought while starving) that GM crops might spring up and, due to Europe’s strict policies on importing GM crops, Zimbabwe would not be able to export crops any longer. The real reason Mugabe refused is that he had control over food supplies in Zimbabwe and was starving political opponents while rewarding his cronies with food- giving GM grain to UN agencies as opposed to ones run by Mugabe’s lackeys would end that. This Washington Post article details how a compromise was struck that allowed the GM food to go to Zimbabweans- note that:
I suspect this is a substantial part of the problem.
No matter how much testing is done (by the FDA and the UN), those who aren’t interested will simply dismiss it.
Unless it can be guaranteed that no aspect of any GMO will ever have the slightest negative effect on anyone anywhere at any time for any reason under any circumstances - in other words, unless you can prove the negative - the modern Luddites will dismiss it as too risky.
It is part of the unfortunate human tendency to prefer known and familiar risks, even if they are greater, over unfamiliar ones. Which is why some people are afraid to fly but not to drive, or the woman I had an argument over the risks of Alar some years back, which she delivered with great vehemence in between puffs on her cigarette.
In the case of the Europeans, the motivation is simple protectionism. The US enjoys a substantial lead in agricultural technologies, and GMO foods are likely to be produced in forms that are cheaper, safer, and more competitive than the often outmoded and heavily subsidized European varieties. It is very much in the EU’s interest to hype the alleged risks of GMO foods, in order to avoid competition for the African and Asian markets. If they can convince the Africans not to accept GMO foods even as a gift, they close off that market to the Americans and keep it open for themselves.
Of course, it means that the African peasants starve, but the African leaders who are so horrified at the prospect of GMO don’t always have the same level of concern over starvation.
Shodan, you are ignoring many things. I have asked it before: why would you expect the EU to accept what the FDA says? Why not the other way around?
To say it is a pure protectionist measure ignores the fact that there is widespread public opposition in Europe. I may disagree with them but the fact is it is there. Americans would not stand for another country telling them what the FDA should do. Why should Europeans?
And the idea that starving Africans will reject GM foods because Europeans do it is just plain silly. plain silly. A dying man rejecting food because it may be bad for him? let’s get real.
The African nations (Zambia and Zimbabwe) aren’t rejecting GMOs because of health reasons, they’re (supposedly) rejecting them because they think that if someone planted the grains they would dominate and eliminate the non-GMO crops, and therefore ruin their economy as they would no longer be able to export crops to Europe due to their anti-GMO importing stance. “A dying man rejecting food because it may be bad for him” may sound silly, but in essence that is what’s happening.
Actually, they’re affraid that a lot of farmers will use the cereals as seeds (which will certainly happens, as long as they aren’t “sterilized”) and that thereafter the local production won’t be GMO-free hence they won’t be able to sell their production in Europe anymore. And selling farm products to Europe is vital for some african countries.
Untrue. As already pointed out, european people don’t want to buy GMO products or to find them on the shelves. That’s the main reason. And by the way, there’s a lobbying here by the agro and biotech industries, because they would want GMO products to be allowed. They think they’re going to 1) loose a lot of money 2)lag technologically as long as these products are forbidden.
If I recall, the food was rejected to avoid “crop contamination”. Not sure how corn meal can germinate but I’m not a farmer.
Sam Kinison said it best. If you want to stop the famine in Ethiopia, stop sending them food. Send them U hauls. They live in a desert. A 1000 years from now it will still be a desert.
So then what’s the harm in allowing them to be sold, properly labeled?
I’m not saying that EU isn’t bad or irrational in this. I’m saying that Bush has 0 credibility to be trying to put a moral spin on this. If we gave a damn about African farmers, he’d be calling for an end to subsidies period, not just particular export subsidies that oh-so-coincidentally happen to stand in the way of American interests.
I just don’t get this idea that the only way to end famine in Africa is for Africans to buy American seeds and sell the product to Europe. If the products are so damn healthy and tasty why doesn’t America buy them? Why don’t the Africans eat them themselves? Why is it that it only works if Europe buys them?
Europe needs to buy stuff they don’t need or want just so Africans can have jobs? Why donýt Africans produce things the EU actually wants? I guess this would not work because the USA gets nothing.
This is truly pathetic demagoguery. Eat your bread. Don’t you know there are children starving in Africa?
You might find this article, “How Much of Our Food is Bioengineered” in today’s Slate interesting. Here’s just one paragraph:
Of course, this applies to the U.S., but I haven’t seen any tales of adverse effects that can be directly attributed to this practice.
This is slightly off topic, but: I have been reading sad descriptive stories about the dead and dying starving children in Africa. The parents, however, especially the fathers, are well-fed. It seems in some of these cultures the practice is for the men to eat first, then what’s left goes to the women and children to compete for. In one sense I suppose this makes some Darwinian sense in that the least fit (and aggressive) children die first and do not reproduce, but I find it difficult to go to great measures to send food to people who have this value system.
Firstly, about Frankenfood. As to eating the stuff, we monkeys are past masters of the omnivorous arts. If it ever was alive, its food. So I think its very unlikely that these foods represent some kind of consumption risk. But why take any risk at all?
We have been manipulating genes for a very long time, we just used the slowest possible method for turning wild grasses into bread-stuff. I regard the genetic manipulation of foodstuffs as inevitable, even laudable. The trouble with this form of manipulation is that its all bass-ackwards. The corn is bred to be more tolerant of chemical interference! All that human intelligence and ingenuity focused on moving our food propuction further from the organic. Awesomely shortsighted. Astonishing.
Considering the wild proliferation of life, it is most unlikely that these mutants will have some terrible impact on the biosphere. But why take the risk at all.
I imagine the Africans fear is along the lines of “Well,this stuff grows really great with Roundup. How well does it grow if you can’t afford Roundup?” As far as they’re concerned, the risk of contamination may be small, but the downside huge, and the benefits negligible.
If we really want to help the Africans, we can set those Monsanto and ADM scientists to creating a hardy breed of corn (or wheat or rice or manioc) that is as durable and tenacious as, say, marijuana. One that requires zip in the way of chemical enhancements, or fertilizers. One of my better ideas. Bound to go over big in the boardrooms of AgricCo. We could do it, though. If we really wantedto. God, how I wish we really wanted to.
Main point: creating forms of grain that are even imore* dependent on chemical support is really dumb.
Firstly, about Frankenfood. As to eating the stuff, we monkeys are past masters of the omnivorous arts. If it ever was alive, its food. So I think its very unlikely that these foods represent some kind of consumption risk. But why take any risk at all?
We have been manipulating genes for a very long time, we just used the slowest possible method for turning wild grasses into bread-stuff. I regard the genetic manipulation of foodstuffs as inevitable, even laudable. The trouble with this form of manipulation is that its all bass-ackwards. The corn is bred to be more tolerant of chemical interference! All that human intelligence and ingenuity focused on moving our food propuction further from the organic. Awesomely shortsighted. Astonishing.
Considering the wild proliferation of life, it is most unlikely that these mutants will have some terrible impact on the biosphere. But why take the risk at all.
I imagine the Africans fear is along the lines of “Well,this stuff grows really great with Roundup. How well does it grow if you can’t afford Roundup?” As far as they’re concerned, the risk of contamination may be small, but the downside huge, and the benefits negligible.
If we really want to help the Africans, we can set those Monsanto and ADM scientists to creating a hardy breed of corn (or wheat or rice or manioc) that is as durable and tenacious as, say, marijuana. One that requires zip in the way of chemical enhancements, or fertilizers. One of my better ideas. Bound to go over big in the boardrooms of AgricCo. We could do it, though. If we really wantedto. God, how I wish we really wanted to.
Main point: creating forms of grain that are even imore dependent on chemical support is really dumb.