GM Industry Turns on it's Latest Critics

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The Independent (UK)
July 15 1999

GM Industry Turns on it's Latest Critics

THE US biotechnology industry struck back yesterday against "celebrity"
critics, including the Prince of Wales and Hollywood stars, for their
vocal opposition to genetically modified crops and other advances, saying
that they "just don't know enough about the issues they use their star
power to highlight".

Speaking in Washington, Carl Feldbaum, president of the Biotechnology
Industry Organisation, which lobbies on behalf of almost 1,000 companies
and research centres worldwide, defended the industry's record, especially
in medical research, and said that it was inconsistent to embrace the
medical benefits while denouncing parallel developments in agriculture.

Mr Feldbaum insisted that the industry was phlegmatic about measures
announced this week by the US Agriculture Secretary, Dan Glickman, to
monitor the safety of GM crops because he was confident that the products
were safe. Mr Glickman had announced his intention to launch an
independent scientific review of official procedures for approving
biotechnlogy products and set up a series of regional projects for the
long-term monitoring of GM crop developments.

The measures, which included a pledge to consider European demands for
labelling of food made with GM crops, were seen as the first US
concessions to European worries about genetic modification of food and an
indication that European consumer fears were spreading to the US.

Announcing the additional precautions on Tuesday, Mr Glickman had hedged
his remarks with multiple expressions of confidence in the safety of GM
techniques, but also mentioned for the first time the need to "stay on top
of any unforseen adverse effects after initial market approval", the first
nod by the administration to the possibility that the scientific evidence
might be incomplete.

That a powerful lobby group like the Biotechnology Industry Organisation
should have chosen to speak out so soon after Mr Glickman's announcement
indicated that the unresolved trans-Atlantic dispute over GM products is
in danger of flaring up in the US, pitting powerful corporate interests
not just against consumer worries, but potentially also against farmers.
US agriculture, already demanding government subsidies to help offset
depressed crop prices, sees the world market for their produce shrinking
as a result of the European ban on GM imports, and fears that it could
shrink still further.

Alluding to their dilemma this week, Mr Glickman warned the biotechnology
companies: "What we cannot do is take consumers for granted ... a sort of
if-you-grow-it-they-will-come mentality." The risk was that fearful
consumers would not come, and that farmers would be left with unsaleable
crops.

According to the US agriculture department, 44 per cent of soybeans and 36
per cent of maize in the US are grown from GM seed, only a few varieties
of which have been cleared for sale in Europe.

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