Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
• Damage to DNA
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• Disruption of cellular function
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• Asbestos-like disease
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• Neurological problems like seizures
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• Organ damage, including lesions on the liver and kidneys
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• Destruction of beneficial bacteria in wastewater treatment systems
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• Stunted root growth in corn, soybeans, carrots, cucumbers, and cabbage
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• Gill damage and respiratory problems in fish
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Regulators seem to acknowledge the unique properties that nanoparticles exhibit; still, they have de-
murred from confronting head-on the danger that nanotechnology poses. Neither the Food and Drug Ad-
ministration (FDA) nor the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has stepped up to the plate. We are
essentially asked to trust a company's own assessment of its product safety, a dangerous prospect.
Unfortunately, this lack of regulatory vigilance by our regulatory agencies is now business as usual,
contrary to how new technologies should be introduced into the environment. When a new technology has
the potential to harm public health or ecological systems, the burden of proof that it is
not
harmful should
be established before it is released in the environment. This prudent course of action, however, is not taken
in the United States, where companies put pressure on Congress and the executive branch to prevent the
regulatory agencies from following a precautionary path. This is especially true in the area of food, as we
have seen with nanotechnology and bioengineering. Next on the agenda is bowing to the pressure of the
biotech industry to allow another reckless experiment—genetically engineering animals.
Recently, the FDA moved forward to do the bidding of the economic interests dead set on commercial-
izing genetically engineered (GE) animals for food, beginning with GE salmon. The agency had hoped to
slip this one by the public, but public outcry has been so great that as this topic goes to press GE salmon
has not been legalized.
The biotech industry has a lot riding on the frankenfish. It also has enormous power to influence the
political process in Congress and the regulatory agencies through political appointees. Between 1999 and
2010, the biotech industry spent $572 million in campaign contributions and lobbying expenditures, ac-
cording to an analysis by Food & Water Watch. A bevy of well-connected lobbying shops is busily pro-
moting GE food and products.
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The industry is foaming at the mouth to commercialize a whole zoo of genetically engineered animals,
with Enviropig—designed for factory farms—right around the corner. But for now the focus is on GE sal-
mon. Public opinion is squarely against legalizing this fish, yet consumer and environmental advocates
fear the FDA will approve the GE salmon for human consumption because of the influence pedaling.
AquaBounty, a Canadian company, is a proxy for the rest of the biotech-industrialized food machine
that wants this technology to move forward. The company intends to sell the eggs of the genetically en-
gineered fish to aquaculture facilities. Created by inserting the genes of an ocean pout into the genes of
a salmon, the fish gets to market size in half the time. At this point it is unclear if the GE salmon could
live up to the rapid-growth hype in large-scale commercial production (many other GE products that were
promoted as having dramatically increased crop yields have failed to live up to these claims when used on
farms
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). What is clear is that GE salmon poses risks to the environment and consumers that are not being
given serious consideration by the FDA.
One of the most outrageous aspects of the GE animal fiasco is that the FDA has no regulatory process
for legalizing GE animals. The process the agency is using for GE salmon was actually designed for veter-
inary drugs, which guarantees a high level of secrecy during the process because company data and re-
search are considered trade secrets. The FDA used the Veterinary Medicine Advisory Committee (VMAC),
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