Safe Food_ Bacteria, Biotechnology, and Bioterrorism - Marion Nestle [126]
The food biotechnology industry welcomed these 1992 “efforts by the White House to provide . . . as much regulatory relief as possible,” and viewed the policy as “a very strong incentive for investment in the agricultural/food biotechnology area.”40 One investment analyst summarized the FDA’s announcement as an “assurance that after all a company’s planning for a picnic, the government won’t rain on it.”41 Consumer groups, however, criticized the policy as inadequate to protect public safety and threatened mail campaigns and legal challenges. A 1999 lawsuit, for example, obtained 44,000 pages of documents related to the FDA policy. The documents revealed that some FDA scientists had been concerned about the lack of data on safety risks and thought the policy too favorable to the industry. Overall, the (ultimately unsuccessful) lawsuit concluded, “There is more than enough evidence to convince a reasonable man or woman that current FDA policy is unscientific, unwise, irresponsible, and illegal.”42 Other critics attacked the idea of substantial equivalence as a basis for policy. “Substantial equivalence,” they said, “is a pseudoscientific concept because it is a commercial and political judgment masquerading as if it were scientific. It is, moreover, inherently antiscientific because it was created primarily to provide an excuse for not requiring biochemical or toxicological tests. It therefore serves to discourage and inhibit potentially informative scientific research.”43
In the meantime, critics seized on the lack of labeling as a cause for action. Celebrity chefs in New York City called for a boycott of genetically engineered foods. The chef leading the boycott, Rick Moonen (then at Oceana, New York City), explained to the press: “As a chef, I am responsible for every plate of food in my restaurant. . . . The consumers put their dietetic, religious and allergic confidences in my hands, and with no requirements for safety testing, I am not permitted to fulfill my obligations. But what is most disturbing to me is the idea of selling the food without a label.”44
Some commentators understood that the no-labeling policy of “least regulatory resistance” would increase public suspicion of genetically engineered foods, especially since press accounts had begun referring to them as Frankenfoods, and cartoonists were taking full advantage of this satirical opportunity. Figure 21 gives one such example. To allay public fears, a federal study recommended a formal review of the entire federal regulatory framework for food biotechnology in order to establish a more equitable balance between promotion of the industry and protection of the public, but no such review took place. The FDA went forward with the policy and by the end of 1995 had approved the marketing of tomatoes genetically engineered to reach optimal ripening after they were picked; squash resistant to viruses; potatoes and corn resistant to insects; and cotton, corn, and soybeans resistant to herbicides. By mid-2001, the FDA had accomplished 52 consultations on these and other genetically modified food plants, meaning that they could now be marketed.45 The first of these consultations began in 1991 and concluded in 1994. Because it established the precedent for approval of subsequent foods, we now examine the politics of Calgene’s delayed ripening tomato, the “Flavr Savr,” and the fate of transgenic tomatoes in the United States and Great Britain.
FIGURE 21. The FDA’s relaxed regulatory stance on genetically modified foods elicited this response from New Yorker cartoonist Donald Reilly. (© The New Yorker Collection 1992 Donald Reilly from cartoonbank.com. All rights reserved.)
The Politics of Transgenic Tomatoes, Labeled
To biotechnology companies looking for commercially viable projects, tomatoes are a good investment. Americans expect tomatoes to be readily available,