Safe Food_ Bacteria, Biotechnology, and Bioterrorism - Marion Nestle [132]
CHAPTER 8
THE POLITICS OF CONSUMER CONCERN
DISTRUST, DREAD, AND OUTRAGE
WE HAVE SEEN HOW SCIENTISTS AND FOOD BIOTECHNOLOGY COMpanies promote transgenic projects by focusing on technical achievements, safety, and visions of improving the world’s food supply, as expressed by the often repeated phrase “biotechnology—and only biotechnology—can help the world produce the food necessary to meet the population needs of the 21st century.” This statement, however, immediately raises credibility issues. Can biotechnology really solve world food problems? What is the industry doing now to address such problems? Are there other methods—perhaps less technical—for solving them?
Food biotechnology first developed bovine growth hormone, Bt corn, and Roundup Ready soybeans, all possessing agronomic traits designed to help food producers. The industry also worked on processing traits, such as insertion of the reversed gene for ripening into tomatoes. More recently, the industry began developing foods with quality attributes (such as nutrient content) that might benefit consumers directly. Until such foods become available, the public has little to gain from genetically modified foods—in price, nutritional benefit, or convenience. Evidence for benefits to the environment or to people in developing countries is also uncertain. In this situation, any risk—no matter how remote—seems pointless, especially when food biotechnology raises so many other issues of concern.
This chapter examines the politics of consumer concerns about genetically modified foods, particularly as focused on issues that extend beyond safety and most inspire distrust: labeling, “biopiracy,” genetic “pollution,” and globalization. These are “outrage” issues. They emerged in response to the industry’s conduct of business in its own interests and the government’s collusion in promoting those interests. They are connected to “dread” issues of human and environmental safety, but in complicated ways. When people object to food biotechnology by focusing on safety issues, they often do so because they have no other choice. Scientists, federal regulators, and biotechnology companies dismiss outrage considerations out of hand and only permit debate about safety issues. Safety is, as we have seen, a matter of interpretation, highly political, and difficult to separate from the “who decides” factors listed in table 2 (page 17).
In part, the passion that underlies arguments about the safety of genetically modified foods derives from the lack of opportunity to debate their politics and their implications for society. What, for example, does it mean for us as a democratic society that more than half the foods on supermarket shelves contain genetically modified ingredients, but their presence is not labeled? Perhaps it makes no difference whatsoever, but without a formal venue for discussing such questions, people concerned about democratic values will focus on safety questions and use them to generate outrage. This chapter examines the societal issues that underlie public distrust and the reasons why they need to be included in dialogue, if not consensus, about the future of food biotechnology.
THE POLITICS OF DISTRUST
We have seen that the narrowing of debate about food biotechnology to questions of safety has produced two unanticipated effects. The first is to induce outrage. When scientists and companies say, as they often do, “All we have to do to gain public support for food biotechnology is to educate the public that our products are safe,” they frustrate anyone who cares about democracy in decision making. Such statements miss a key point: other issues also matter. A second effect, ironically, is to force the debate to focus on a greater range of safety issues, none of them easily resolved. Advocates say: You refuse to hear my concerns about the effects of food biotechnology