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By Root 1316 0

to be perceived by many consumers as a warning label that the product is unsafe, and therefore could be misleading and, consequently, inappropriate as a mandatory international guideline. Foods derived from biotechnology are not inherently less safe than other foods.”45 Such arguments, along with the other concerns discussed here, convince critics that the goal of the food biotechnology industry is to control the world’s food supply for private profit, and that neither the industry nor governing bodies can be trusted to make decisions in the public interest—whether or not the products are safe.

THE POLITICS OF ANTIBIOTECHNOLOGY ADVOCACY

We have seen that objections to genetically engineered foods focus as much on issues of distrust as they do on matters of safety, and are likely to continue to do so unless the industry ceases acting in ways that engender suspicion. Public protests against transgenic foods occurred more swiftly and dramatically in Europe, especially in Great Britain, than in the United States, not least because the British were better informed about the issues. At the peak of the “GM crisis” early in 1999, the seven largest daily newspapers in Great Britain ran hundreds of articles on the subject, nearly all of them negative. Many of the articles focused on the extent to which the Clinton administration pressured the British government to accept American transgenic crops and collaborated in efforts to get those crops approved by the European Union.46

Antibiotechnology advocacy—international and domestic—is a constant source of worry to the industry. Such advocacy forms part of a larger trend in organized opposition to other aspects of globalization. During the 1990s, the number of international nongovernmental organizations increased from 6,000 to 26,000, and thousands of such groups exist in the United States alone. These groups are increasingly effective at the corporate, national, and international levels, and business analysts consider them especially difficult to manage because of their skill at using the Internet—an uncontrollable venue—to mobilize support. Yet another irony is the complaint of industry leaders that groups opposed to food biotechnology are so well funded. They point to Greenpeace, for example, which attracts a worldwide income of more than $100 million annually. This amount may seem large, but it is minuscule in comparison to the annual income of the large biotechnology corporations whose officials make that complaint.47

Advocacy has been slower to develop in the United States than in Europe, perhaps because Americans generally are less politically active, but also because they tend to have more positive attitudes toward technology, greater trust in regulatory agencies, and less immediate contact with agriculture. Nevertheless, opposition to food biotechnology exists in this country and appears to be growing. Advocacy groups include environmental organizations (such as Environmental Defense, the Union of Concerned Scientists, and the Sierra Club) but also an extraordinary variety of less familiar organizations such as the International Center for Technology Assessment, the Foundation for Deep Ecology, the International Forum on Globalization, and the Rainforest Action Network. Countless local groups like NW Rage (Northwest Resistance against Genetic Engineering) educate members “to resist the intrusion of genetic engineering . . . into our lives.”48 Coalition groups like Genetically Engineered Food Alert demand that food companies refuse to use genetically modified ingredients. Most organizing occurs through dozens of antibiotechnology Internet Web sites and electronic mail services that keep subscribers well informed about the daily actions of companies, government regulators, and critics.49 Biotechnology companies appear helpless in the face of such tactics and make little attempt to counter them beyond statements on their own Web sites and in the public relations campaigns of the Council for Biotechnology Information (figures 12, 14, and 17).

Away from the Internet, action