Congressional Record, Volume 146 Issue 3 (Wednesday, January 26, 2000)

[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 3 (Wednesday, January 26, 2000)]
[Senate]
[Pages S58-S63]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

THE BENEFITS AND POLITICS OF BIOTECHNOLOGY

Mr. BOND. Madam President, as we move into this next century, we face
a great opportunity and great challenge. We need only to look backward
to help contemplate the immense change and innovation that is in front
of us. While positive change is to the long-term benefit of all, it
typically results in short-term difficulties, anxiety, and fear for
some. How we cope with those difficulties defines our vision and tests
our courage. In the last century we saw the industrial age and the
computer age. We experienced fits of fear regarding everything from
aviation, penicillin, industrialization, computerization and most
recently, the non-calamity, fortunately, known as Y2K.
Remarkably, plant technology in this half-century has helped make it
possible for the U.S. farmer, who in 1940 fed 19 people, to fee 129
today.
Meanwhile, worldwide population grows and farmland shrinks,
Policymakers, farmers, doctors, business leaders, scientists, and
others look ahead and search for critical tools to meet the increasing
demands of a growing and changing world.
Nobel prizewinning chemist Robert F. Curl of Rice University said
that ``it is clear that the 21st will be the century of biology.''
Scientists, medical doctors, Government officials, farmers, and
others have testified before the Congress and elsewhere to the benefits
of this new generation of technology, which may offer the sustainable
production of safer amd more abundant food sources, new vaccines and
medicines, as well as biodegradable plastics and cleaner energy
alternatives.
Senator Mack hosted a hearing of the Joint Economic Committee in
September entitled ``Putting a Human Face on Biotechnology'' where Tour
de France winner Lance Armstrong testified about his personal
experience using biotechnology and will to overcome cancer. Senators
Lugar and Harkin held 2 days of hearings in October with a diverse
number of distinguished witnesses to discuss the science and regulation
of biotechnology.
Bipartisan members including Senators Kerry, Durbin, Hagel, Craig,
Frist, Conrad, Lugar, Gorton, Grassley, Ashcroft, Robb, Burns, Grams,
Gordon Smith, Baucus, Helms, Hutchison, Roberts, Bayh, Brownback,
Crapo, and Coverdell have joined me in expressing to the President our
bipartisan commitment to biotechnology.
We urge the administration and the State Department to be firm in
their negotiations in Montreal, to say that the phyto sanitary
agreements are adequate in all we need to regulate biotechnology.
As chairman of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee which funds
public research activities at the National Science Foundation, I have
worked with my partner, Senator Mikulski, to win congressional approval
of $150 million in the last 3 years for the Plant Genome Initiative at
the National Science Foundation to study the structure, organization,
and function of genomes of significant plants important to improving
human health and the environment.
Recently, I received a letter signed by over 500 scientists revealing
the exceptionally strong scientific consensus endorsing biotechnology.
These are public- and private-sector scientists, the majority of whom
are from academic institutions representing nearly every State, a
number of foreign countries, the National Academy of Sciences, private
foundations, Federal research agencies, and our National Labs. Here is
some of what they told me about biotechnology:

The ultimate beneficiaries of technological innovation have
always been consumers, both in the United States and abroad.
In developing countries, biotechnological advances will
provide means to overcome vitamin deficiencies, to supply
vaccines for killer diseases like cholera and malaria, to
increase production and protect fragile natural resources,
and to grow crops under normally unfavorable conditions.

They continued:

We recognize that no technology is without risks. At the
same time, we have confidence in the current U.S. regulatory
system provided by the USDA, EPA, and FDA. The U.S. system
has worked well and continues to evolve as scientific
advancements are achieved.

They strongly endorse the U.S. regulatory multiagency approval
system, which they say works well.
The American Medical Association is supportive also. In policy H-
480.985, ``Biotechnology and the American Agricultural Industry'' they
say the following:

It is the policy of the AMA to (1) endorse or implement
programs that will convince the public and government
officials that genetic manipulation is not inherently
hazardous and that the health and economic benefits of
recombinant DNA technology greatly exceed any risk posed to
society; (2) where necessary, urge Congress and federal
regulatory agencies to develop appropriate guidelines which
will not impede the progress of agricultural biotechnology,
yet will ensure that adequate safety precautions are
enforced; (3) encourage and assist state medical societies to
coordinate programs which will educate physicians in
recombinant DNA technology as it applies to public health,
such that the physician may respond to patient query and
concern; (4) encourage physicians, through their state
medical societies, to be public spokespersons for those
agricultural biotechnologies that will benefit public health;
and (5) actively participate in the development of national
programs to educate the public about the benefits of
agricultural biotechnology.

Remarkably, however, we find ourselves at a crossroads as a strange
mixture of forces endeavor not to ensure that biotechnology is safe--
which is and should be our collective purpose--but to discredit and
eliminate biotechnology. Opposition has been motivated variously by
protectionist sentiment, by political intimidation, by competing
business, and by scientifically unsubstantiated fear of technology.
Activists and protectionists in Europe have conspired with a level of
success that is stunning. Their goal is to stroke fear and use
intimidation to frustrate and undermine biotechnology.
Just this week, it was reported by the Detroit News that:

A visiting Michigan State University associate professor
whose office was the target of a fire set by radical
environmentalists on New Year's Eve said Sunday that she
heads a project aimed at increasing food production and
making food more nutritious.

The purpose of her work was to ensure that we use agricultural
knowledge and tools to address those problems.
Catherine Ives, director of the Agricultural Biotechnology for
Sustainable Productivity, which is based at Michigan State University,
said, ``The whole point of the project is to make land more productive
so we don't have to damage the environment.'' The paper reported, ``The
goal of the project is to develop long-term solutions for food security
in the developing world, where undernourishment is an epidemic.'' ``We
know that there are 840 million people in the world who don't have
enough to eat,'' Ives said. ``The use of agricultural knowledge and
tools will help in addressing that problem.''
Dr. Martina McGlaughlin, Director of Biotechnology at the University
of California at Davis, in a November 1, 1999, column in the Los
Angeles Times reinforced the dilemma of population growth coupled with
the finite quantity of arable land:

[[Page S59]]

[u]nless we will accept starvation or placing parks and the
Amazon Basin under the plow, there really is no alternative
to applying biotechnology to agriculture.

Dr. McGlaughlin continued:

The most cost-effective and environmentally sound general
method for controlling pests and disease is the use of DNA.
This approach has led to a reduction in the use of sprayed
chemical insecticides. According to the National Agricultural
Statistics Service, 2 million fewer pounds of insecticide
were used in 1998 to control bollworm than were used in 1995,
before ``Bt'' cotton was introduced. And the Bt gene--
introduced into the crop plant, not sprayed into the
atmosphere--is present in minute amounts and spares
beneficial insects.

She concluded:

Millions of people have eaten the products of genetic
engineering and no adverse effects have been demonstrated.
The proper balance of safety testing between companies and
the government is a legitimate area for further debate. So
are environmental safeguards. But the purpose of such debate
should be to improve biotech research and enhance its
benefits to society, not stop it in its tracks.

It should be mentioned that her students at Cal Davis were also
victimized by law-breakers who vandalized their research testing plots.
Clearly, if the radicals were as interested in understanding as they
are in intimidation, eliminating research is the last thing they would
consider.
In an Op-Ed in the New York Times entitled ``Who's Afraid of Genetic
Engineers?'' former President Jimmy Carter outlined the sad irony. He
said:

Imagine a country placing such rigid restrictions on
imports that people would not get vaccines and insulin. And
imagine those same restrictions being placed on food products
as well as on laundry detergent and paper. As far-fetched as
it sounds, many developing countries and some industrialized
on may do just that.

He concluded:

If imports . . . are regulated unnecessarily, the real
losers will be the developing nations. Instead of reaping the
benefits of decades of discovery and research, people from
Africa and Southeast Asia will remain prisoners of outdated
technology. Their countries could suffer greatly for years to
come. It is crucial that they reject the propaganda of
extremists groups before it is too late.

Renowned scientists have dedicated their lives to understanding
biotechnology and using it to the benefit of mankind to solve problems
of hunger, disease and environmental degradation.
These problems are considerable now, but will grow in magnitudes in
the years ahead. In the tabloid press, however, a teenager dressed up
as a corn cob will get as much attention and is attributed the same
credibility as leading scientists, whose work is subjected to rigorous
peer review.
We need to be clear about several issues. First, our Government and
its citizens are second to none in our collective commitment to food
safety. We have a rigorous multi-agency approval process that has stood
the test of time since 1938. It is based not on politics but on
scientific consensus. It is supported by bipartisan Members of each
body who have the strongest commitment to food safety and environmental
protection. None of us are advocates for unfettered technology. As with
any technology, there are limits that will be and must be subjected to
law, not to mention common sense.
Second, we need to realize that there are strong elements in the
European Union who are more than happy to exploit fears--fears that
they helped create--to provide short-term protection to their farmers
from imports. In a sentence, fear and hysteria, without scientific
basis, is being used by some to limit the productivity of foreign
farmers--period. Meanwhile, opportunistic food companies such as ADM
and Novartis are knowingly undermining our scientists and trade
negotiators to placate the Luddites and protectionists.
Finally, let me emphasize this critical point. The issue of risk is
not one-dimensional. Yes, we must understand and evaluate the relative
risk to a Monarch Butterfly larvae. Additional research has answered
already many of those questions. But there is another risk. That risk
is that naysayers and the protectionists succeed in their goals to kill
biotechnology and condemn the world's children to unnecessary
blindness, malnutrition, sickness and environmental degradation.
Dr. C.S. Prakash directs the Center for Plant Biotechnology Research
at Tuskegee University in Tuskegee, Ala, said the following in a column
for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

Dr. Prakash just released a petition signed by more than 600
scientists declaring support of agricultural biotechnology. In his
press release he noted, ``We in the scientific community felt it
necessary to counteract the baseless attacks so often being made on
biotechnology and genetically modified foods. Biotechnology is a potent
and valuable tool that can help make foods more productive and
nutritious. And, contrary to anti-biotech activists, they can even
advance environmental goals such as biodiversity.''
Not content to live with their own brand of ludditism, European
activists have shifted the battleground and they are now looking to
export--not answers or solutions or constructive proposals--but fear,
hysteria and unworkable restrictions to Asia, South America and even
the United States. Many have stayed out of this debate thinking the
controversy will blow over as it does with most regulated technologies.
Many, particularly those who understand the science of the issue, had
been silent, thinking, possibly that people would understand and that
the technology would sell itself.
I have said from the beginning that we could not take it for granted
that people would embrace the technology because it is complex. I have
said from the beginning that American consumers would want information.
Consumers who know the facts--who know the benefits this technology
will provide--will endorse it. American consumers demand food safety,
but they also embrace technology and progress. They are not satisfied
to say what we are doing is good enough. And finally, they want to base
their decisions on science not fiction and it is the open discussion of
facts that the vandals, the protectionists, and the luddites fear the
most.
President Clinton outlined what is at stake last week in proclaiming
January 2000 as National Biotechnology Month:

Today, a third of all new medicines in development are
based on biotechnology. Designed to attack the underlying
cause of an illness, not just its symptoms, these medicines
have tremendous potential to provide not only more effective
treatments, but also cures. With improved understanding of
cellular and genetic processes, scientists have opened
exciting new avenues of research into treatments for
devastating diseases--like Parkinson's and Alzheimer's,
diabetes, heart disease, AIDS, and cancer--that affect
millions of Americans. Biotechnology has also given us
several new vaccines, including one for rotavirus, now being
tested clinically, that could eradicate an illness
responsible for the deaths of more than 800,000 infants and
children each year.
The impact of biotechnology is far-reaching. Bio-
remediation technologies are cleaning our environment by
removing toxic substances from contaminated soils and ground

[[Page S60]]

water. Agricultural biotechnology reduces our dependence on
pesticides. Manufacturing processes based on biotechnology
make it possible to produce paper and chemicals with less
energy, less pollution, and less waste. Forensic technologies
based on our growing knowledge of DNA help us exonerate the
innocent and bring criminals to justice.
A question is whether we want to continue with a fixed number of
agricultural uses or if we want to expand them to provide farmers and
consumers new options and new opportunities. A question for some is
whether we want to be more pro-environment and pro-health and nutrition
than we are anti-corporate.
Like many of my colleagues here in the Senate, I have consulted
scores of scientists in the academic world, in the public sector and in
the private sector. I have consulted medical professionals, and farmers
for their practical experience regarding biotechnology. But let me
finish by reading you a quote from a December 25, 1999, interview in
``New Scientist'' and you consider for yourself who might be the
source:

I believe we are entering an era now where pagan beliefs
and junk science are influencing public policy. GM foods and
forestry are both good examples where policy is being
influenced by arguments that have no basis in fact or logic.

The source is not a corporate leader, a Senator, or a university
scientist. It is an ecologist with a Ph.D.
That ecologist is Patrick Moore, one of the founding members of
Greenpeace and a veteran of the frontline against everything from
whaling to nuclear waste since the 1970s.
The scientific consensus amongst government and academic scientists
in the U.S. is extraordinary. The scientific community in Europe, some
of whom I have met with agree, but have been intimidated and silenced.
Please give the scientific and medical communities the opportunity to
speak to these complex issues before you are swayed by the tabloids in
Europe, those who may have their head burried in the flat earth, and
the vandals and extremists who have been condemned even by some of
their very own.
We have a system in the U.S. to identify and evaluate relative risk,
and, if necessary, mitigate those risks. The focus of international
leaders should be on working constructively to identify and evaluate
relative risk so that our people may have safely the options of
biotechnology available to them. The development of this technology is
not recreational. It is to solve real world problems and the
possibilities are truly breathtaking. There is too much at stake for
those who know better to remain passive.
In 1921, Missouri's renowned plant scientist, George Washington
Carver said: ``I wanted to know the name of every stone and flower and
insect and bird and beast. I wanted to know where it got its color,
where it got its life--but there was no one to tell me.'' He added
that: ``No individual has any right to come into the world and go out
of it without leaving behind him distinct and legitimate reasons for
having passed through it.'' This issue will be a test of our collective
vision, discipline, and courage.
Madam President, I thank the Chair and my colleagues. I ask unanimous
consent to print in the Record materials from President Clinton,
President Carter, Drs. Prakash and McGlaughlin, New Scientist, and the
500 scientists' letter.
There being no objection, the materials were ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:

[From the White House, Office of the Press Secretary, Jan. 20, 2000]

National Biotechnology Month, 2000

(By the President of the United States of America--A Proclamation)

As we stand at the dawn of a new century, we recognize the
enormous potential that biotechnology holds for improving the
quality of life here in the United States and around the
world. These technologies, which draw on our understanding of
the life sciences to develop products and solve problems, are
progressing at an exponential rate and promise to make
unprecedented contributions to public health and safety, a
cleaner environment, and prosperity.
Today, a third of all new medicines in development are
based on biotechnology. Designed to attack the underlying
cause of an illness, not just its symptoms, these medicines
have tremendous potential to provide not only more effective
treatments, but also cures. With improved understanding of
cellular and genetic processes, scientists have opened
exciting new avenues of research into treatment for
devastating diseases--like Parkinson's and Alzheimer's,
diabetes, heart disease, AIDS, and cancer--that affect
millions of Americans. Biotechnology has also given us
several new vaccines, including one for rotavirus, now being
tested clinically, that could eradicate an illness
responsible for the deaths of more than 800,000 infants and
children each year.
The impact of biotechnology is far-reaching. Bioremediation
technologies are cleaning our environment by removing toxic
substances from contaminated soils and ground water.
Agricultural biotechnology reduces our dependence on
pesticides. Manufacturing processes based on biotechnology
make it possible to produce paper and chemical with less
energy, less pollution, and less waste. Forensic technologies
based on our growing knowledge of DNA help us exonerate the
innocent and bring criminals to justice.
The biotechnology industry is also improving lives through
its substantial economic impact. Biotechnology has stimulated
the creation and growth of small businesses, generated new
jobs, and encouraged agricultural and industrial innovation.
The industry currently employs more than 150,000 people and
invests nearly $10 billion a year on research and
development.
Recognizing the extraordinary promise and benefits of this
enterprise, my Administration has pursued policies to foster
biotechnology innovations as expeditiously and prudently as
possible. We have supported steady increases in funding for
basic scientific research at the National Institutes of
Health and other science agencies; accelerated the process
for approving new medicines to make them available as quickly
and safely as possible; encouraged private-sector research
investment and small business development through tax
incentives and the Small Business Innovation Research
program; promoted intellectual property protection and open
international markets for biotechnology inventions and
products; and developed public databases that enable
scientists to coordinate their efforts in an enterprise that
has become one of the world's finest examples of partnership
among university-based researchers, government, and private
industry.
Remarkable as its achievements have been, the biotechnology
enterprise is still in its infancy. We will reap even greater
benefits as long as we sustain the intellectual partnership
and public confidence that have moved biotechnology forward
thus far. We must strengthen our efforts to improve science
education for all Americans and preserve and promote the
freedom of scientific inquiry. We must protect patients from
the misuse or abuse of sensitive medical information and
provide Federal regulatory agencies with sufficient resources
to maintain sound, science-based review and regulation of
biotechnology products. And we must strive to ensure that
science-based regulatory program worldwide promote public
safety, earn public confidence, and guarantee fair and open
international markets.
Now, therefore, I, William J. Clinton, President of the
United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested
in me by the Constitution and laws of the United States, do
hereby proclaim January 2000 as National Biotechnology Month.
I call upon the people of the United States to observe this
month with appropriate programs, ceremonies, and activities.
In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand this
nineteenth day of January, in the year of our Lord two
thousand, and of the Independence of the United States of
America the two hundred and twenty-fourth.
____

[From the New York Times, Aug. 26, 1998]

Who's Afraid of Genetic Engineering?

(By Jimmy Carter)

Imagine a country placing such rigid restrictions on
imports that people could not get vaccines and insulin. And
imagine those same restrictions being placed on food products
as well as on laundry detergent and paper.
As far-fetched as it sounds, many developing countries and
some industrialized ones may do just that early next year.
They are being misled into thinking that genetically modified
organisms, everything from seeds to livestock, and products
made from them are potential threats to the public health and
the environment.
The new import proposals are being drafted under the
auspices of the biodiversity treaty, an agreement signed by
168 nations at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. The
treaty's main goal is to protect plants and animals from
extinction.
In 1996, nations ratifying the treaty asked an ad hoc team
to determine whether genetically modified organisms could
threaten biodiversity. Under pressure from environmentalists,
and with no supporting data, the team decided that any such
organism could potentially eliminate native plants and
animals.
The team, whose members mainly come from environmental
agencies in more than 100 different governments, should
complete its work within six months and present its final
recommendation to all the nations (the United States is not
among them) that ratified the treaty. If approved, these
regulations would be included in a binding international
agreement early next year.
But the team has exceeded its mandate. Instead of limiting
the agreement to genetic modifications that might threaten
biodiversity, the members are also pushing to regulate
shipments of all genetically modified organisms and the
products made from them.

[[Page S61]]

This means that grain, fresh produce, vaccines, medicines,
breakfast cereals, wine, vitamins--the list is endless--would
require written approval by the importing nation before they
could leave the dock. This approval could take months.
Meanwhile, barge costs would mount and vaccines and food
would spoil.
How could regulations intended to protect species and
conserve their genes have gotten so far off track? The main
cause is anti-biotechnology environmental groups that
exaggerate the risks of genetically modified organisms and
ignore their benefits.
Anti-biotechnology activists argue that genetic engineering
is so new that its effects on the environment can't be
predicted. This is misleading. In fact, for hundreds of years
virtually all food has been improved genetically by plant
breeders. Genetically altered antibiotics, vaccines and
vitamins have improved our health, while enzyme-containing
detergents and oil-eating bacteria have helped to protect the
environment.
In the past 40 years, farmers worldwide have genetically
modified crops to be more nutritious as well as resistant to
insects, diseases and herbicides. Scientific techniques
developed in the 1980's and commonly referred to as genetic
engineering allow us to give plants additional useful genes.
Genetically engineered cotton, corn and soybean seeds became
available in the United States in 1996, including those
planted on my family farm. This growing season, more than
one-third of American soybeans and one-fourth of our corn
will be genetically modified. The number of acres devoted to
genetically engineered crops in Argentina, Canada, Mexico and
Australia increased tenfold from 1996 to 1997.
The risks of modern genetic engineering have been studied
by technical experts at the National Academy of Sciences and
World Bank. They concluded that we can predict the
environmental effects by reviewing past experiences with
those plants and animals produced through selective breeding.
None of these products of selective breeding have harmed
either the environment or biodiversity.
And their benefits are legion. By increasing crop yields,
genetically modified organisms reduce the constant need to
clear more land for growing food. Seeds designed to resist
drought and pests are especially useful in tropical
countries, where crop losses are often severe. Already,
scientists in industrialized nations are working with
individuals by developing countries to increase yields of
staple crops, to improve the quality of current exports and
to diversify economies by creating exports like genetically
improved palm oil, which may someday replace gasoline.
Other genetically modified organisms covered by the
proposed regulations are essential research tools in medical,
agricultural and environmental science.
If imports like these are regulated unnecessarily, the real
losers will be the developing nations. Instead of reaping the
benefits of decades of discovery and research, people from
Africa and Southeast Asia will remain prisoners of outdated
technology. Their countries could suffer greatly for years to
come. It is crucial that they reject the propaganda of
extremist groups before it is too late.
____

[From the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Dec. 5, 1999]

Genetic Research: Foes of Biotechnology Ignore Global Hunger

(By C.S. Prakash)

Anti-technology activists accuse corporations of ``playing
God'' by genetically improving crops, but it is these so-
called environmentalists who are really playing God, not with
genes but with the lives of poor and hungry people.
While activist organizations spend hundreds of thousands of
dollars to promote fear through anti-science newspaper ads,
1.3 billion people, who live on less than $1 a day, care only
about finding their next day's meal. Biotechnology is one of
the best hopes for solving their food needs today, when we
have 6 billion people, and certainly in the next 30 to 50
years, when there will be 9 billion on the globe.
Those people, who battle weather, pests and plant disease
to try to raise enough for their families, can benefit
tremendously from biotechnology, and not just from products
created by big corporations. Public-sector institutions are
conducting work on high-yield rice, virus-resistant sweet
potato and more healthful strains of cassava, crops that are
staples in developing countries.
But none of these benefits will be realized if Western-
generated fears about biotechnology halt research funding and
close borders to exported products. Public perception is
being manipulated by fringe groups opposed to progress and
taken advantage of by politicians favoring trade
protectionism.
There is no safety reason for this. Foods produced through
biotechnology are just as safe, if not safer, than
conventionally produced foods because they are rigorously
tested. David Aaron of the U.S. Commerce Department recently
told the Senate Finance Committee that ``13 years of U.S.
experience with biotech products have produced no evidence of
food safety risks; not one rash, not one cough, not one sore
throat, not one headache.''
More recently, a panel of entomology experts has questioned
the only seemingly legitimate environmental issue raised to
date--the alleged threat to Monarch butterflies.
Yet activists continue to look for a new cause, a new evil
in this technology. While these well-fed folks jet around the
world plotting ways to disrupt the technology, they cannot or
will not see the conditions of millions who are at grave risk
of starvation. Activists resist development of longer-lasting
fruits and vegetables, at the expense of Third World people
who have no refrigeration to preserve their foods.
Critics of biotechnology invoke the trite argument that the
shortage of food is caused by unequal distribution. There's
plenty of food, they declare, we just need to distribute it
evenly. That's like saying there is plenty of money in the
world so let's just solve the problem of poverty in Ethiopia
by redistributing the wealth of Switzerland (or maybe the
United Kingdom, where the heir to the throne is particularly
opposed to companies ``playing God'' with biotechnology).
The development of local and regional agriculture is the
key to addressing both hunger and low income. Genetically
improved food is ``scale neutral,'' in that a poor rice
farmer with one acre in Bangladesh can benefit as much as a
large farmer in California. And he doesn't have to learn a
sophisticated new system; he only has to plant a seed. New
rice strains being developed through biotechnology can
increase yields by 30 to 40 percent. Another rice strain has
the potential to prevent blindness in millions of children
whose diets are deficient in Vitamin A.
Edible vaccines, delivered in locally grown crops, could do
more to eliminate disease than the Red Cross, missionaries
and U.N. task forces combined, at a fraction of the cost.
These are some of the benefits that the Church of England
saw when church leaders recently issued a position statement
on ``playing God'' through biotechnology: ``Human discovery
and invention can be thought of as resulting from the
exercise of God-given powers of mind and reason; in this
respect, genetic engineering does not seem very different
from other forms of scientific advance.''
More recently, the Vatican director on bioethics, Bishop
Elio Sgreccia, criticized the ``catastrophic sensationalism
with which the press reports on biotechnology'' and he
rejected the ``idea of conceiving scientific progress as
something that should be feared.''
So, if scientists who are developing biotechnology are not
``playing God'' in the eyes of these religious leaders, what
are we to think of self-appointed guardians who would deny
its benefits to those who need it most? We have the means to
end hunger on this planet and to feed the world's 6 billion--
or even 9 billion--people. For the well-fed to spearhead
fear-based campaigns and suppress research for ideological
and pseudo-science reasons is irresponsible and immoral.
____

[From the Los Angeles Times, Nov. 1, 1999]

(By Martina McGloughlin)

Commentary; Without Biotechnology, We'll Starve; Agriculture: Genetic
Engineering Is Subject to More Safeguards Than Many Unaltered Foods We
Eat

I agree with Greenpeace that we need to feed and clothe the
world's people while minimizing the impact of agriculture on
the environment. But the human population continues to grow,
while arable land is a finite quantity. So unless we will
accept starvation or placing parks and the Amazon Basin under
the plow, there really is no alternative to applying
biotechnology to agriculture.
Today's biotechnology differs significantly from previous
agriculture technologies. Using genetic engineering,
scientists can enhance the nutritional content, vitamins,
minerals, antioxidants, texture, color, flavor, growing
season, yield, disease resistance and other properties of
production crops. Engineered microbes and enzymes produced
using recombinant DNA methods are used in many aspects of
food production. The cheese and bread you eat and the
detergent you use to clean your clothes all have used
engineered enzymes since the early part of this decade.
By reducing dependency on chemicals and tillage through the
development of natural fertilizers and of pest-resistant
plants, biotechnology has the potential to conserve natural
resources, prevent soil erosion and improve environmental
quality. Strains of microorganisms could increase the
efficiency, capacity and variety of waste treatment.
Bioprocessing using engineered microbes offers new ways to
use renewable resources for materials and fuel.
Biotechnology is, in fact, the low-risk alternative to
current practices. Take pest control. The economic and
environmental costs of using existing methods are well known.
But many of us are not aware of the potential costs of not
controlling pests. Not controlling fungal disease in plants,
for example, allows them to generate deadly toxins such as
aflatoxin and fumonisin, which have been found, among other
things, to cause brain tumors in horses and liver cancer in
children.
The most cost-effective and environmentally sound general
method for controlling pests and disease is the use of DNA.
This approach already has led to a reduction in the use of
sprayed chemical insecticides. According to the National
Agricultural Statistics Service, 2 million fewer pounds of
insecticide were used in 1998 to control bollworm

[[Page S62]]

and budworm than were used in 1995, before ``Bt'' cotton was
introduced. And the Bt gene--introduced into the crop plant,
not sprayed into the atmosphere--is present in minute amounts
and spares beneficial insects.
There is no evidence that recombinant DNA techniques or
rDNA-modified organisms pose any unique or unforeseen
environmental or health hazards. In fact, a National Research
Council study found that ``as the molecular methods are more
specific, users of these methods will be more certain about
the traits they introduce into plants.'' Greater certainty
means greater precision and safety. The subtly altered
products on our plates have been put through more thorough
testing than any conventional food ever has been subjected
to. Many of our daily staples would be banned if subjected to
the same rigorous standards. Potatoes and tomatoes contain
toxic glycoalkaloids, which have been linked to spina bifida.
Kidney beans contain phytohaemagglutinin and are poisonous if
undercooked. Dozens of people die each year from cynaogenic
glycosides from peach seeds. Yet none of those are labled as
potentially dangerous.
Million of people have eaten the products of genetic
engineering and no adverse effects have been demonstrated.
The proper balance of safety testing between companies and
the government is a legitimate area for further debate. So
are environmental safeguards. But the purpose of such debate
should be to improve biotech research and enhance its
benefits to society, not stop it in its tracks.
____

[From the New Scientist, Dec. 25, 1999]

Dr Truth

(By Michael Bond)

You come from a family of loggers. How did they take to you
becoming an environmentalist?
My dad was one of our biggest supporters when we started
Greenpeace in the early 1970s. With the US nuclear tests in
Alaska there was a possibility that the hydrogen bombs would
trigger an earthquake that would, in turn, trigger a tsunami.
A very serious one during the Alaska earthquake of 1964
severely affected by father's business. Environmentalism then
did not involve bashing loggers. We were concerned about all-
out nuclear war and it blows my mind sometimes to see the
movement behaving the same way about forestry that it did
about nuclear war. I think they've got their priorities a bit
mixed up.
What were those early days of Greenpeace like?
They were heady--there was huge camaraderie. We used to
sing all the time. We always had a couple of people with a
guitar. We were together for weeks on end on many of those
expeditions into the Pacific and out to Newfoundland. We
always had songs, such as: ``If mankind was created a step
below the angels, the whales I'm sure were somewhere in
between.'' They were wonderful songs. We really had a
wonderful time. We always thought that a revolution should be
a celebration. We tried to avoid the hair-shirt mentality
that tends to creep in with self-righteousness, dogmatism and
that short of thing.
As an ecologist with a PhD in the subject, were you a rare
breed in the organization?
I was somewhat rare and had to live with the fact
throughout my time in Greenpeace that there was a lot of
disrespect for my science. That is why they called me Dr
Truth. It was kind of a put-down.
As Greenpeace became bigger, richer and more famous did its
priorities or principles change?
The best thing is that Greenpeace has remained faithful to
the peaceful civil disobedience theme. In other words, the
``peace'' in Greenpeace is still the main principle. I think
that's excellent. I do think though that they have
diversified into so many issues, many of which are
questionable in terms of priorities and some of which are
just plain wrong-headed. A case in point is GM foods. If they
are really so worried about human health, why don't they
tackle tobacco?
Few scientists become radical environmental activists. What
lit the spark with you?
It was partly my professors. The most important was
Vladimir Krajina, a Czech forest ecologist. I used to think
that science was just about technology. But after studying
with Krajina, the light suddenly went on and I realized that
the mystery of nature could be approached through science and
ecology. The political part came while I was writing my
thesis on pollution control in 1972. A very large copper-
mining project was applying to dump its tailings into the
sea. It was very close to my boyhood home at Winter Harbour
in Vancouver Island, Canada. I chose to study not just the
environmental impact of the tailings disposal, but the system
that granted permits for the process. I soon learned that
this was immune to truth.
Why after 15 years of activism did you start to become
disenchanted with the environmental movement?
Partly it was the fact that foot soldiers often become
diplomats. I don't think anybody should be required to be in
confrontational environmental politics for their whole lives,
especially when they start a family. But it was partly the
movement's refusal to evolve. I'm in favour of civil
disobedience in order to bring about justice where something
really bad is going on such as nuclear testing or toxic
dumping. But I'm a Gandhian through and through--I believe
that peaceful civil disobedience and passive resistance
movements are great shapers of social change. But when
industry and government agree that the environment needs to
be taken into account in policy making, and when there are
ministries and vice-presidents of the environment, it seems
to me it would be a good idea to work with them. When a
majority of people decide to agree with you, it is time to
stop hitting them over the head.
How has the environmental movement got it so wrong?
The environmental movement abandoned science and logic
somewhere in the mid-1980s, just as mainstream society was
adopting all the more reasonable items on the environmental
agenda. This was because many environmentalists couldn't make
the transition from confrontation to consensus, and could not
get out of adversarial politics. This particularly applies to
political activists who were using environmental rhetoric to
cover up agendas that had more to do with class warfare and
anti-corporatism than they did with the actual science of the
environment. To stay in an adversarial role, those people had
to adopt ever more extreme positions because all the
reasonable ones were being accepted.
But hasn't environmentalism always been about opposing the
establishment?
Environmentalism was always anti-establishment, but in the
early days of Greenpeace we did not characterize ourselves as
left wing. That happened after the fall of the Berlin wall
when a whole bunch of left wing activists, who no longer had
any role in the peace, women's or labour movements, joined
us. I would go to the Greenpeace Toronto office and there
would be an awful lot of young people wearing army fatigues
and red berets in there.
Environmentalists recoil with horror when they hear you say
that harvesting trees for paper or fuel benefits plants and
wildlife. What's your evidence?
The environmental movement is essentially anti-forestry.
Young people are being convinced to stop using trees to make
paper and use environmentally appropriate alternative fibres,
such as hemp and cotton. Now where are you going to grow
those exotic farm crops? You are going to grow them where you
have been growing trees for 20 years, where an environment
exists for bugs, birds, squirrels and other wildlife. That
environment will be destroyed if you clear a forest to grow a
farm crop.
Does this mean that even clear-cutting is not as damaging
as we've been led to believe?
Forests are resilient. They can grow back from total
volcanic destruction, ice ages, fires, storms, whatever. You
can take heavy equipment and bulldoze the soil right down to
bedrock over a huge area, and if you go away and come back
100 years later you will have a new forest starting to grow
back. Just logging the trees is not going to irreversibly
destroy the ecosystem. In addition, I believe it is possible
to sustain the biodiversity of a forest while removing large
quantities of timber.
Surely you're not saying that logging has no impact on
biodiversity?
Logging is never going to have zero impact. But its aim
should be to maintain viable populations of all those species
that were on that site to begin with. So you plan your
forestry in such a way to ensure that there is a suitable
habitat for every one of those species somewhere all of the
time. For example, when you clear-cut an area, you are going
to remove a lot of the shrubs, with means that shrub-nesting
birds not do well there for a while. But as long as you have
a place that was logged ten years ago somewhere hereby where
the shrub layer has been able to replace itself, the birds
will not mind if there are no trees.
Green groups ware that logging is threatening some animals
with extinction. Are you telling me they're wrong?
In 1996 the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) announced that
50,000 species are going extinct each year due to human
activity. And the main cause, they said, is commercial
logging. The story was carried around the world, and hundreds
of millions of people cam to believe that forestry is the
main cause of species extinction. During the past three years
I've asked the WWF on many occasions to provide me with a
list of some of the species that have supposedly become
extinct due to logging. They have not offered up a single
example as evidence. In fact, to the best of our scientific
knowledge, no species has become extinct in North America due
to forestry.
You may disagree with the green groups, but would you still
describe yourself as an environmentalist?
James Lovelock is my hero and I believe in the Gaia
hypothesis that all life is one living breathing being, I
don't see any reason to damage it more than necessary. I
believe in gardening the Earth, but there should be lots of
places left wild. The ``hands off'' attitude doesn't work
with 6 billion humans needing things from Earth every day.
Why do you oppose the campaign against genetically modified
crops?
I believe we are entering an era now where pagan beliefs
and junk science are influencing public policy. GM foods and
forestry are both good examples where policy is being
influenced by arguments that have no basis in fact or logic.
Certainly, biotechnology needs to be done very carefully. But
GM crops are in the same category as oestrogen-mimicking
compounds and pesticide residues. They are seen as an
invisible force that will kill us all in our sleep or turn us
all into

[[Page S63]]

mutants. It is preying on people's fear of the unknown.
What does the future hold for the environmental movement?
We need to get out of the adversarial approach. People who
base their opinion on science and reason and who are
politically centrist need to take the movement back from the
extremists who have hijacked it, often to further agendas
that have nothing to do with ecology. It is important to
remember that the environmental movement is only 30 years
old. All movements to go through some mucky periods. But
environmentalism has become codified to such an extent that
if you disagree with a single word, then you are apparently
not an environmentalist. Rational discord is being
discouraged. It has too many of the hallmarks of the Hitler
youth, or the religious right.
____

Crops modified by molecular and cellular methods should
pose risks no different from those modified by classical
genetic methods for similar traits. As the molecular methods
are more specific, users of these methods will be more
certain about the traits they introduce into plants.--
National Research Council.
America leads the world in agricultural products developed
with biotechnology. These products hold great promise and
will unlock benefits for consumers, producers and the
environment at home and around the world. We are committed to
ensuring the safety of our food and environment through
strong and transparent science-based domestic regulatory
systems.--President William J. Clinton, statement on World
Trade Organization objectives October 13, 1999.
January 13, 2000.
Hon. Christopher S. Bond,
U.S. Senate,
Washington, DC.
Dear Senator Bond: The undersigned scientists support the
use of biotechnology as a research tool in the development
and production of agricultural and food products. We also
strongly advocate the use of sound science as the basis for
regulatory and political decisions pertaining to
biotechnology.
Biotechnology for agriculture and the food industry is
offering remarkable innovations--providing new tools for
growth and development. Biotechnology has a long history of
development. Its early applications produced better quality
medicines and improved industrial products. Recently,
products have been developed that allow farmers to reduce
their input costs and increase yields while providing
environmental benefits. In the near future, an ever-
increasing number and variety of crops with traits beneficial
to consumers will reach the market. Such traits will include
improved nutritional values, healthier oils, increased
vitamin content, better flavor, and longer shelf life.
The ultimate beneficiaries of technological innovation have
always been consumers, both in the United States and aboard.
In developing countries, biotechnological advances will
provide means to overcome vitamin deficiencies, to supply
vaccines for killer diseases like cholera and malaria, to
increase production and protect fragile natural resources,
and to grow crops under normally unfavorable conditions.
We recognize that no technology is without risks. At the
same time, we have confidence in the current U.S. regulatory
system provided by the USDA, EPA, and FDA. The U.S. system
has worked well and continues to evolve as scientific
advancements are achieved.
Considering the tremendous potential of this technology, we
urge policy makers to base their decisions on sound
scientific evidence.

____________________