[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 143 (Thursday, November 2, 2000)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E2072-E2073]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




   GENETIC ENGINEERING: A TECHNOLOGY AHEAD OF THE SCIENCE AND PUBLIC 
                                POLICY?

                                 ______
                                 

                        HON. DENNIS J. KUCINICH

                                of ohio

                    in the house of representatives

                       Thursday, November 2, 2000

  Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Speaker, Federal regulatory review of biotechnology 
products is patchy and inadequate. Spread out over three regulatory 
agencies--the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the U.S. Department 
of Agriculture (USDA) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)--
the system is characterized by huge regulatory holes that fail to 
safeguard human health and environmental protection. Furthermore, 
independent scientific advice available to the agencies is severely 
limited.
  Despite the fact that GE food may contain new toxins or allergens, 
the FDA determined in 1992 that GE plants should be treated no 
differently from traditionally bred plants. Consequently, the FDA 
condones an inadequate premarket safety testing review and does not 
require any labeling of GE food products. The FDA has essentially 
abdicated these responsibilities to the very companies seeking to 
market and profit from the new GE products. FDA's recent proposed rule 
for regulating biotechnology will hardly change the present system. 
Although the proposal requires that companies notify the Agency before 
marketing new GE products, it still fails to require a comprehensive 
pre-market safety testing review or mandatory labeling.
  The FDA's 1992 decision to treat GE food as ``substantially 
equivalent'' to conventional food (thereby exempting most GE food on 
the market from independent premarket safety testing or labeling) is a 
violation of the public's trust and an evasion of the Agency's duties 
to ensure a safe food supply. The concept of ``substantial 
equivalence'' has been challenged in numerous scientific journals. 
FDA's failure to label GE foods led a 1996 editorial in the New England 
Journal of Medicine to conclude that ``FDA policy would appear to favor 
industry over consumer protection.''
  EPA's regulation of environmental hazards is equally inadequate. 
Under the nation's pesticide laws, EPA regulates biological pesticides 
produced by plants. It does not, however, regulate the plants 
themselves, leaving that duty to the USDA. Consequently, EPA regulates 
the B.t. toxin, but not the corn, cotton or potato plants exuding the 
toxin. EPA has allowed B.t. crops to come to the market without 
conducting a comprehensive environmental review. Much further research 
is needed on the impacts of ``pest protected'' crops as outlined by a 
National Academy of Sciences report. For plants engineered for other 
traits, such as herbicide tolerance or disease tolerance, EPA does no 
environmental review at all.
  The USDA's Animal Plant and Health Protection Service (APHIS) is 
charged with evaluating potential environmental impacts of field tests 
of GE crops. However, having virtually abandoned its original permit 
system which registered an environmental impact assessment before a 
field test, the Agency can no longer claim to be doing its job. APHIS 
has adopted a much less rigorous ``notification'' system which permits 
researchers to conduct field trials without conducting an
  The National Academy of Sciences (NAS), the premier scientific body 
in our nation, has recently published a scientific assessment of GE 
foods. Unfortunately, many of the scientists on the NAS review 
committee had financial links to the biotech industry. The failure of 
the NAS to find an unbiased panel is problematic because their mission 
to supply decision makers and the public with unbiased scientific 
assessments cannot be achieved. This reduces the lack of independent 
science for our regulatory agencies to rely upon.


      Popular Demand for an Evolution in Policy Regarding GE Food

  A strong testament to consumers' desire for labeling and greater 
safety testing of GE food is the flurry of legislative activity and 
ballot initiatives that have taken place at the state and local levels. 
Over the past year, the city councils of Boston, Cleveland and 
Minneapolis have passed resolutions calling for a moratorium on GE 
food, and Austin has called for the labeling of all GE food. Boulder, 
CO has banned GE organisms from 15,000 acres of city-owned farmland. 
Bills requiring labeling of GE food were introduced in the state 
legislatures of New York, Minnesota, California and Michigan. The state 
legislature in Vermont considered legislation that would require 
farmers to notify the town hall if they were planting genetically 
engineered seeds. In California, a task force is exploring whether 
schools should be serving GE food, and in 1999 a petition signed by 
over 500,000 people demanding labeling was submitted to Congress, 
President Clinton and several federal agencies including the FDA.
  In survey after survey, American consumers have indicated that they 
believe all GE food should be labeled as such. Consumers have a right 
to know what is in the food they eat and to make decisions based on 
that knowledge. While some observe strict dietary restrictions for 
religious, ethical or health reasons, others simply choose not to be 
the first time users of these largely untested foods.
  The failure to label GE crops and food is short-sighted and could 
close off key markets for U.S. farm exports. Labeling protections have 
been established in Europe, Japan, South Korea, Australia and New 
Zealand. The Cartagena Biosafety Protocol drafted early this year 
allows nations to refuse imports of GE organisms.


             Other Impacts of GE Foods Deserving Attention

  The gene revolution is being led by the agri-business industry. These 
are a handful of multinational companies which own much of the world's 
supplies of seeds, pesticides, fertilizers, food and animal veterinary 
products. The result of numerous acquisitions and mergers, the agri-
business conglomeration has spent millions of dollars on research and 
development of GE products. Given such heavy investment, it should come 
as no surprise that its primary goal is to recover its expenses and 
turn a profit.
  It is to profit-seeking companies, therefore, that we are ceding the 
right to re-engineer the earth--our plants, our food, our fish, our 
animals, our trees, even our lawns. Genetic engineering in
  Marketed by agrichemical companies, genetic engineering in 
agriculture promises to perpetuate the present industrialized system of 
agriculture--a system characterized by large farms, single cropping, 
heavy machinery and dependence on chemical pesticides and fertilizers. 
Such a system has consolidated acres into fewer and larger farms, 
marginalizing small farmers and reducing the number of people living on 
farms and in rural communities.
  With a goal of marketing GE seeds worldwide, genetic engineering will 
continue the trend of industrialized farming to reduce crop diversity, 
making our food supply increasingly vulnerable to pests and disease. 
The Southern Corn Leaf Blight which in 1970 destroyed 60 percent of the 
U.S. corn crop in one summer, clearly demonstrates that a genetically 
uniform crop base is a disaster waiting to happen. The linkages of 
genetically engineered seeds and pesticides, such as Monsanto's GE 
Roundup Ready Seeds will ensure continued use of agricultural 
chemicals.
  Genetic engineering is likely to further diminish the role of the 
farmer. GE seeds are designed to be grown in a large scale agricultural 
system in which farmers become laborers or ``renters'' of seed 
technology. Desperate to increase their yields to make up for low 
prices, many U.S. farmers have adopted the ``high-yielding'' GE seeds. 
In doing so, they have been forced to sign contracts legally binding 
them to use proprietary chemicals on their transgenic crops and in some 
cases to permit random inspections of their fields by biotechnology 
company representatives who check that farmers are not saving and 
reusing the licensed seed. Despite the premium farmers pay for high 
tech seeds, they receive no warranty for the performance of these seeds 
as the contracts protect biotechnology seed companies in the event of 
seed failures.


                   a protective regulatory structure

  Despite the uncertainties associated with genetic engineering, 
nevertheless, GE crops covered 71 million acres of U.S. farmland last 
year, and GE ingredients are present throughout the food supply. 
Ranging from ice-cream and infant formula to tortilla chips and veggie 
burgers, foods produced using genetic engineering line our supermarket 
shelves. These foods are unlabeled and have not been appropriately 
assessed for safety. Consumers, therefore, are unwitting subjects in a 
massive experiment with their food.
  Our regulatory system has clearly failed to ensure the protection of 
human health, the environment and farmers. In response I have authored 
legislation in the 106th Congress that would fill the regulatory 
vacuum.
  To ensure food safety, I have introduced a bill that requires that GE 
food go through the FDA's current food additive process, acknowledging 
that a food is fundamentally altered when a new gene is inserted into 
it. The review process would look at concerns unique to

[[Page E2073]]

GE products including allergenicity, unintended effects, toxicity, 
functional characteristics and nutrient levels.
  To date, the public has been largely left out of the biotechnology 
regulatory process, and that needs to change. Consequently, I propose 
that the FDA conduct a public comment period of at least 30 days once a 
completed safety application is available to the public. All studies 
performed by the applicant must be made available including all data 
unfavorable to the petition. The FDA should also maintain a publicly 
available registry of the GE foods for which food additives are pending 
or have been approved.
  When the FDA was called upon to confirm the Taco Bell taco shell 
contamination for a possible regulatory enforcement action, it was 
unable to do so because it lacked the necessary testing protocols. The 
FDA should correct this failure by immediately creating testing 
protocols for all GE foods and test for potential contamination in 
these foods. Until then, the FDA cannot determine the ingredients in 
our food supply, it is unlikely that the FDA can ensure the American 
public that other foods are not contaminated.
  I have also introduced a bill requiring mandatory labeling of GE 
foods or foods containing GE ingredients so that American consumers can 
make informed choices about what they are eating. Packaged foods carry 
nutritional labels, drugs and medications come with descriptions of 
their contents. There is no reason that GE food should not also be 
labeled granting consumers their fundamental right to know what is in 
their food.
  Clearly, environmental regulations for the release of the GE 
organisms need to be strengthened. Similarly, the USDA allows field 
trials of all GE plants that prevent adequate assessments of the 
environment risks posed by these plants. Though genetically engineered 
fish are predicted to be commercialized by 2001, it is still unclear 
which agency will regulate them. The US Fish and Wild Life Service as 
well as the National Marine and Fish Service must pay a role in 
developing regulations for GE fish.
  Finally, Congress should hold hearings on the failure of the 
regulatory agencies in protecting the American public.


                               Conclusion

  The controversy surrounding genetically engineered food should not be 
a surprise to anyone. The mechanical manipulation of genes in the food 
one eats instinctively raises questions of health and safety. We 
instinctively trust farmers to grow and raise our food, but we must 
question the motivation of large corporations who want to create impure 
food for pure profit. When we feed our family, we don't take chances. 
If we are not sure how old the leftovers in the back of the fridge are, 
we throw them out. And as long as we are not convinced that this new 
technology is flawless, people should be hesitant to serve genetically 
engineered food to their children. New technologies always have 
unforseen effects. The American consumer does not want to be a part of 
an experiment at their dinner table.

                          ____________________