Scientists, Starving Africans Know Something We Don't

Many nations ban genetically engineered (GE) crops because they fear unknown risks. But how can countries facing famine spurn donations of biotech food?

Officials in Mozambique and Zambia are apparently willing to risk seeing their people starve rather than allow emergency shipments of engineered corn into their countries.

Earlier this summer, neighboring Zimbabwe rejected a U.S. donation of food aid because it was likely to contain genetically modified varieties. A last-minute grain swap deal allowed Zimbabwe to feed its people with non-GE corn.

But so far, Mozambique and Zambia have not allowed emergency shipments of GE corn to cross their borders. Could it be that these nations know something about genetically engineered food that most Americans do not?

The African countries say they gladly will accept milled corn, but fear that whole GE grains might be planted rather than eaten. That could contaminate the entire region's food supply, since once these crops are planted it is almost impossible to stop their spread.

This is critical, because the region's economy relies on grain exports to overseas markets, including Europe, which refuses to import GE food.

Despite U.S. government and industry claims to the contrary, there is no scientific consensus that genetically engineered foods are safe -- far from it. More than 450 scientists from 56 countries -- including researchers from Harvard, MIT, Oxford and Cambridge universities -- signed an open letter sent in the past few years to the U.S. Congress, the United Nations and the World Trade Organization. The letter cited studies that demonstrate the risks of GE foods. Among those risks are "acute toxic shock, delayed immunological reactions and auto-immune reactions" as well as cancer and the spread of antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

Why aren't Americans being told about the concerns of scientists? Spokespersons for biotechnology corporations such as Monsanto say it's not an issue: the U.S. government proved the equivalence of GE and non-GE foods with a study conducted by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the early 1990s.

But that FDA report pushed science aside to appease agribusiness. In one of several internal memos made public in a lawsuit against the FDA, Dr. Louis Pribyl, an FDA scientist reviewing the study, asked, "What has happened to the scientific elements of this document?" He decried the report as a "political document" that was "very pro-industry, especially in the area of unintended effects."

One of many concurring colleagues, Dr. Linda Kahl, said "the processes of GE and traditional breeding are different, and according to the technical experts in the agency they lead to different risks." The FDA, she wrote, was "trying to force an ultimate conclusion that there is no difference between foods modified by GE and food modified by traditional breeding practices."

Not only did political appointees in the first Bush administration ignore the concerns of the scientists, they turned upside down the scientists' conclusion that GE foods were unpredictable and could endanger human health.

The office of the President's White House counsel wanted the scientists to change their report to declare that genetic engineering was more predictable and safer than traditional breeding. As FDA veteran Dr. Henry Miller told the New York Times, the "government agencies have done exactly what big agribusiness has asked them to do and told them to do."

FDA scientists did not claim that GE foods were dangerous -- only that the risks were unknown and had not been studied adequately. Research cited by the scientists of the world in their open letter show the concerns of FDA staff were justified.

Given this bad faith on the part of our government officials during the FDA investigation and the junk science they promulgated at the behest of their corporate partners, it's reasonable to ask whether the United States is using its power to impose an agenda on desperate people by refusing their requests for milled or non-GE food. As Mozambique's Prime Minister said, "If the offer is made in good faith, why should (the donors) not mill it before sending it?"