Uncle Sam's Other War: Biotech vs. the European Union

March 11, 2003

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=15330

By Carmelo Ruiz-Marrero, AlterNet

March 9, 2003

The U.S. government is not very happy with the European Union these days.

Washington is calling Europe's stand " inmoral " , but Europe refuses to budge.

No, it's not the Iraq war. The issue is genetically modified (GM) foods.

Since 1998 the European Union has required the labelling of all GM foods. This

has amounted to a de facto moratorium on U.S. imports of GM foods because Uncle

Sam stubbornly refuses to label them. Small wonder, since consumer polls on both

sides of the Atlantic show that most shoppers want GM foods labeled, precisely

so they can avoid them.

U.S. Trade Representative Robert B. Zoellick, recently called the European

position on GM foods " Luddite " and " immoral " . David Byrne, the European Union's

health and consumer protection commissioner, called Zoellnick's remarks

" unhelpful " , " unfair " and " wrong " .

The U.S. agricultural biotech industry is deadset against labelling. " labelling

is a sham, " said Mary Kay Thatcher, lobbyist for the American Farm Bureau. " It

would be so expensive, it would shut down our exports. "

Labelling " implies that there is something wrong with genetically modified

good, " said Elsa Murano, the U.S. Agriculture Department's undersecretary for

food safety. " It would be another kind of trade barrier. "

Years of struggle

Europe's opposition to eating GM foods did not just happen overnight. Rather, it

was the product of years of activism and agitation on the part of activists from

all walks of life.

Thoughout the 1990's, citizens all over Europe took matters in their own hands,

" weeding " or " decontaminating " experimental GM plots with garden tools. Many of

these civil disobedience acts were done in broad daylight, in front of reporters

and flabbergasted policemen. They did not fit the profile of the lone nut or the

crazed leftist. They were teachers, artists, farmers, carpenters, middle class

housewives. Then came the " crop squats " : groups " weeded " GM crops and occupied

the plots for days and even weeks, turning them into demonstration organic farms

and makeshift community centers.

These Gandhi-like revolutionary actions were remarkably similar to those carried

out by the European peace movement in the 1980's against the deployment of

American MX missiles. One can say that whereas nuclear weapons were a symbol of

state power in the cold war, biotech is a symbol of corporate power in the

post-cold war.

Activism worked. People made a difference. Europe today has no Yankee MX

missiles or Yankee GM " frankenfoods " . Now " Old Europe " has a de facto moratorium

on GM foods, and it won't budge. Uncle Sam is furious.

WTO? Be my guest!

Washington has repeatedly threatened to bring a case against the European Union

to the World Trade Organization (WTO). Unfriendly to social, environmental and

public health considerations, the WTO has a dispute resolution mechanism whose

workings have been repeatedly denounced by civil society groups as untransparent

and undemocratic.

When a member country brings a case against another for erecting an " unfair

trade barrier " in the WTO, the accused country is guilty until proven innocent.

The accused country has to prove its innocence, the accuser has to prove

nothing. The cases are heard behind closed doors by panels of unelected trade

bureaucrats.

But not to worry, the European Union will win its case if it can prove that its

rejection of GM foods is based on " sound science " . " Whatever that means, " the

Europeans sigh sardonically. In the late 1990's, " sound science " meant that

Europe had to import American beef tainted with growth hormones, even though its

scientific authorities had determined that such hormones were an unacceptable

health risk. The WTO had simply declared that the European ban on

hormone-tainted beef was an unjustified trade barrier. So much for " sound

science " .

GM foes in Europe and all over the world breathed a collective sigh of relief

last month when the U.S. laid down its challenge. As reported in the Organic

Consumers Association web site, Washington decided not to take the matter to the

WTO. However, few observers on either side of the issue believe the U.S. has

really called it quits.

Could this be a quid pro quo? In hopes of winning Europe over to Bush's war on

Iraq, perhaps? The U.S. government flatly denies this.

Is the U.S. hoping things will cool off and resistance to GM will soften? That

would be a gross miscalculation. The European Parliament shows no intention of

loosening GM food labelling requirements. Worse yet, last month British Minister

of State for the Environment Michael Meacher came out against genetically

engineered foods and crops, calling them unnecessary and dangerous.

" The real problem is whether ten, 20, 30 years down the track serious and

worrying things happen that none of us ever predicted, " he said to the

Ecologist. " It's these sorts of totally unpredicted problems that make me very,

very cautious. "

These declarations are pretty bad news for American biotech interests, since

England has historically been the European government most supportive of the

U.S. position on GM foods.

Not exactly a booming market

The outlook for biotech foods doesn't look much better in the rest of the world.

As reported in the February 2003 issue of Biodemocracy News:

• India has just refused part of a $100 million shipment of GM-tainted soy and

corn from the U.S.A

• On January 18 Brazil impounded a shipment of American GM corn, demanding that

it be returned or incinerated.

• In the Phillipines, protesters uprooted GM crops and turned to the streets

after the government caved in to the U.S. pressure to accept these biotech

products.

• Shipments of American GM crops were greeted with protests in several

Australian cities.

Opposition is building up in the U.S. too. As of 2002, 44 American

municipalities had passed resolutions calling either for the labelling of GM

foods of against the planting of such crops, including Denver, Boston, San

Francisco and Austin. 33 of these municipalities are in Vermont, a state small

in size and population but large in democratic tradition. And on Monday March 3,

36 more Vermont towns voted against genetic engineering in their town meetings.

One blunder after the other

The biotech industry has been stumbling from one embarassing fiasco to another.

It had assured that containment of GM organisms and products would not be a

problem. But in 2000, traces of Starlink, a GM corn deemed unfit for human

consumption by the FDA, appeared in hundreds of U.S. supermarket products.

Millers and processors ended up spending one billion dollars in a three month

period trying to get rid of it. And yet it keeps showing up in the darndest of

places. Japan recently turned back a shipment of American corn after it tested

positive for Starlink.

Then came the Prodigene Affair, dubbed the " Three Mile Island " of biotech by The

Nation. Last November the FDA impounded 500,000 bushels of soy that were

contaminated with biopharmaceutical GM corn engineered to secrete pharmaceutical

drugs.

Biopharmaceuticals, or " pharmacrops, " are the biotech industry's latest bet. The

idea of genetically engineering corn, soy or rice plants to turn them into

biofactories of chemicals or pharmaceuticals, ranging from industrial enzymes to

contraceptives and abortion-inducing morning-after drugs might seem like a great

idea to industry executives.

But the Starlink and Prodigene affairs are friendly warnings of what might

happen if these pharmacrops are not contained and properly segregated from the

food supply. Even the Grocery Manufacturers Association and the National Food

Processors Association have expressed concern about this.

But the biotech genie dies hard. Is the industry giving up on it? Not even

close. Stay tuned.

Carmelo Ruiz-Marrero is a Puerto Rican journalist. He is a research associate at

the Institute for Social Ecology, and a Fellow at the Society of Environmental

Journalists and at the Environmental Leadership Program.

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