Some Food for FDA Regulation

WASHINGTON — Despite consumer pleas, the Food and Drug Administration has declined since 1992 to require that genetically modified food seeds be proved safe for consumption before their release into the food supply. Nor does the FDA require ingredient labels for genetically modified foods. Instead, the agency encourages producers to voluntarily submit safety data. Its rationale is that genetically modified foods are substantially equivalent to their conventionally grown counterparts. In other words, food is food, and according to food and drug law, foods are presumed safe.

The flaw in this policy is that the presumption of equivalence does not rest on a substantial body of research comparing genetically modified and conventional foods. Far from being confirmed by extensive research, this presumption is challenged even by the producers themselves, notably in a study that Monsanto conducted on one of its biotech foods. Rather than prove safety, this study raised red flags that should have prompted researchers and the FDA to call for more testing. Instead of requiring further testing, the FDA allowed the most commonly consumed genetically modified soybeans, which are produced by Monsanto, to flood the market and rapidly pervade the food supply.

To create its soy, Monsanto scientists spliced a gene from a bacteria into a soybean seed that instructed it to grow even when sprayed with Monsanto's potent weed killer, Roundup. Accordingly, when Roundup is sprayed on soy fields, Monsanto's Roundup Ready soy plants are left standing while nearly everything else is smoked. This strategy is not exclusive to Monsanto. The most common genetically modified foods that the FDA regulates tolerate a specific herbicide manufactured by the company engineering the seed. Consumers don't benefit, but sales of the companies' herbicides soar.

Herbicide-tolerant plants survive weed killers, but what about the health of consumers who eat genetically modified beans? According to the FDA's 1992 policy, Monsanto was not required by law to prove the safety of its beans to the FDA before marketing Roundup Ready soybeans. This regulatory effect must be corrected. Toward that end, legislation compelling the FDA to require premarket proof of safety for all genetically modified food seeds should be passed.