Cultural Politics and the Transatlantic Divide over GMOs

H. Stephan

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9781349329700, 9780230284579
• eBook ISBN: 9781137314727
• Topic: Biological Sciences
• Subtopic: Environmental Economics
• Index: Biological Sciences

Alongside other factors, cultural values and identities help to explain different regulatory frameworks for genetically modified organisms. This book uses insights from environmental history and sociology to illuminate the cultural politics of regulation in the US and the EU, with particular attention to public opinion and anti-GMO activism.

1

Overview of Regulatory Frameworks and Public Opinion

Introduction

This chapter lays the groundwork for a cultural-political analysis. The regulatory pathways described here seem to confirm the assumptions of historical path dependency in which initial political decisions decisively shape the interests of rational economic actors and structure the field of political possibilities (Pollack and Shaffer 2009). Such accounts are plausible, but they tend to underestimate other factors influencing the regulatory trajectory, especially the role of public opinion and of bureaucratic politics. In Europe, the latter shaped the early framing of biotechnology as an environmental question – to be supervised by the EU’s Environment Directorate-General (Patterson 2000). My main focus, however, is squarely on the public mood and the amount of political leeway it offers, particularly once public opinion became subject to regular surveys in the 1990s. While, in the EU, bureaucratic politics, industrial policy priorities, and major economic interests were drifting towards a US-style regulatory framework by the mid-1990s, this developmental path was thwarted by the anti-GMO mobilisation of citizens and consumers. The precautionary logic of the initial framework from 1990 has been preserved, even if greater centralisation at the European level implied a possible mechanism for modest regulatory softening and more technocratic policy-making.

The European story thus contradicts simple models of unproblematic technological diffusion. In the US, on the other hand, agbiotech seemed to follow the expected pathway of technological innovation and modern socio-economic progress. Here, both scientific organisations and industrial policy-makers have long supported scientific research and commercialisation through permissive regulations, while public opinion has remained accommodating (Gaskell et al. 2002: 351). This settled situation has only begun to change over the last few years. The European pro-GMO camp regularly points across the Atlantic and urges policy-makers to follow the exemplary US path of innovation to bolster Europe’s economies against competition in a rapidly globalising world. In this chapter, I largely confirm this fundamental transatlantic divergence by summarising the regulatory history of the two regions, highlighting core regulatory principles, and gauging prevalent trends in public opinion.

A short history of agbiotech regulation in the US

American scientists can be regarded as ‘first-movers’ in both scientific and regulatory aspects of biotechnology. After the discovery of recombinant DNA in 1973, intense debates began within the wider scientific community. In February 1975, a historic meeting was convened in Asilomar to discuss the ramifications of the scientific breakthrough – a cornucopia (or, alternatively, Pandora’s Box) in the eyes of many of the 140 participating scientists and lawyers. Over 30 years later, many still hailed this first attempt at responsible scientific self-regulation as a milestone, a genuine ‘Woodstock of molecular biology’ (Barinaga 2000). But Asilomar’s legacy is contentious and the dynamic of self-regulation it helped trigger also dampened regulatory activity in subsequent decades. Jeremy Rifkin of the Foundation on Economic Trends (FOET) claimed that the short-lived moratorium on genetic research – intended to provide the space for a consensual regulatory solution – was ultimately motivated by ‘issues of personal and institutional liability’ for potential ‘bio-hazards’ and not by caution over health or environmental consequences (Rifkin 1999: xi). The technical measures of biological containment proved to be a powerful, soothing gesture towards American law-makers and the public at large, signalling that scientists were able to ‘manage their own business’. Crucially, the long-term effect was that ‘the economic, social, political, military, ethical, and future ecological issues largely dropped from public view’ (Regal 1999).

This impact has been visible in a series of institutional reforms over the years. With Asilomar’s effect of public reassurance, genetic technology was to be monitored by a Federal Agency, the DNA Advisory Committee of the National Institutes of Health. The arrangement of arms-length supervision was maintained for approximately nine years. It did not end due to public debate or intra-scientific dispute but through a successful lawsuit brought by Rifkin’s FOET. Without this legal action, it is doubtful whether there would have been any dedicated regulation for GMO releases into the environment (Toke 2004: 110). In response, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) finalised the ‘Coordinated Framework for Regulation of Biotechnology’ in 1986 whose central tenet was that GM products would continue to be regulated ‘according to their characteristics and unique features rather than their production methods’ (Becker and Cowan 2006: 6). This framework continues to provide the basis of the regulatory system. Its three lead agencies are the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) of the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) (Table 1.1).

APHIS regulates field tests and inter-state shipments of GM plants that could become plant pests under the Federal Plant Protection Act. Since 1993, the overwhelming majority of authorisations for such ‘regulated articles’ can be obtained through a relatively simple ‘notification process’. In this procedure, which serves to expedite authorisations, a notification letter with a brief description of the genetic modification is usually sufficient. The overwhelming majority of applications fall into this category, but some – including plants producing pharmaceuticals – require a special permit. Under the ‘permit process’ companies have to follow relatively strict guidance from APHIS to commence field tests or to import and transport GM plants. Regardless of which procedure is followed, the next step is to apply for ‘non-regulated’ status in order to avoid any further formal oversight. APHIS performs a formal environmental assessment and has to allow for a period of public comment before making its final decision. In October 2008, the agency proposed a number of regulatory changes, including the discontinuation of the notification procedures and the introduction of a new petition procedure which would offer conditional exemption from permit requirements (Cowan 2010). But no final decision has been made so far.

Table 1.1 Overview of agency responsibilities

Agency	Products regulated	Reviews for safety
USDA (APHIS)	Plant pests, plants, veterinary biologics	Safe to grow
FDA	Food, feed, food additives, veterinary drugs	Safe to eat
EPA	Microbial/plant pesticides, new uses of existing pesticides, novel microorganisms	Safe for the environment Safety for a new use of a companion herbicide

Source: Adapted from Vogt (2001).

Operating under the principle of ‘substantial equivalence’ between GM and non-GM foods, the FDA draws on its powers under the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act and the Public Health Service Act to regulate food additives. Only additives that are ‘generally recognised as safe’ (GRAS) do not need pre-market approval. Following an unsuccessful lawsuit by a coalition of NGOs in 2000, the FDA began to encourage developers of GMOs to engage in voluntary pre-market consultation. In June 2006, the FDA went further by promoting consultation in the pre-development stage of GMO research in order to better identify new proteins or other additives that might later pose safety risks such as allergenicity (Becker and Cowan 2006). In January 2009, the FDA announced that, unlike plant-based GM foods, GM animals and derived products would require FDA pre-market approval.

EPA regulation relies on the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) and its provisions for the registration of new pesticides. This includes GM plants that produce their own pesticides. Companies wishing to use a new pesticide in field trials must provide a substantial amount of information about the product’s effectiveness, as well as a broad range of data about product chemistry, toxicology, and its effect on non-target species (Belson 2000). Following the StarLink scandal in 2000, in which a GM corn approved only for animal feed found its way into taco shells, the EPA stated that it is highly unlikely to authorise a GM plant in the future that has not been cleared for human food (Vogt 2001: 17). Implicit in this announcement is the recognition that coexistence of GM and non-GM plants without routine cross-contamination would be extremely difficult. In practice, however, the EPA’s authority to mandate restrictions and require post-approval monitoring and reporting is hampered by resource constraints, making it dependent on the help of state-level environment agencies and industry self-reporting.

The US regulatory system is also distinctive due to its underlying policy assumptions. First, the notion of ‘substantial equivalence’ implies that GM foods and crops are not properly ‘novel’ or pose special risks but can be dealt with by using existing regulatory routines while allowing for some limited adaptations. Second, this confidence in the ‘neutrality’ of the new technology reinforces the commitment to product- rather than process-based regulations, in which not the method of production but the properties of the final product are scrutinised. Third, such underlying beliefs exist in a recursive relationship with a more general ‘free market approach’ of US regulatory policy-making, whereby it is the government’s duty to stimulate societal progress by ‘avoiding undue burdens for technological advance’ while ensuring the safety of new products (Toke 2004: 111).

Largely fashioned in the 1980s, the US regulatory framework has a facilitating quality and makes use of many voluntary elements of consultation. This more lenient approach is complemented by the threat of litigation – both against individual companies and federal regulators themselves. As mentioned above, legal action rather than broad-based popular pressure gave rise to the formulation of a systematic framework in the first place (Hallman 2000). On the whole, however, both the insistence on ‘sound science’ and the professed even-handedness of regulatory measures are misleading. Core scientific principles of US regulations, such as ‘substantial equivalence’, cannot be understood outside their political, legal, and cultural context (Pelletier 2006), and the divergence between proposed regulations and actual decisions shows that regulatory outcomes are biased in favour of food producers and retailers (Haniotis 2001). This, in turn, is not simply a result of lobbying power. The oft-criticised ‘revolving-door’ migration among regulators and industry lobbyists is no mere political flaw but also the expression of a wider belief system that produces a far-reaching consensus between the two groups (Toke 2004: 113): to them, agbiotech products are broadly benign, progressive, and offer impressive economic opportunities. Available data on US public opinion suggest that a largely positive reading of technological progress is mirrored in the general population, albeit with weaker confidence in its safety and latent concerns about both physical and ethical ramifications.

US public opinion since 1987

Surveys have been widely used in the US and elsewhere because they offer a glimpse of public opinion in a quantified format, providing easily understandable material for policy-makers and the media. Increasingly, however, commentators are treating attitudinal surveys with caution. Different surveys often come to divergent conclusions despite querying the same public; too much evidently depends on how questions are framed, on what terminology is used or on what information is supplied. Too often, therefore, policy-makers base their decisions on researchers’ ‘perceptions of public perceptions’ (Cormick 2005: 227) rather than on an assessment of a broader range of available data. Davison et al. (1997: 318) go as far as charging opinion polls with actively constructing and rationalising public debate into quantified, simplistic distortions. According to them, broader concerns about the underlying political economy and cultural significance of biotechnology are concealed by a narrow focus on professional-utilitarian ethics and an emphasis on consumers rather than citizens.

Notwithstanding this critique, a preliminary summary of US and EU public opinion necessarily has to rely on the available data. The main picture emerging from US surveys is that the American public appears to be in a ‘state of schizophrenic tension, with the majority of people simultaneously expressing optimism about the potential benefits of GM technology and concern about the unforeseen consequences of its use’ (Schilling et al. 2002: 8). Overall, public acceptance has followed a long, gradual sinusoidal curve over the past two decades, displaying a peak of concern around 2001. Until 1997, there was little consumer concern in the US and between two-thirds and three-quarters of consumers seemed willing to accept GM foods (Hoban 1997: 232). This rosy picture changed when agbiotech first emerged as a genuine item on the public’s agenda – partly driven by persistent controversy in Europe. US media coverage increased and took on a more critical orientation (Shanahan et al. 2001). There appears to have been a peak in both concern and awareness around 2000–2001 when only half the US population still believed in substantial benefits of agbiotech over the next 20 years (Priest 2000: 939), and general public awareness reached 53% (Hoban 2004). This phenomenon correlates with the activities of an NGO coalition between 1999 and 2001, which is discussed in Chapter 4. By 2006, opposition to GM foods had declined again somewhat and was estimated at 34% by one group of scholars (Ganière et al. 2006: 146). By 2012, in a survey devised by the International Food Information Council, 38% of respondents were somewhat or very favourable towards plant biotechnology, while 20% were somewhat or very unfavourable (IFIC 2012).

Among researchers on US public opinion, there is general agreement on a number of elements: low awareness and knowledge of food biotechnology as well as a clear distinction between plant and animal biotechnology. Hallman et al. (2004) write that – despite considerable media coverage of agbiotech issues in previous years – ‘[m]ost Americans have heard or read little about it, are not aware of its prevalence in their lives, and are confused as to which type of GM products are available’. Virtual consensus exists on the fact that Americans much more readily approve of plant-based GMOs than of animal-based GM technology. But scholars diverge on whether survey data is ultimately sufficient to reach adequate conclusions about public opinion. Schilling et al.’s (2002) notion of ‘schizophrenia’, which can be paraphrased as inconsistency, is backed by empirical data. The first ever poll on public sentiment, commissioned by the US Office of Technology Assessment in 1987, shows the kind of ambiguity that can still be observed today. While 66% of respondents believed that genetic engineering would improve the lives of Americans, 52% were anxious about the dangers to people or the environment (Ezzell 1987). Furthermore, respondents were much more tolerant of technological risks if these were presented in quantified rather than abstract terms, and ethical concerns were often overruled when faced with real-life medical or environmental benefits (Ezzell 1987; Hallman et al. 2003). The unstable nature of survey responses led some to describe them as ‘often equivocal and highly malleable’ or ‘uncrystallised’ (Hallman et al. 2004). Hallman and Hebden (2005: 241) concluded that, on the whole, opinions are ‘weakly held’ and ‘poorly formed’. Opinions are malleable and will often change when presented with additional information about GM foods such as benefits and risks regarding public health or the environment (Fink and Rodemeyer 2007). In essence, therefore, public opinion on agbiotech remains somewhat ‘up for grabs’ (Pollack and Shaffer 2009: 267).

Another important question concerns the near-univer...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Tables
• Acknowledgements
• List of Abbreviations
• Introduction
• 1. Overview of Regulatory Frameworks and Public Opinion
• 2. Perspectives on Regulatory Divergence
• 3. Theorising Culture and Nature
• 4. Cultural Politics and Resistance to GMOs
• 5. Environmental History: Nature, Landscapes, and Identities
• 6. Agri-Cultural and Culinary Identities
• Conclusion
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index