GMO.M.G: Why Genetically Modified Organisms are Also Not Like Sodium

tomato by W_Minshull is licensed under CC BY 2.0

After similar measures have failed in Washington (45% yes to 55 no) and California (49% yes and 51% no) in 2012, Oregon stands to become the first state in the country to implement a measure requiring the labeling of some genetically modified foods.  If passed, the measure would take effect January 2016.  Vermont, Maine and Connecticut have also approved labeling laws, but these have not gone into effect yet.  

Genetically modified organisms (GMOs) are made by splicing genes from plants, animals, and sometimes even bacteria, viruses, fungi, etc. together to produce food products that could not occur naturally.  Not only could these foods not occur in nature, they could not be produced by the type of cross-breeding that farmers have engaged in for centuries (for those of you thinking back to your early genetics lessons and remembering old Gregor Mendel breeding green pea plants with yellow pea plants).

There could potentially be as many genetic modifications as there are genetic combinations.  The possibilities are literally infinite.  Big agri-business companies have proposed a number of possible uses for GMO foods.  GMO wheat, rice, soy, corn, and grain could be engineered to provide increased nutrition, larger crop yields, and resistance to drought, pests, blights, and the like.  Not only could these crops make more food more widely available around the world, the plants themselves could be engineered to contain more nutrients or have other medicinal qualities.  In addition to these substantive changes, more superficial benefits could be derived from genetic engineering, particularly for fruits and vegetables, which could be given longer shelf-life, richer flavor, even something like phosphorescence to make them more attractive to kids. 

However, many of these potential benefits have not panned out.  Genetic engineering has so far been used primarily by major corn producers to engineer a product that is resistant to the primary pesticide used by these companies.  Some other plants have been engineered to produce their own pesticides.  Not only has the promise of the benefits of genetic engineering to humankind been slow in coming, there are obvious environmental consequences to making plants able to withstand more Roundup and others able to produce their own version.  The effects of these engineered plants on human health may be relatively unknown (because the chemicals and the genetic science are proprietary, independent studies of their effects haven’t been permitted), but the negative effects on the environment are easy to foresee.  Insects such as moths and butterflies are impacted by the pesticide-producing plants.  As their populations decrease, so will those of the birds and other species that feed on them, creating an inevitable ecological ripple effect.

So, as you can see, there are really good arguments both for and against labeling genetically modified foods.  They are just not any of the arguments being put forward in the For and Against Measure 92 campaigns in Oregon right now. 

The argument against is your basic “big government” argument, which is never persuasive to me.  I love big government.  The more government jobs there are, the more likely it is that I could eventually be hired to do one of them!  The other major No on 92 argument is that it will increase costs for farmers and consumers.  I am also not particularly persuaded by the “increased cost” argument.  First of all, it is fishy how lacking in specifics it has been.  The “No” side really hasn’t given any dollar amounts for how much it is going to cost farmers and grocery shoppers to have foods labeled, they just want us to know it is going to cost us jobs and make things harder for middle class families to put food on the table.  What doesn’t?! 

According to Oregon Right to Know (the “Yes on 92” folks have much more specific cost data than the “No” folks) the cost to the taxpayer of the labeling measure is less than one penny a year, and the research firm ECONorthwest found the median increase to the consumer would be less than $2.30 per year.

The arguments in support of Measure 92 have irked me even more than the arguments against.  They have struck me as patronizing and nonsensical, more like propaganda than genuine argument.  For example, I can’t tell you how many of the pro-92 ads mention Agent Orange.  What is the link between Agent Orange and GMO labeling?  Well, it takes a minute to get there.  Because most of the genetic modifications that have been implemented on a large scale so far have had to do with the pesticide properties of plants, and because the technology is proprietary, the companies that have conducted the safety testing are the same major agri-chemical companies that benefit from their widespread use (because of the chemical pesticides that can then be sprayed on them in great doses).  This isn't to say that the companies doing the genetic modifications to food products are the same companies as those that made Agent Orange and DDT.  Rather, Agent Orange was just another herbicide produced by an agri-chemical company back in the day, which might be one of the companies testing the health effects of GMO foods.

I find the use of the magic words “Agent Orange” as a scare tactic patronizing and insulting to the intelligence of Oregon voters.  GMO labeling by itself will not do anything to reduce the use of chemical pesticides, increase access of independent health studies to proprietary agricultural technologies, or actually indicate how much of what, if any, pesticides is used on the food product in question.  The genetic modification of the food product is totally separate from the question of whether and what pesticide was used on it (unless it is one of the ones that produces its own pesticide, which the label will NOT tell you!). 

It is actually even a little misleading to invoke Agent Orange in this context.  To say “we don’t know anything about the health effects of GMOs but the companies telling us they’re healthy are the companies that made Agent Orange” isn’t the whole story.  Oregon Right to Know admits: “a team of Italian scientists came up with nearly 1,800 studies of GMO foods (the majority of them independent of any GMO-related funding source) done between 2002 and 2012 and not one of them found any evidence of negative health effects from consuming GMO’s.”  They go on to say that regardless of these results, consumers still have the right to know about GMOs in their food.  Even so, to have this information and still push the chemical company horror story strikes me as disingenuous.

One could even argue that labeling will discourage agri-business from pursuing the beneficial aspects of genetic modification discussed above because foods that are genetically modified to contain more nutrients or to have medicinal qualities will bear the exact same label as the pesticide soaked GMO-labeled foods now associated with Agent Orange.  For example, it is probably possible to genetically engineer a tomato to contain more lycopene, which occurs naturally in tomatoes, and helps prevent cancer.  If it turns out that engineering a tomato to produce its own pesticide does have a carcinogenic effect on human health, then the GMO label has become completely meaningless.  The cancer fighting tomato and the cancer causing tomato will both be marked simply “GMO”.

The other main argument in support of Measure 92 centers on the voter’s “right to know.”  The Oregon Right to Know Yes on 92 Pocket Guide states “We have a right to know important information about the food we eat and feed our families – such as sugar and sodium levels, whether flavors are natural or artificial, and if fish is wild for farm-raised.  We should also have the right to choose whether we want to buy and eat genetically engineered food.”  A couple things here that I find irritating.  As I highlighted in the title of this post and explained above, genetically modified organisms are not like sodium.  Sodium, whether you find it in canned soup or cheese or tomato paste is the same chemical.  Genetically modified foods is a broad category of many different products, modified from their original genetic makeup in innumerable ways.  We know the effect of sodium – in different amounts – on our health.  The presence of a GMO label tells us next to nothing about what is actually in the food product (what has been modified, how it has been modified, why, and to what effect on the consumer).

The presumption that knowledge that our foods contain GMOs will let consumers “choose whether we want to buy and eat genetically engineered food” also strikes me as a little naïve (to be charitable) or coming from a place of privilege (if we’re being less charitable).  If Measure 92 passes and is implemented, a huge percentage of the foods in regular supermarkets (estimates are at least 70-80%) are going to be labeled GMO.  Basically everything containing corn and soy probably will be, which is basically everything in a standard grocery store. 

The idea that average consumers will be able to somehow “opt out” of GMO foods is like saying that anyone can eat organic if they want to.  It just isn’t an economic possibility for most shoppers, at least in rural areas of the state.  If you’re already stretching your monthly EBT allotment to cover your family of six, you aren’t going to be able to jaunt over to your your nearest Whole Foods (of which the only one is 20-40 minute drive away) for non-GMO products and stay on budget.  Instead, you are going to have to feed your five kids the food you pick up on sale at your regular corner store…the stuff with that GMO label on it that you vaguely remember from election time has something to do with Agent Orange.

Measure 92 could pass.  Over the summer, an OPB poll found 77% of voters in favor, but this number has declined as advertising against the measure has ramped up.  As with other progressive measures, it is struggling in the conservative area where I live, but slightly carrying the state overall.  At the end of September, a poll found 54 percent of the voters supported the measure with only 16 percent opposed.  Despite my arguments above against the arguments in favor of the measure, I am going to vote for the measure itself.  I am not convinced the cost will be significant and it puts the GMO issue into the public’s mind in a way that can lead to debate about the actual issues of real significance for human and environmental health that we really do need to be talking about regarding GMOs.  But I also think Monsanto is probably doing backflips that so much time and energy and money is being thrown into this essentially meaningless labeling fight.  Agribusiness is thinking “yes, please, devote yourselves to that sucking void of a pointless mission so you’ll have fewer resources to fight the real fights.”

But the main reason I am voting in favor of Measure 92, despite obviously loathing so much of the argument and advertisement that has been put forward so far in support of it is because its supporters have finally settled on an inordinately compelling argument.  Perhaps playing to the conspiracy theorist in all of us, Oregon Right to Know is circulating a simple graphic showing who holds the purse strings in the “No on 92” camp:

Source: http://oregonrighttoknow.org/no-on-92-coalition-donors/

The message seems to be, basically, if Kraft, Coke, Pepsi, ConAgra, Cargill, DuPont, General Mills, Hormel, Kellogg’s, Monsanto and Land o’ Lakes are willing to pour millions of dollars into defeating this measure, then Oregonians should support it.  We just might.