SPECIAL ISSUES: BIOTECH

April 16, 2001

European Reaction Requires New Ways of Evaluating Risks and Benefits of GMOs
By Carl Nelson, associate professor of production economics in the Department of Agricultural and Consumer Economics at the University of Illinois.

Genetic alteration of plants and animals is seen by many as an interference with nature that has unknown and potentially disastrous interactions with human genetics and natural ecosystems. Many consumers are extremely wary of health threats caused by unknown risks in food supply. Environmentalists have raised several questions about the environmental risks of genetically altered crops and animals.
Environmental risks include the evolution of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) into "super weeds," cross-pollination introducing herbicide resistance into existing weeds or introducing undesirable genetic traits into neighboring crops, and harm to non-target populations caused by toxins introduced to create insect resistance.

In the United States, genetically altered corn and soybeans entered the feed and food system without public concern. The transgenic crops entered standard grain supply channels and substituted for traditional crops in the production of a wide variety of food products and animal feeds. To date, public concern about GMOs appears to be limited to a small number of interest groups in the United States.

In contrast, Europe has imposed strong, restrictive regulations on all transgenic crops in any portion of the food supply system. This complex set of legislation and regulation is a response to consumer demand for protection from the perceived harms that could be caused by GMOs. England has seen multiple incidents of protestors damaging GMO test fields. And French consumers have expressed extreme mistrust of "contaminants" in the food supply. The result is that European regulation of GMOs aims at reducing or eliminating risks in the food supply, even if there is not strong scientific evidence of such risks.

European regulation of GMOs has adopted the precautionary principle, which directs that actions should be taken to prevent potential harms even if there is a lack of scientific certainty about the harm. The European Commission used this principle to freeze approval of genetically altered maize that was related to the variety reported to harm Monarch butterflies. When consumers perceive future dangers that are highly uncertain, they are likely to prefer that regulatory policies follow the precautionary principle. To overcome this caution significant present benefits need to be visible.
The lessons of the European reaction to GMOs warn that these new food products will be evaluated differently than traditional food products. The uncertainties of the scientific manipulation of genetic material are unfamiliar to the public. Under those circumstances, extreme consumer reaction could be triggered at any time by a significant public event.

Such a reaction could color the public evaluation of all GMOs, as is apparently happening in Europe. To give each new product a fair public evaluation, there needs to be a review process that accounts for public perceptions and values, taking seriously the obstacles for consumers to properly evaluate the costs and benefits of new GMO products.

Public evaluation of GMOs that considers costs and benefits, while giving strong preference to the protection of public health, is needed to create a process to build trust. This process must acknowledge the public perception on the part of some that GMOs are different than conventional food products.

A number of consumers, especially in Europe, have already divided food choices into non-GMO, and GMO. They will not be receptive to arguments that GMOs are just modified forms of non-GMO food. They will view GMOs as distinct products that require distinct review and evaluation.

A review process with a strong commitment to the protection of public health should include evaluation of the threats to public health that would result from the failure to approve a GMO. Such indirect effects that do not receive sensational press coverage are the sorts of effects that need to be brought to public attention through a credible public cost-benefit evaluation. What will build trust is not so much explicit trust building, but changes in the process that make the costs of single-minded ‘better safe than sorry' responses more visible.

The recommendations for credible public evaluation of GMOs aimed at overcoming the obstacles to evaluation of costs and benefits will require significant reallocation or new allocation of research and regulatory expenditures. Failure to invest in the capacity to conduct and communicate evaluations aimed at overcoming these obstacles is likely to retard or halt the spread of social gains that researchers expect to generate from GMOs.

The human tendency to see unknown, unfamiliar risks in an "all-or-nothing" framework that places all emphasis on potential danger is strong and pervasive. Unfounded assurances of safety, however, will not help to move public opinion from "better safe, than sorry" to an acceptable risk based on costs and benefits.

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