Food Fight

by Mckay Jenkins

  “GMOs are dead”: Peter Pringle, Food Inc.: Mendel to Monsanto—The Promises and Perils of the Biotech Harvest (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2003), 16.

  More recently, nineteen members: “Majority of EU Nations Seek Opt-Out from Growing GMO Crops,” Reuters, October 4, 2015, http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/10/04/eu-gmo-opt-out-idUSL6N0M01F620151004#qT5acaZpFMvUoIzp.97.

  “The GMO issue is something”: Stephanie Strom, “FDA Takes Issue with the Term ‘Non-GMO,’” New York Times, November 21, 2015, http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/21/business/fda-takes-issue-with-the-term-non-gmo.html.

  Companies have responded aggressively: Eric Lipton, “Food Industry Enlisted Academics in GMO Lobbying War, Emails Show,” New York Times, September 5, 2015, http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/06/us/food-industry-enlisted-academics-in-gmo-lobbying-war-emails-show.html?_r=0; Jacob Bunge, “Monsanto CEO: ‘We Need to Do More,’” Wall Street Journal, January 28, 2014, http://blogs.wsj.com/corporate-intelligence/2014/01/28/monsanto-ceo-we-need-to-do-more-to-win-gmo-debate/.

  The story repeated itself: Molly Ball, “Want to Know If Your Food Is Genetically Modified?” Atlantic, May 14, 2014, http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/05/want-to-know-if-your-food-is-genetically-modified/370812/.

  Almost 90 percent of scientists: Cary Funk and Lee Rainie, “Public and Scientists’ Views on Science and Society,” Pew Research Center, January 29, 2015, http://www.pewinternet.org/2015/01/29/public-and-scientists-views-on-science-and-society/.

  recent Nielsen study . . . “There’s no doubt that the industry”: Stephanie Strom, “Many GMO-Free Labels, Little Clarity over Rules,” New York Times, January 30, 2015, http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/31/business/gmo-labels-for-food-are-in-high-demand-but-provide-little-certainty.html.

  “The sad truth is many”: “GMOs and Your Family,” Non-GMO Project, http://www.nongmoproject.org/learn-more/gmos-and-your-family/.

  The Non-GMO Project: Strom, “FDA Takes Issue with the Term ‘Non-GMO.’”

  Pro-labeling groups: Ronni Cummins, “‘QR’ Barcodes: The Latest Plot to Keep You in the Dark About GMOs,” Organic Consumers Association, October 28, 2015, https://www.organicconsumers.org/essays/%E2%80%98qr%E2%80%99-barcodes-latest-plot-keep-you-dark-about-gmos; Andrew Kimbrell, “Obama’s GMO Embarrassment: Why the New Labeling Bill Just Signed Into Law Is a Sham,” Salon, August 7, 2016, http://www.salon.com/2016/08/07/obamas-gmo-embarrassment-why-the-new-labeling-bill-just-signed-into-law-is-a-sham_partner/.

  As with the regulation: “Big Food’s ‘DARK Act’ Introduced in Congress,” Environmental Working Group, April 9, 2014, http://www.ewg.org/release/big-food-s-dark-act-introduced-congress.

  Opponents of the measure: Ibid.

  the law accomplished most of what Big Food desired: Kimbrell, “Obama’s GMO Embarrassment.” See also Ramona Bashshur, “FDA and Regulations of GMOs,” American Bar Association Health eSource 9, no. 6, February 2013.

  Chapter 2

  In the 1950s alone, some 10 million people: Adam Rome, The Bulldozer in the Countryside (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 123; McKay Jenkins, “The Era of Suburban Sprawl Has to End. So, Now What?” Urbanite, May 30, 2012; “How Long Is the Interstate System?” Federal Highway Administration, https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/interstate/faq.cfm#question3.

  These new foods were cheap: Eric Schlosser, Fast Food Nation (New York: Harper Perennial, 2002), 3; Katherine Muniz, “20 Ways Americans Are Blowing Their Money,” USA Today, March 24, 2014, http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/personalfinance/2014/03/24/20-ways-we-blow-our-money/6826633/.

  As industrial farms continued to grow: “Report: Number of Animals Killed in US Increases in 2010,” Farm Animal Rights Movement (FARM), http://farmusa.org/statistics11.html.

  As farms consolidated and grew: Cary Fowler and Pat Mooney, Shattering: Food, Politics and the Loss of Genetic Diversity (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1990), 81.

  Over the course of the twentieth century: USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service, “Field Crops,” http://www.nass.usda.gov/Charts_and_Maps/Field_Crops/.

  Wallace was right: Jack Kloppenberg, First the Seed: The Political Economy of Plant Biotechnology 1492–2000 (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 283, cited by Max John Pfeiffer, “The Labor Process and Capitalist Development of Agriculture,” Rural Sociologist 2, no. 2 (1982): 72–80.

  Suddenly, farmers (and their crops): Michael Pollan, The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals (New York: Penguin, 2006), 45.

  A similar pattern emerged . . . Today, the six top: “The World’s Top 10 Pesticide Firms—Who Owns Nature?” Organic Consumers Association, November 1, 2008, https://www.organicconsumers.org/news/worlds-top-10-pesticide-firms-who-owns-nature.

  This transition, from wartime chemicals: Pollan, The Omnivore’s Dilemma, 43; Jill Richardson, “How Monsanto Went from Selling Aspirin to Controlling Our Food Supply,” TruthOut, April 21, 2013, http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/15856-how-monsanto-went-from-selling-aspirin-to-controlling-our-food-supply.

  True, it cranked up: Balu Bumb and Carlos Baanante, “World Trends in Fertilizer Use and Projections to 2020,” International Food Policy Research Institute, 2020 Brief 38, October 1996, http://ageconsearch.umn.edu/bitstream/16353/1/br38.pdf; Smil quoted in Carl Jordan, An Ecosystem Approach to Sustainable Agriculture (New York: Springer, 2013), 51.

  Similar changes were under way: Steven Lipin, Scott Kilman, and Susan Warren, “DuPont Agrees to Purchase of Seed Firm for $7.7 Billion,” Wall Street Journal, March 15, 1999, http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB921268716949898331.

  Monsanto rejected the bid: Jacob Bunge, “Monsanto Rejects Bayer Merger Offer, Says It’s Open to Talks,” Wall Street Journal, May 25, 2016, http://www.wsj.com/articles/monsanto-rejects-bayer-merger-offer-says-its-open-to-talks-1464110057.

  “This is an important moment in human history”: Quoted in Peter Pringle, Food, Inc.: Mendel to Monsanto—The Promises and Perils of the Biotech Harvest (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2003), 116.

  DNA was known to be: Ania Wieczorek and Mark Wright, “History of Agricultural Biotechnology: How Crop Development has Evolved,” Nature, Education Knowledge 3, no. 3 (2012): 9–15.

  In the late 1980s: Joe Entine and XioaZhi Lim, “Cheese: The GMO Food Die-Hard GMO Opponents Love (and Oppose a Label For),” GMO Literacy Project, May 15, 2015, http://www.geneticliteracyproject.org/2015/05/15/cheese-gmo-food-die-hard-gmo-opponents-love-and-oppose-a-label-for/.

  Monsanto’s most important push: Robin, The World According to Monsanto, 138–142.

  “It was like the Manhattan Project”: Daniel Charles, Lords of the Harvest: Biotech, Big Money, and the Future of Food (Cambridge, MA: Perseus Books, 2002), 67.

  It took four years: Robin, The World According to Monsanto, 139.

  Americans have become very comfortable: Alyssa Battistoni, “Americans Spend Less on Food Than Any Other Country,” Mother Jones, February 1, 2012, http://www.motherjones.com/blue-marble/2012/01/america-food-spending-less.

  Because this system has become: Luke Anderson, Genetic Engineering, Food and Our Environment (New York: Chelsea Green, 1999), 70; Stefan Lovgren, “One-Fifth of Human Genes Have Been Patented, Study Reveals,” National Geographic News, October 13, 2005, http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/10/1013_051013_gene_patent.html; Matthew Albright, “The End of the Revolution,” Council for Responsible Genetics, 2002, http://www.councilforresponsiblegenetics.org/ViewPage.aspx?pageId=168.

  It is also evident: “U.S. Regulation of Genetically Modified Crops,” Case Studies in Agricultural Biosecurity, Federation of American Scientists, http://fas.org/biosecurity/education/dualuse-agriculture/2.-agricultural-biotechnology/us-regulation-of-genetically-engineered-crops.html.

  But in reality: Doug Gurian-Sherman, “Holes in the Biotech Safety Net: FDA Policy Does Not Assure the Safety of Genetically Engineered Foods,” C
enter for Science in the Public Interest, http://www.cspinet.org/new/pdf/fda_report__final.pdf.

  U.S. policy “tends to minimize”: Emily Marden, “Risk and Regulation: U.S. Regulatory Policy on Genetically Modified Food and Agriculture,” Boston College Law Review 44, no. 3 (May 2003), https://www.bc.edu/content/dam/files/schools/law/lawreviews/journals/bclawr/44_3/02_TXT.htm. Marden gives an excellent summary of FDA, USDA, and EPA regulatory history.

  “Our concern for the possible”: Paul Berg, “Potential Biohazards of Recombinant DNA Molecules,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 71, no. 7 (July 1974): 2593–2594.

  After Berg’s letter was published: Marcia Barinaga, “Asilomar Revisited: Lessons for Today,” Science 28, no. 5458 (March 2000): 1584.

  James Watson, one of the discoverers: James Watson and John Tooze, The DNA Story: A Documentary History of Gene Cloning (San Francisco: W. H. Freeman, 1981), 49.

  Watson had nothing but contempt: Quoted in Diane B. Dutton, Worse Than the Disease: Pitfalls of Medical Progress (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 195, 327.

  “In the 1970s, we were all trying”: Quoted in Steven Druker, Altered Genes, Twisted Truth (Salt Lake City: Clear River Press, 2015), 37.

  “As genetic engineering became”: Susan Wright, Molecular Politics: Developing American and British Regulatory Policy for Genetic Engineering, 1972–1982 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994), 107.

  If nothing else: Schlosser, Fast Food Nation, 206.

  “The unintended effects cannot”: Quoted in Druker, Altered Genes, Twisted Truth, 135.

  The director of the FDA’s Center for Veterinary Medicine: Ibid., 133–135.

  “This technology is being promoted”: Suzanne Wuerthele, quoted in Jeffrey Smith, “An FDA-Created Health Crisis Circles the Globe,” quoted ibid., 186.

  “it was clearer than ever that the careers”: Quoted in Druker, Altered Genes and Twisted Truth, 132.

  Despite this backbeat: Memorandum from David Kessler to the Secretary for Health and Human Services, March 20, 1992, quoted in Robin, The World of Monsanto, 259. For more on the effectiveness of federal oversight on GMOs, see William Freese and David Schubert, “Safety Testing and Regulation of Genetically Engineered Foods,” Biotechnology and Genetic Engineering Reviews 21 (November 2004), http://www.centerforfoodsafety.org/files/freese_safetytestingandregulationofgeneticallyebgineeredfoods_nov212004_62269.pdf.

  The FDA policy made it official: “Statement of Policy: Foods Derived from New Plant Varieties,” Federal Register 57, no. 104, sec. VI (May 29, 1992): 22991.

  Genetic manipulation was no different: Kessler’s comments are from Warren Leary, “Cornucopia of New Foods Is Seen As Policy on Engineering Is Eased,” New York Times, May 27, 1992, http://www.nytimes.com/1992/05/27/us/cornucopia-of-new-foods-is-seen-as-policy-on-engineering-is-eased.html.

  The victory of agribusiness: Kurt Eichenwald, Gina Kolata, and Melody Petersen “Biotechnology Food: From the Lab to a Debacle,” New York Times, January 25, 2001, http://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/25/business/25FOOD.html.

  Such policy “will speed up”: Quoted ibid.

  “What Monsanto wanted (and demanded)”: Druker, Altered Genes, Twisted Truth, 138.

  In 2002, a committee of the National Academy of Sciences: National Research Council, “Environmental Effects of Transgenic Plants: The Scope and Adequacy of Regulation,” National Academies Press, 2002, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK207495/. For more on the effectiveness of federal oversight on GMOs, see Freese and Schubert, “Safety Testing and Regulation of Genetically Engineered Foods.”

  The agency’s own policy states: Freese and Schubert, “Safety Testing and Regulation of Genetically Engineered Foods.” And take, for example, the letter the FDA sent to Monsanto about a strain of GMO corn the company hoped to take to market: “Based on the safety and nutritional assessment you have conducted, it is our understanding that Monsanto has concluded that corn products derived from this new variety are not materially different in composition, safety, and other relevant parameters from corn currently on the market, and that the genetically modified corn does not raise issues that would require premarket review or approval by FDA,” the FDA’s letter said. “As you are aware, it is Monsanto’s responsibility to ensure that foods marketed by the firm are safe, wholesome and in compliance with all applicable legal and regulatory requirements.”

  Companies are not always forthcoming: Nathanael Johnson, “The GM Safety Dance: What’s Rule and What’s Real,” Grist, July 10, 2013, http://grist.org/food/the-gm-safety-dance-whats-rule-and-whats-real/.

  For four decades, the American legal system: E. Freeman, “Seed Police? Part 4,” Monsanto.com (November 10, 2008), http://www.monsanto.com/newsviews/Pages/Seed-Police-Part-4.aspx; E. Freeman, “Farmers Reporting Farmers, Part 2,” Monsanto.com (October 10, 2008), http://www.monsanto.com/newsviews/Pages/Farmers-Reporting-Farmers-Part-2.aspx; Jessica Lynd, “Gone with the Wind: Why Even Utility Patents Cannot Fence in Self-Replicating Technologies,” American University Law Review 62, no. 3 (2013): 681–682; “Why Does Monsanto Sue Farmers Who Save Seeds?” Monsanto.com, http://www.monsanto.com/newsviews/pages/why-does-monsanto-sue-farmers-who-save-seeds.aspx.

  “The truth is Percy Schmeiser”: “Percy Schmeiser,” a case summary, Monsanto.com, http://www.monsanto.com/newsviews/pages/percy-schmeiser.aspx.

  This is in direct contrast: “In-Depth: Genetic Modification: Percy Schmeiser’s Battle,” CBC News, May 21, 2004; Phil Bereano and Martin Phillipson, “Goliath vs. Schmeiser: Canadian Court Decision May Leave Multinationals Vulnerable,” GeneWatch 17, no. 4 (July–August 2004); Roger McEowen and Neil Harl, “Key Supreme Court Ruling on Plant Patents,” Ag Decision Maker Newsletter, March 2002, https://www.extension.iastate.edu/agdm/articles/harl/HarlMar02.htm.

  It’s not just that such company-directed: John Vandermeer and Ivette Perfecto, “The AgroEcosystem: A Need for the Conservation Biologist’s Lens,” Conservation Biology 11, no. 3 (June 1997).

  Without broader research: “Fields of Gold: Research on Transgenic Crops Must Be Done Outside Industry If It Is to Fulfill Its Early Promise,” Nature 497, no. 7447 (May 1, 2013). “How FDA Regulates Food from Genetically Engineered Plants,” U.S. Food and Drug Administration, http://www.fda.gov/Food/FoodScienceResearch/GEPlants/ucm461831.htm.

  Chapter 3

  Complete sequences (the “chapters”): “DNA, Genes, and Chromosomes,” University of Leicester, http://www2.le.ac.uk/departments/genetics/vgec/highereducation/topics/dnageneschromosomes.

  All together, an organism’s chromosomal chapters: “Learn.Genetics,” Genetic Science Learning Center, University of Utah, http://learn.genetics.utah.edu. This website offers a useful interactive graphic showing everything from the size of nucleotides and other cellular material to the mechanics of epigenetics.

  A five-year project called ENCODE: Francie Diep, “Friction over Function: Scientists Clash on the Meaning of ENCODE’s Genetic Data,” Scientific American (April 2013), http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/friction-over-function-encode/; Claire Robinson, Michael Antoniou, and John Fagan, GMO Myths and Truths, 3rd ed. (London: Earth Open Source, 2015): 21–22.

  The answer lies in the way genes are expressed: Eric Simon, Jean Dickey, and Jane Reece, Essential Biology (Boston: Pearson, 2013). I have taken much of the description of gene transcription and translation from this excellent text.

  Once the transcript of the RNA: Siwaret Arikit et al., “An Atlas of Soybean Small RNAs Identifies Phased siRNAs from Hundreds of Coding Genes,” Plant Cell 26, no. 12 (December 2014): 4584–4601, http://www.plantcell.org/content/early/2014/12/02 /tpc.114.131847.abstract.

  Some research suggests that even mental health: Ronald and Adamchak, Tomorrow’s Table, 159.

  Exploring these complexities: Adam Thomas, “Maize Genomics,” University of Delaware’s UDaily, March 2, 2015, http://www.udel.e
du/udaily/2015/mar/maize-reproduction-030215.html.

  Fagan is a molecular biologist: Brandon Copple, “Scientist, Activist, Yogi?” Forbes, October 30, 2000, http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2000/1030/6612054b.html.

  How you feel about GMOs: Joel Achenbach, “Why Do So Many Reasonable People Doubt Science?” National Geographic, March 2015, http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2015/03/science-doubters/achenbach-text.

  The study, by Gilles-Éric Séralini: Gilles-Éric Séralini et al.,“Long Term Toxicity of a Roundup Herbicide and a Roundup-Tolerant Genetically Modified Maize,” Food and Chemical Toxicology 50, no. 11 (November 2012): 4221–4231, http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0278691512005637 (where it is now labeled “Retracted”); Druker, Altered Genes, Twisted Truths, 302.

  Jean-Marc Ayrault, France’s prime minister: Andrew Pollack, “Paper Tying Rat Cancer to Herbicide Is Retracted,” New York Times, November 28, 2013, http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/29/health/paper-tying-rat-cancer-to-herbicide-is-retracted.html; “Smelling a Rat,” Economist, December 7, 2013.

  Almost instantly, the journal was deluged: Jon Entine, “Séralini Threatens Lawsuit in Wake of Retraction of Infamous GMO Cancer Rat Study,” Forbes, November 29, 2013, http://www.forbes.com/sites/jonentine/2013/11/29/notorious-seralini-gmo-cancer-rat-study-retracted-ugly-legal-battle-looms/; Kate Kelland, “Journal Withdraws Controversial French Monsanto GMO Study,” Reuters, November 29, 2013, http://www.reuters.com/article/science-gm-retraction-idUSL2N0JE0FM20131129; “GMO Study Retracted: Censorship of Caution?” Living on Earth, December 6, 2013, http://loe.org/shows/segments.html?programID=13-P13-00049&segmentID=2. See also letters to the editor posted at http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0278691512005637.

  A more in-depth look: “Elsevier Announces Article Retraction from Journal Food and Chemical Toxicology,” Elsevier.com, November 28, 2013, http://www.elsevier.com/about/press-releases/research-and-journals/elsevier-announces-article-retraction-from-journal-food-and-chemical-toxicology#sthash.KgeQj4lq.dpuf.