Kavin Senapathy and Henry I. Miller  Government regulation should be based on science, precedent and maybe even a bit of common sense, but when it comes to the oversight of food, the landscape has become an ideological quagmire. Controversies rage about what qualifies as “natural,” whether foods produced from organisms modified with modern techniques of genetic engineering (sometimes called “genetically modified organisms,” or “GMOs”) should be labeled as such, and more.  According to activists, the government is doing a dismal job of regulating the food industry. They compare the feds to a fox in an organic, all-natural, free-range, fair-trade chicken coop, claiming that both the FDA and USDA are deep in the pockets of Big Agribusiness. As usual, the activists have gotten hold of the wrong end of the stick.  A demonstrator holds a poster during a World March Against Monsanto event in Lisbon Saturday, May 23, 2015. . (AP Photo/Armando Franca)  Genetic engineering in agriculture offers especially fertile soil for disagreement and dissembling. “The FDA Does Not Test Whether GMOs are Safe,” blares a headline from an anti-genetic engineering lobbying organization funded by the organic industry. Well, we have news for them: The feds don’t test new planes from Boeing or pesticides from Dow or Bayer, either; like virtually all other new consumer products, extensive testing is done by the manufacturer, after which federal regulators carefully scrutinize the data.  Jeffrey Smith, a professional swing dancer, yogic levitator, stalwart of the anti-GE movement and general nut-case, displayed his ignorance and paranoia prominently in the Puffington Host, “[J]ust as a Monsanto man guided FDA policy, GMO review committees worldwide are often stacked with industry representatives who rubber stamp approvals or declare GMOs safe by ignoring data to the contrary.” Wrong, wrong and wrong.  In the United States and most other countries, reviews are performed by full-time professional government regulators. And as for being a rubber stamp, the fruits of modern molecular genetic engineering are—quite unnecessarily–the most scrutinized class of products we consume. The reviews have been intense and excessively prolonged.  Conspiracy theories and mistrust of regulators abound in the social media pages of the anti-technology groups. One commenter lamented, “The USDA and the FDA no longer try to protect the American people. They are totally run by Monsanto, Dow, Syngenta, Bayer and others. These deep pockets have bought these agencies, and policy is totally run by these powerful corporations.”
If genetic engineering applied to agriculture and environmental applications is to realize anything approaching its potential, we need to reject the self-serving demands of anti-technology activists, educate the public, and carry out much needed regulatory reform.