Title: Consumers and the Case for Labeling Genfoods
Abstract: ABSTRACT Since the mid-1990s, Argentina, Canada, and the United States have surreptitiously introduced genetically food crops in their domestic as well as international markets. Despite the many health uncertainties surrounding these products, the aforementioned countries have not subjected their genfoods to either mandatory safety tests or labeling requirements. Consequently, consumers in these countries have not only been exposed to potentially unsafe food but they have also been unable to differentiate GE from non-GE foods, making it increasingly difficult for them to exercise food choices in accordance with their health, religion, morals, culture, and political views. This regulatory framework, in particular the anti-GE labeling policy, violates a myriad of ethical imperatives that place an onus upon governments to protect the integrity, autonomy, and health of consumers. Given the gravity of this violation, the author argues that the Miami Group countries should label products of agricultural biotechnology. Introduction For more than ten thousand years, humans have modified the genetic traits of crops by selectively breeding the most nutritious, resilient, and disease/pest resistant plants. Through this simple form of agricultural biotechnology, farmers naturally engineered new combinations of to produce superior plant stocks (Teitel and Wilson 1999, pp. 12 14).1 However, because undesirable traits were frequently passed along with the desirable traits, this traditional technique required successive generations of plant breeding, making it relatively slow, demanding, and uncontrollable. With the advent of new biotechnologies such as genetic engineering in the late 1980s, these drawbacks were suddenly removed. Utilizing recombinant DNA technology, genetic engineering extracts a known, specific trait from a living donor organism (plant, human, animal, bacteria, or microbe) and splices it into a recipient organism's preexisting DNA. With this novel technology, food producers were finally able to modify the genetic makeup of organisms precisely and predictably, creating improved plant varieties faster and easier than?traditional techniques (Henkel 1998). Since its application to agriculture in 1993, food crops have acquired the necessary genes to: resist diseases/pests, tolerate drought conditions, increase shelf life, and obviate or reduce the use of herbicides (weed-killers) and pesticides.2 By reducing excessive reliance on water and chemical agents, the proponents of genetic engineering have touted this technology as a means to protect the environment. More importantly, in maximizing agricultural yields, genetic engineering has universally been hailed as a panacea to end global hunger, malnutrition, and food insecurity. In spite of its benefits, there is as much opposition to the science as there is support. In recent years, critics have voiced extrinsic or consequentialist objections that such foods pose uncertain, and perhaps unknown, risks that may seriously threaten human health, animal welfare, biodiversity, and environmental safety. In addition, many other critics and consumer advocates have expressed intrinsic or integrity-based concerns that genetically foods, even if proven safe, are incompatible with the fundamental values and beliefs of certain individual moral agents or groups (Pascalev 2003). Despite these significant objections to genfoods, the governments of Argentina, Canada, and the United States have not regulated these products any differently from their unmodified parental strains.3 In these countries, collectively called the Miami Group, transgenic crops are not subjected to any mandatory safety tests or labeling requirements; they are evaluated, marketed, and introduced akin to traditional foods.4 Such a method of regulation not only withholds crucial information from consumers but it also exposes them to potentially unsafe food, compromising their health as well as their ability to make informed market decisions. …
Publication Year: 2007
Publication Date: 2007-07-01
Language: en
Type: article
Access and Citation
Cited By Count: 1
AI Researcher Chatbot
Get quick answers to your questions about the article from our AI researcher chatbot