A Lonely Quest for Facts on Genetically Modified Crops
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KONA, Hawaii (The New York Times) — From the moment the bill to ban genetically engineered crops on the island of Hawaii was introduced in May 2013, it garnered more vocal support than any the County Council here had ever considered, even the perennially popular bids to decriminalize marijuana.
Papaya genetically modified to resist a virus became one part of a controversy.
Public hearings were dominated by recitations of the ills often
attributed to genetically modified organisms, or G.M.O.s: Cancer in
rats, a rise in childhood allergies, out-of-control superweeds, genetic
contamination, overuse of pesticides, the disappearance of butterflies
and bees.
Like some others on the nine-member Council, Greggor Ilagan was not
even sure at the outset of the debate exactly what genetically modified
organisms were: living things whose DNA has been altered, often with the
addition of a gene from a distant species, to produce a desired trait.
But he could see why almost all of his colleagues had been persuaded of
the virtue of turning the island into what the bill’s proponents called a
“G.M.O.-free oasis.”
“You just type ‘G.M.O.’ and everything you see is negative,” he told
his staff. Opposing the ban also seemed likely to ruin anyone’s
re-election prospects.
Yet doubts nagged at the councilman, who was serving his first two-year
term. The island’s papaya farmers said that an engineered variety had
saved their fruit from a devastating disease. A study reporting that a
diet of G.M.O. corn caused tumors in rats, mentioned often by the ban’s
supporters, turned out to have been thoroughly debunked.
Tangible benefits
And University of Hawaii biologists urged the Council to consider the
global scientific consensus, which holds that existing genetically
engineered crops are no riskier than others, and have provided some
tangible benefits.
“Are we going to just ignore them?” Ilagan wondered.
Urged on by Margaret Wille, the ban’s sponsor, who spoke passionately
of the need to “act before it’s too late,” the Council declined to form a
task force to look into such questions before its November vote. But
Ilagan, 27, sought answers on his own. In the process, he found
himself, like so many public and business leaders worldwide, wrestling
with a subject in which popular beliefs often do not reflect scientific
evidence.
At stake is how to grow healthful food most efficiently, at a time when
a warming world and a growing population make that goal all the more
urgent.
Scientists, who have come to rely on liberals in political battles over
stem-cell research, climate change and the teaching of evolution, have
been dismayed to find themselves at odds with their traditional allies
on this issue. Some compare the hostility to G.M.O.s to the rejection of
climate-change science, except with liberal opponents instead of
conservative ones.
“These are my people, they’re lefties, I’m with them on almost
everything,” said Michael Shintaku, a plant pathologist at the
University of Hawaii at Hilo, who testified several times against the
bill. “It hurts.”
But, supporters of the ban warned, scientists had not always correctly
assessed the health and environmental risks of new technology. “Remember
DDT?” one proponent demanded.
Cultivation of GE crops
Wille’s bill would ban the cultivation of any genetically engineered
crop on the island, with the exception of the two already grown there:
Corn recently planted by an island dairy to feed its cows, and papaya.
Field tests to study new G.M.O. crops would also be prohibited.
Penalties would be $1,000 per day.
Like three-quarters of the voters on Hawaii Island, known as the Big
Island, Ilagan supported President Obama in the 2012 election. When he
took office himself a month later, after six years in the Air National
Guard, he planned to focus on squatters, crime prevention and the
inauguration of a bus line in his district on the island’s eastern rim.
He had also promised himself that he would take a stance on all topics,
never registering a “kanalua” vote — the Hawaiian term for “with
reservation.”
But with the G.M.O. bill, he often despaired of assembling the
information he needed to definitively decide. Every time he answered one
question, it seemed, new ones arose. Popular opinion masqueraded
convincingly as science, and the science itself was hard to grasp.
People who spoke as experts lacked credentials, and G.M.O. critics
discounted those with credentials as being pawns of biotechnology
companies.
“It takes so much time to find out what’s true,” he complained.
So many emails arrived in support of the ban that, as a matter of
environmental responsibility, the Council clerks suspended the custom of
printing them out for each Council member. But Ilagan had only to
consult his inbox to be reminded of the prevailing opinion.
“Do the right thing,” one Chicago woman wrote, “or no one will want to take a toxic tour of your poisoned paradise.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/05/us/on-hawaii-a-lonely-quest-for-facts-about-gmos.html?emc=edit_tnt_20140104&tntemail0=y
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