Food labeling backers retrench.

Byline: TIM CHRISTIE The Register-Guard

Steven Druker, a leading activist against genetically modified foods, traveled to Oregon this fall to campaign for the state ballot measure that would have required labeling of such foods.

But he now says the nature of the Measure 27 debate obscured the real issue: His contention that genetically modified foods pose unique health risks and are on the market in violation of federal law.

"The issue of labeling is secondary," said Druker, executive director of the Alliance for Bio-Integrity, based in Iowa. "If the facts had been reported that the FDA's own scientists have recognized that GM foods do entail distinct human health risks, these foods wouldn't be on the market."

Federal law requires that new foods - those that don't have a long history of safe use - must undergo standard scientific procedures to clearly demonstrate that they're safe, and that hasn't happened with genetically modified foods, Druker said.

In 1998, his organization sued to obtain internal documents written by Food and Drug Administration scientists expressing their concern about genetically modified foods. But political appointees to the FDA were determined to support the biotech industry and disregarded the concerns, he said. He blames the mainstream news media for not reporting this aspect of the story.

"What the consumers really have a right to know is what government scientists said about the unique health hazards of GM foods," he said. "They have a right to know that politically appointed bureaucrats decided to cover up what the scientists said."

Druker is especially critical of an Oct. 4 letter that Deputy FDA Commissioner Lester Crawford sent to Gov. John Kitzhaber.

"FDA's scientific judgment is that there is no significant difference between foods produced using bioengineering, as a class, and their conventional counterparts," Crawford wrote.

He also said his agency's scientific evaluation of genetically modified foods has shown that they "are as safe as their conventional counterparts."

An FDA spokeswoman declined to respond to Druker's claims, saying only that the letter from Crawford to Kitzhaber represents the agency's current policy.

In his own letter to Kitzhaber, Druker wrote, "It is clear that the FDA ... has been intentionally deceiving (the public) by misrepresenting the facts and covering up the concerns about health hazards raised by its own experts."

Druker cites specific comments from FDA scientists: In an October 1991 memo, Edwin Matthews of the FDA's Toxicology Group wrote that genetically modified plants could contain unexpected toxins.

While a genetically modified plant and a regular plant may have the same profile for plant toxins, it's possible genetically modified plants "could also contain unexpected high concentrations of plant toxicants," Matthews wrote.

In a February 1992 memo, Gerald Guest, the director of the FDA's Center for Veterinary Medicine, called for genetically modified products to be demonstrated as safe before marketing because "animal feeds derived from genetically modified plants present unique animal and food safety concerns."

Despite those concerns, the FDA in May 1992 issued a policy stating that genetically modified foods were "substantially equivalent" to conventional foods, and so it doesn't require additional testing before genetically modified foods go on the market.

Druker said the story didn't get out to Oregon voters. Or if it did, it wasn't enough to get them to vote for Measure 27 in the Nov. 5 election. Seven out of 10 Oregon voters rejected the measure.

It would have required labeling for any food that contains genetically modified ingredients.

About 70 percent of processed foods now contain some genetically modified ingredients, often in the form of corn syrup, corn starch, soybean oil, lecithin or cottonseed oil, which can be derived from GM corn, soybeans or cotton.

To genetically modify a crop, scientists take a gene from one plant or animal and add it to another to enhance a specific trait, such as resistance to frost or pesticides.

Proponents and opponents are still sorting out what the election results mean for future efforts to label genetically modified foods.

Proponents say the campaign generated national news coverage and raised awareness among consumers. They promised to continue to push the issue.

Opponents say the dismal performance shows that the idea failed to capture voters' imaginations, and that the issue is unlikely to gain traction in other states.

The measure went down with 71 percent of voters casting no votes and 29 percent voting yes. In Lane County, 64 percent of voters cast no votes and 36 percent voted yes.

Jim Moore, a Portland political analyst, said despite Measure 27's big loss at the polls, the issue isn't going away.

"I think this is the first step toward more regulation of genetically modified foods," he said.

It's not uncommon for new ideas to get trounced by voters the first time out, he said, and then slowly build support until they become accepted.

Pressure to label will come through trade agreements that the United States has with other countries, such as those in the European Union, that require labeling of genetically modified foods, he said.

But he said proponents must find a wealthy backer - such as billionaire George Soros, who has been a big backer of medical marijuana campaigns - to help counter the millions spent by the biotech industry to defeat labeling.

Craig Winters, executive director of the Campaign to Label Genetically Modified Foods in Seattle, said he's not discouraged by the defeat of Measure 27, calling it "a real effective stepping stone."

"It raised awareness of the issue all around the United States and all around the world," he said.

His organization is launching a new drive to generate grass-roots support for labeling genetically modified foods. He's drafting a resolution that activists can seek to have adopted by their city and county councils.

The resolution will urge Congress to adopt a labeling law and require safety testing of GM crops. Some cities, including Boston, Austin, and Minneapolis, have passed similar resolutions, he said.

Winters also plans to encourage activists to lobby their state legislators. Such efforts may be more effective than initiative campaigns, he said.

"One thing about the initiative process, it's not the best way to express grass-roots activism," he said. It's costly to get issues on the ballot, and it's costly to run a campaign against well-funded opposition, he said.

Mel Bankoff of Eugene, founder of organic food maker Emerald Valley Kitchen and a major backer of Measure 27, said it's clear the campaign raised public awareness about genetically modified foods.

"Prior to the election, most people didn't know food was genetically engineered, and even those who did didn't understand the difference between genetically engineered and standard hybridization," he said.

Opponents of Measure 27, meanwhile, say the proposal doesn't provide much of a launching pad for future efforts.

"I don't see how you can consider it anything but a setback," said Pat McCormick, a veteran Oregon political consultant who led the campaign to defeat Measure 27. "If in a state like Oregon you can't get 30 percent of voters to agree with you, the chances of getting that kind of support anywhere else are slim to none."

In September, polls showed 65 percent of likely voters supported Measure 27, but by the end of October, after an advertising blitz funded by the food processing and biotech industries, polls showed 65 percent of voters opposing the measure.

"It's very had to see how they can gain much momentum from the experience in Oregon," McCormick said, "because they started with a measure that had strong initial support and watched it whither away."

Likewise, the National Food Processors Association doesn't think the issue will necessarily gain more traction in other states, said spokesman Timothy Willard.

"We have no reason to think this kind of initiative would be any more successful in other states," he said.

"The feeling we have why this was such an overwhelming defeat is really, consumers got a pretty good understanding of not only how costly this would have been, but also they felt the existing label requirements make sense and didn't feel Oregon needed a separate set of requirements."

GENETICALLY MODIFIED FOODS

To view internal memos written by government scientists, go to www.biointegrity.org.

The Campaign to Label Genetically Modified Foods runs a Web site at www.thecampaign.org. Leaders plan to post a sample pro-labeling resolution that activists can take to city and county elected officials.