Hoover Institution: The Frankenfood Myth; How Protest and Politics Threaten the Biotech Revolution By Henry I. Miller and Gregory Conko.STANFORD, Calif. -- Few topics have inspired as much international furor furor /fu·ror/ (fu´ror) fury; rage. furor epilep´ticus an attack of intense anger occurring in epilepsy. and misinformation mis·in·form tr.v. mis·in·formed, mis·in·form·ing, mis·in·forms To provide with incorrect information. mis as the development and distribution of genetically altered foods. For thousands of years, farmers have bred crops for their resistance to disease, productivity, and nutritional value; and over the past century, scientists have used increasingly more sophisticated methods for modifying them at the genetic level. But only since the 1970s have advances in biotechnology (or gene-splicing to be more precise) upped the ante, with the promise of dramatically improved agricultural products -- and public resistance far out of synch with the potential risks. In The Frankenfood Myth: How Protest and Politics Threaten the Biotech Revolution, Hoover research fellow Henry Miller and Gregory Conko trace the origins of gene-splicing, its applications, and the backlash from consumer groups and government agencies against so-called "Frankenfoods" -- from America to Zimbabwe. They explain how a "happy conspiracy" of anti-technology activism, bureaucratic over-reach, and business lobbying has resulted in a regulatory framework in which there is an inverse relationship A inverse or negative relationship is a mathematical relationship in which one variable decreases as another increases. For example, there is an inverse relationship between education and unemployment — that is, as education increases, the rate of unemployment between the degree of product risk and degree of regulatory scrutiny. The net result, they argue, is a combination of public confusion, political manipulation, ill-conceived regulation (from such agencies as the USDA USDA, n.pr See United States Department of Agriculture. , EPA EPA eicosapentaenoic acid. EPA abbr. eicosapentaenoic acid EPA, n.pr See acid, eicosapentaenoic. EPA, n. , and FDA FDA abbr. Food and Drug Administration FDA, n.pr See Food and Drug Administration. FDA, n.pr the abbreviation for the Food and Drug Administration. ), and ultimately, the obstruction of one of the safest and most promising technologies ever developed -- with profoundly negative consequences for the environment and starving people around the world. The authors suggest a way to emerge from this morass, proposing a variety of business and policy reforms that can unlock the potential of this cutting-edge science, while ensuring appropriate safeguards and moving environmentally friendly Environmentally friendly, also referred to as nature friendly, is a term used to refer to goods and services considered to inflict minimal harm on the environment.[1] products into the hands of farmers and consumers. This book is guaranteed to fuel the ongoing debate over the future of biotech and its cultural, economic, and political implications. The Frankenfood Myth How Protest and Politics Threaten the Biotech Revolution By Henry I. Miller and Gregory Conko ISBN: 0-275-97879-6 $39.95 296 pages September 2004 |
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