Laboratory Diet
Transcript
BOB GARFIELD: This is On the Media. I'm Bob Garfield.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:: And I'm Brooke Gladstone. We are what we eat, but last month a survey released by the Pew Initiative on Food and Biotechnology found that Americans don't really know what they're eating. According to Pew, the United States has planted more genetically-modified, or GM, crops, than any other country for more than a decade. In 2003, GM crops like corn, cotton and soybeans covered 105.7 million acres of American farmland, yet despite years of worldwide debate, 58 percent of Americans polled were unaware of the GM food in their cupboard. Dr. Michael Fernandez is the executive director of the Pew Initiative. He says that while awareness of GM foods actually is up a little in the last year, attitudes have not changed.
DR. MICHAEL FERNANDEZ:: Generally speaking, the attitudes towards genetically engineered foods in this country have remained fairly steady over the period of time that we've looked. There's a small portion of consumers who are adamantly opposed, an also relatively small portion of consumers that are strongly in favor, and the vast majority of consumers appear to be somewhere in the middle.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:: And the survey suggests that ignorance is bliss, or at least general complacency. While 50 percent of those who have heard about GM foods believe they've eaten them, only 15 percent of the group who hadn't heard of them believed they'd eaten them. So I guess we don't know what we don't know.
DR. MICHAEL FERNANDEZ:: [LAUGHS] That's correct. It seems that there is some correlation between the awareness and knowledge and attitudes, although that correlation is not perfect across all questions that we've asked.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:: Do your findings correlate with what you see in the American press, in terms of the amount of coverage?
DR. MICHAEL FERNANDEZ:: I think that the amount of coverage has been, to my mind, relatively consistent with what the interest of the American people is. When there is some kind of controversy, there tend to be more stories, there tends to be more attention. In general, this is not an issue that is at the top of the mind of American consumers, and it's not an issue that's been, you know, at the top of the minds of the press.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:: Any thoughts on why this issue is so much bigger in Europe, in Asia, in Africa, just generally in the rest of the world?
DR. MICHAEL FERNANDEZ:: Probably the predominant reason, at least that many people believe, is that American consumers tend to have a higher degree of confidence and trust in the regulatory system and in our food safety system. So let me just give you one example. In 2003, we did a poll where we asked the question, "Who do you trust for information about genetically-engineered foods, genetically-modified foods?" And the number one, you know, vote-getter, if you will, was the Food and Drug Administration. Eighty-three percent of the people responding said that they trusted the FDA for information.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:: Dr. Michael Fernandez is the executive director of the Pew Initiative on Food and Biotechnology. Michael Pollan is director of the Knight Program in Science and Environmental Journalism at the University of California, Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. I asked him why the GM food issue is such a non-issue in the U.S. press.
MICHAEL POLLAN:: Basically when it comes to a controversial issue, there has to be controversy for it to surface in the media. And the interesting thing about GMOs, genetically-modified food, is it is one issue where both political parties were on the same side right from the get-go. And when you have two political parties in America agree on anything, the space for any kind of debate or politics essentially disappears. And the media is very much at the mercy of that situation. It's very hard for the media to cover an issue that the political parties are not fighting about or there aren't people in the streets about. And there are no people in the streets on this issue.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:: And I just wonder why they're in the streets in England, Italy, China, Brazil, around the globe - everywhere but here. Did we just not get the memo or what?
MICHAEL POLLAN:: Well, no. The industry bought silence by essentially enlisting the support of both political parties. We have to go back to the history a little bit. Genetically-modified food kind of comes up for consideration by the government at the end of the first Bush Administration. Dan Quayle is put in charge of regulatory review. And at that point, they essentially decided that genetically-modified food should have no regulation whatsoever; we should encourage it. There is something called "substantial equivalence" between genetically-modified food and other food, and therefore the new genes you're putting in or the new proteins the food is producing is not a food additive. Had they decided that those things were food additives - and, by the way, they are food additives, they're new things that weren't in the food before - but sort of by fiat, they said, no, no, no, this stuff is substantially equivalent, so therefore the FDA doesn't need to regulate it. Right at the end of this process, the Clinton Administration comes in, and they're gung-ho for GMO food too. So you had both parties essentially on board. And that is one sure way to make sure that Americans don't hear about something.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:: Now, Michael, I don't want to put you in the position of having to argue the science about this thing, but why so many people in the rest of the world are worried about it and we're not - it's still a puzzling issue. And when you look - [OVERTALK]
MICHAEL POLLAN:: Sure.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:: - at the Pew study, it does suggest that America has a thorough-going belief in its regulatory system. Americans seem to be under the impression that the FDA is looking out for us, but you're saying it isn't. It hasn't been asked to.
MICHAEL POLLAN:: No. It's a misplaced confidence, frankly. The FDA is essentially not involved with most of these crops and, in fact, a lot of people don't realize that. Even when I was reporting on Monsanto, there were people there who'd say things to me like, well, it's the FDA's job to assure the safety of this stuff, it's our job to sell as much of it as possible. But, in fact, it was the EPA that was regulating the crops in question. Why? Well, because essentially they're pesticides. These are crops that are designed to produce pesticides. So there's a lot of confusion, actually, about the way the regulation works. But your point is still a good one, which is that Americans generally are very confident in our regulators. They assume that this technology has really been looked at carefully and they assume that there are all these kind of tests. But, in fact, you know, those tests didn't really take place. That's not to say - I don't mean to raise an alarm, because I do think the Europeans can be really hysterical about this issue and have been, and they have their own reasons. And some of their reasons for objecting to GMOs are sound, and some of their reasons are simply protectionism. And some of them is, it's an American technology and part of an American effort to, you know, take over the world's food supply, and that's how they see it. But we have much more confidence in our regulators, whether it's misplaced or not.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:: And, of course, a big difference between Americans and Europeans is that they've been burned.
MICHAEL POLLAN:: Well, yeah. I mean, the history of food regulation in Europe - I mean, you have mad cow disease and hoof-and-mouth disease that essentially destroyed European's confidence in their regulators. And we have not had that experience. You know, could the media do a better job informing us about what we're eating and what's going on in our food supply? Sure. But it's very hard to do in the absence of a real political debate on the issue. Dennis Kucinich was the last person in Congress to try to make an issue of genetically-modified food, and he could not get co-sponsors on a bill to simply label the stuff, which, by the way, is the reason we don't know about it. It's not labeled.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:: We aren't generally as suspicious of new technology. We don't mind - [OVERTALK]
MICHAEL POLLAN:: No.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:: - high-tech food.
MICHAEL POLLAN:: Exactly right. You know, we love technology. Look at what we eat. We're the people who ate Olestra.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:: [LAUGHS]
MICHAEL POLLAN:: You know, this is a fake fat. There are warnings on the labels that it causes anal leakage. And - [OVERTALK]
BROOKE GLADSTONE:: I know. [LAUGHS]
MICHAEL POLLAN:: And they still can sell this stuff. So I think that we have a very high threshold for what's going to alarm us about our food. Frankly, I think had the industry been able to come out and say, we're making this food, it's going to mean less pesticide, it's going to mean more nutrition, and whatever, you know, promises they could make, I think we would have gotten on board.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:: Well, wait a minute. We have gone on board, haven't we?
MICHAEL POLLAN:: Oh, yeah, but it's one thing to get on board and it's another to just have it slipped into your food supply without knowing it. I - [OVERTALK]
BROOKE GLADSTONE:: Oh, right.
MICHAEL POLLAN:: - wouldn't say - I wouldn't say we've gotten on board. This poll says that a majority of people are still unaware that they're eating this stuff. So, no, it's not fair to say we've gotten on board. I think it's more fair to say most of us don't really realize this is what we're eating. If we did realize, would we object? I'm not so sure. And the reason for that is we don't mind high-tech food, by and large, if you can tell us that it's going to, you know, take the pounds off or taste really good or be really convenient. But the reason the industry could not make that argument is that their products essentially offer the consumer absolutely nothing. These are products designed to help farmers, allegedly.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:: If the FDA isn't actually watching over this, if Congress isn't actually watching over this, then doesn't it fall to the media, the mainstream media, to act as the watchdog?
MICHAEL POLLAN:: Wouldn't it be wonderful? Yes, in my fondest dreams, the mainstream media would act on its own authority to question these kind of things, to engage in debate and to counter the silence. I think that they need to come up with a different model. I mean, our model of kind of "on the one hand/on the other hand" journalism leaves you vulnerable, that, you know, the news is essentially what politicians says is news, unless you're talking about natural disasters or tremendous protests in the street. We have planted 100 million acres of these new crops, taking a tremendous experiment with our ecosystem - and possibly with our health - without a thorough examination and thorough testing. That's a scandal. That is a scandal.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:: Well, Michael, thank you very much.
MICHAEL POLLAN:: My pleasure, Brooke. Always good to be here.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:: Michael Pollan teaches journalism at the University of California at Berkeley. His new book, The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals, will be out in April.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:: And I'm Brooke Gladstone. We are what we eat, but last month a survey released by the Pew Initiative on Food and Biotechnology found that Americans don't really know what they're eating. According to Pew, the United States has planted more genetically-modified, or GM, crops, than any other country for more than a decade. In 2003, GM crops like corn, cotton and soybeans covered 105.7 million acres of American farmland, yet despite years of worldwide debate, 58 percent of Americans polled were unaware of the GM food in their cupboard. Dr. Michael Fernandez is the executive director of the Pew Initiative. He says that while awareness of GM foods actually is up a little in the last year, attitudes have not changed.
DR. MICHAEL FERNANDEZ:: Generally speaking, the attitudes towards genetically engineered foods in this country have remained fairly steady over the period of time that we've looked. There's a small portion of consumers who are adamantly opposed, an also relatively small portion of consumers that are strongly in favor, and the vast majority of consumers appear to be somewhere in the middle.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:: And the survey suggests that ignorance is bliss, or at least general complacency. While 50 percent of those who have heard about GM foods believe they've eaten them, only 15 percent of the group who hadn't heard of them believed they'd eaten them. So I guess we don't know what we don't know.
DR. MICHAEL FERNANDEZ:: [LAUGHS] That's correct. It seems that there is some correlation between the awareness and knowledge and attitudes, although that correlation is not perfect across all questions that we've asked.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:: Do your findings correlate with what you see in the American press, in terms of the amount of coverage?
DR. MICHAEL FERNANDEZ:: I think that the amount of coverage has been, to my mind, relatively consistent with what the interest of the American people is. When there is some kind of controversy, there tend to be more stories, there tends to be more attention. In general, this is not an issue that is at the top of the mind of American consumers, and it's not an issue that's been, you know, at the top of the minds of the press.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:: Any thoughts on why this issue is so much bigger in Europe, in Asia, in Africa, just generally in the rest of the world?
DR. MICHAEL FERNANDEZ:: Probably the predominant reason, at least that many people believe, is that American consumers tend to have a higher degree of confidence and trust in the regulatory system and in our food safety system. So let me just give you one example. In 2003, we did a poll where we asked the question, "Who do you trust for information about genetically-engineered foods, genetically-modified foods?" And the number one, you know, vote-getter, if you will, was the Food and Drug Administration. Eighty-three percent of the people responding said that they trusted the FDA for information.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:: Dr. Michael Fernandez is the executive director of the Pew Initiative on Food and Biotechnology. Michael Pollan is director of the Knight Program in Science and Environmental Journalism at the University of California, Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. I asked him why the GM food issue is such a non-issue in the U.S. press.
MICHAEL POLLAN:: Basically when it comes to a controversial issue, there has to be controversy for it to surface in the media. And the interesting thing about GMOs, genetically-modified food, is it is one issue where both political parties were on the same side right from the get-go. And when you have two political parties in America agree on anything, the space for any kind of debate or politics essentially disappears. And the media is very much at the mercy of that situation. It's very hard for the media to cover an issue that the political parties are not fighting about or there aren't people in the streets about. And there are no people in the streets on this issue.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:: And I just wonder why they're in the streets in England, Italy, China, Brazil, around the globe - everywhere but here. Did we just not get the memo or what?
MICHAEL POLLAN:: Well, no. The industry bought silence by essentially enlisting the support of both political parties. We have to go back to the history a little bit. Genetically-modified food kind of comes up for consideration by the government at the end of the first Bush Administration. Dan Quayle is put in charge of regulatory review. And at that point, they essentially decided that genetically-modified food should have no regulation whatsoever; we should encourage it. There is something called "substantial equivalence" between genetically-modified food and other food, and therefore the new genes you're putting in or the new proteins the food is producing is not a food additive. Had they decided that those things were food additives - and, by the way, they are food additives, they're new things that weren't in the food before - but sort of by fiat, they said, no, no, no, this stuff is substantially equivalent, so therefore the FDA doesn't need to regulate it. Right at the end of this process, the Clinton Administration comes in, and they're gung-ho for GMO food too. So you had both parties essentially on board. And that is one sure way to make sure that Americans don't hear about something.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:: Now, Michael, I don't want to put you in the position of having to argue the science about this thing, but why so many people in the rest of the world are worried about it and we're not - it's still a puzzling issue. And when you look - [OVERTALK]
MICHAEL POLLAN:: Sure.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:: - at the Pew study, it does suggest that America has a thorough-going belief in its regulatory system. Americans seem to be under the impression that the FDA is looking out for us, but you're saying it isn't. It hasn't been asked to.
MICHAEL POLLAN:: No. It's a misplaced confidence, frankly. The FDA is essentially not involved with most of these crops and, in fact, a lot of people don't realize that. Even when I was reporting on Monsanto, there were people there who'd say things to me like, well, it's the FDA's job to assure the safety of this stuff, it's our job to sell as much of it as possible. But, in fact, it was the EPA that was regulating the crops in question. Why? Well, because essentially they're pesticides. These are crops that are designed to produce pesticides. So there's a lot of confusion, actually, about the way the regulation works. But your point is still a good one, which is that Americans generally are very confident in our regulators. They assume that this technology has really been looked at carefully and they assume that there are all these kind of tests. But, in fact, you know, those tests didn't really take place. That's not to say - I don't mean to raise an alarm, because I do think the Europeans can be really hysterical about this issue and have been, and they have their own reasons. And some of their reasons for objecting to GMOs are sound, and some of their reasons are simply protectionism. And some of them is, it's an American technology and part of an American effort to, you know, take over the world's food supply, and that's how they see it. But we have much more confidence in our regulators, whether it's misplaced or not.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:: And, of course, a big difference between Americans and Europeans is that they've been burned.
MICHAEL POLLAN:: Well, yeah. I mean, the history of food regulation in Europe - I mean, you have mad cow disease and hoof-and-mouth disease that essentially destroyed European's confidence in their regulators. And we have not had that experience. You know, could the media do a better job informing us about what we're eating and what's going on in our food supply? Sure. But it's very hard to do in the absence of a real political debate on the issue. Dennis Kucinich was the last person in Congress to try to make an issue of genetically-modified food, and he could not get co-sponsors on a bill to simply label the stuff, which, by the way, is the reason we don't know about it. It's not labeled.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:: We aren't generally as suspicious of new technology. We don't mind - [OVERTALK]
MICHAEL POLLAN:: No.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:: - high-tech food.
MICHAEL POLLAN:: Exactly right. You know, we love technology. Look at what we eat. We're the people who ate Olestra.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:: [LAUGHS]
MICHAEL POLLAN:: You know, this is a fake fat. There are warnings on the labels that it causes anal leakage. And - [OVERTALK]
BROOKE GLADSTONE:: I know. [LAUGHS]
MICHAEL POLLAN:: And they still can sell this stuff. So I think that we have a very high threshold for what's going to alarm us about our food. Frankly, I think had the industry been able to come out and say, we're making this food, it's going to mean less pesticide, it's going to mean more nutrition, and whatever, you know, promises they could make, I think we would have gotten on board.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:: Well, wait a minute. We have gone on board, haven't we?
MICHAEL POLLAN:: Oh, yeah, but it's one thing to get on board and it's another to just have it slipped into your food supply without knowing it. I - [OVERTALK]
BROOKE GLADSTONE:: Oh, right.
MICHAEL POLLAN:: - wouldn't say - I wouldn't say we've gotten on board. This poll says that a majority of people are still unaware that they're eating this stuff. So, no, it's not fair to say we've gotten on board. I think it's more fair to say most of us don't really realize this is what we're eating. If we did realize, would we object? I'm not so sure. And the reason for that is we don't mind high-tech food, by and large, if you can tell us that it's going to, you know, take the pounds off or taste really good or be really convenient. But the reason the industry could not make that argument is that their products essentially offer the consumer absolutely nothing. These are products designed to help farmers, allegedly.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:: If the FDA isn't actually watching over this, if Congress isn't actually watching over this, then doesn't it fall to the media, the mainstream media, to act as the watchdog?
MICHAEL POLLAN:: Wouldn't it be wonderful? Yes, in my fondest dreams, the mainstream media would act on its own authority to question these kind of things, to engage in debate and to counter the silence. I think that they need to come up with a different model. I mean, our model of kind of "on the one hand/on the other hand" journalism leaves you vulnerable, that, you know, the news is essentially what politicians says is news, unless you're talking about natural disasters or tremendous protests in the street. We have planted 100 million acres of these new crops, taking a tremendous experiment with our ecosystem - and possibly with our health - without a thorough examination and thorough testing. That's a scandal. That is a scandal.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:: Well, Michael, thank you very much.
MICHAEL POLLAN:: My pleasure, Brooke. Always good to be here.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:: Michael Pollan teaches journalism at the University of California at Berkeley. His new book, The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals, will be out in April.
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