On Sunday morning, Charlotte Porter, a deft reporter and editor and a former colleague of mine at The Associated Press, noted a strange juxtaposition of stories on the front page of The New York Times–one that the front-page editors seem to have missed.
"Two stories on the New York Times front page today, one about gun advocates ganging up on a man who tried to be thoughtful in that debate, the other about GMO opponents ganging up on a man who tried to find the truth in that one," she posted on Facebook. "Wonder how many readers deplored the tactics in one while cheering them in another?"
The stories were indeed similar. One, headlined "Banished for Questioning the Gospel of Guns," by Ravi Somaiya, concerned Dick Metcalf, a writer banished from the pages of gun magazines for suggesting that gun rights should be regulated. In a column entitled "Let's Talk Limits," he wrote, "The fact is, all constitutional rights are regulated, always have been, and need to be." He not only lost his job, he also received emailed death threats.
The other piece, under the headline "On Hawaii, a Lonely Quest for Fact," by Amy Harmon, was about a member of the Kona, Hawaii County Council who opposed a popular ban on genetically modified foods, or GMOs. The council member, Greggor Ilagan, found himself overwhelmed 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." The move could jeopardize his re-election.
Both protagonists questioned the prevailing wisdom, and both paid a price for doing so. But, as Charlotte noted, the two stories reside at different ends of the political spectrum. A liberal might be inclined to cheer for the gun iconoclast and lament the Kona councilman. A conservative might react the other way, praising the councilman and condemning the columnist.
But are the stories really mirror images of one another?
Not exactly. The gun story deals with a matter of policy. Should guns be regulated, or is there an absolute right to bear arms that cannot be limited in any way? Research can help determine whether, for example, certain regulations could save lives in particular circumstances. But those questions probably won't be answered any time soon, in large part because the gun industry sought and won a freeze on federal gun violence research in 1996. The questions that the story raises are a matter of policy for Congress and the courts to settle. And we can expect people on opposite ends of the political spectrum to have different views.
The story on genetically engineered foods, on the other hand, turns on scientific questions about how helpful or harmful GMOs might be. One would hope that liberals and conservatives could agree on the facts, even if not the regulatory actions that should be taken. But of course that's not the case. And here's one reason: For many in the public, this conflict is not between proponents and critics of GMOs; it's between industry and consumers.
Harmon reports that the biotechnology industry tried to block regulations such as those considered in Kona by pushing for a state law to block local governments from taking any action. She reports that the Kona ban was "inspired by distrust of the seed-producing biotechnology companies."
So it's not really about who agrees with the science and who doesn't–not entirely. It's also about who agrees with Monsanto and Dow versus farmers and consumers who think they're being snookered by greedy agribusiness firms. And the history suggests that consumers are right to be worried. One of the first uses of genetic engineering of foods was Monsanto's effort to make crops resistant to a pesticide made by–Monsanto. They used this profoundly important and valuable technology to make a market for their pesticide–not to address starvation in poor countries, say, or the nutritional quality of food. All the scientific evidence the industry could ever provide showing that GMOs are safe will not change people's minds about the threat posed by big agricultural firms. The research completely misses the target.
Further, industry, as Harmon reports, continues to rely on a decades-old defense that misrepresents the science. Genetic engineering, they keep saying, is, in Harmon's words, "merely an extension of traditional breeding."
It isn't. It's something completely new and different. That's why the biotech industry is fighting so hard to block regulations. If this were just an extension of traditional breeding, why not stick with traditional breeding?
Consumers might not understand the science. Some might believe the most outrageous and unfounded claims, such as the ridiculous charge that genetically engineered cotton has driven farmers to suicide. But most of them are smarter than the scientific establishment gives them credit for. They see Monsanto coming, and they're scared. And Monsanto, sadly, has given them reason to be.
-Paul Raeburn
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