Mad cow disease, genetically modified foods, dioxin, and even Coke: Following a rash of health scares in Britain, Belgium and elsewhere, the European Commission is moving to establish a European Food Safety Agency. Scheduled to come into being in 2002, EFSA will oversee the streamlining and strengthening of legislation "from the farm to the table," covering animal feed and medicines, food traceability and product liability. Sounds great. But it probably won't do any good as long as the conventional wisdom remains so misguided.
Consider the case of organic foods, commonly supposed to be the healthiest way to eat. Well, not exactly. Recent research shows that organic foods are likely to present a greater risk of bacterial infection than conventional (pesticide-treated) foods, not least because the manure in which organic foods are grown is infested with e-coli. Food poisoning deaths, overwhelmingly from bacterial infections, have doubled in the past decade in U.K., at a time when organic-food demand has increased tenfold.
Perhaps the new EFSA should look into this. But will it, when the Commission is promoting organic farming as a method of lowering productivity to keep food prices high and food mountains low as well as appeasing environmentalists? As it is, the process by which health, safety and environment issues are regulated across the EU is of upward harmonization to the strictest standards. Recent bans on antibiotic growth promoters in livestock started in a few countries in Europe. Under pressure from green lobbyists, these bans were used as examples of "best practice" to force similar action in other EU countries until a critical mass led the Commission to take Europe-wide action. At least this process took several months, even years, and allowed time for a wider debate. With a European agency, one allegation of harm could be enough for a ban, executed very quickly across the whole of Europe.
To be sure, EFSA will only have the power to make policy recommendations--power to implement policy will remain with the Commission. And EFSA 's structure should make it independent of both the Commission and national governments. So there's room for hope. Still, EFSA remains a creature of the EU, and when it comes to food safety, the Commission has signalled its intent to take an ultra-cautious line. Thus, besides setting up EFSA, the Commission has officially adopted the precautionary principle and the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety. Both decisions spell trouble.
Take the precautionary principle, which permits banning any substance or process that might cause harm, even in the absence of any reasonable scientific evidence proving that it does. The recent Europe-wide "emergency ban" on phthalate plasticisers (plastic softeners) in toys was brought in for precautionary reasons, despite the fact that phthalates have been used in millions of toys without incident for decades.
The problem here is not simply that banning a substance used in a wide variety of commercial products will be ruinous to some businesses and the livelihoods of those they employ. Nor is the problem merely that plastic softeners are also used in essential medical equipment such as intravenous therapy bags, and that lives may be lost if the ban is seriously enforced.
Rather, the basic problem is that the "precautionary principle" is logically nonsensical. One cannot prove a negative. If every swan you've ever seen is white, that does not prove they do not come in magenta. Similarly, how does one characterize conclusive evidence of harmlessness? Erring on the side of caution, as the Commission fancies it's done by adopting the precautionary principle, is in fact a recipe for stultifying innovation.
To be fair, the Commission seems to appreciate the problem. In its report, it insisted that adopting the principle would not mean the "politicization of science or the acceptance of zero-risk." That's reassuring, until one reads in the same report that the Commission confronted with allegedly dangerous products will be happy to reverse the burden of proof and demand that businesses "do the scientific work necessary to demonstrate that [their products] are safe."
Given current concerns about food, it's hard to imagine that either EFSA or the Commission will make sparing use of the precautionary principle on new products. Nor are they likely to allow existing conventional food technologies, such as modern pesticides, to escape scrutiny, regulation and quite possibly a ban. Given that many of these pesticides do cause cancer (at least in rats fed an enormous dose) making the case against them will be even easier than making the case against phthalates.
Then there is the Cartagena Protocol, which demands that any foodstuffs that include even trace levels of genetically modified (GM) substances be labelled as such. Opposition to GM foods has been mounting in Europe for some time, and it's likely that the labels will be interpreted by most consumers as a warning rather than as mere information. Eventually, it's likely that the import of GM seeds, and possibly their production as well, will be sharply restricted throughout Europe.
As with the precautionary principle, one has to wonder whether opponents of GM foods-particularly those in the environmental lobby-have thought their arguments through. There is no evidence whatever that GM foods pose any health or environmental risks. On the contrary, GM crops can be engineered to provide better nutrition-say, by increasing the content of vitamin A in rice, crucial for staving off the onset of blindness. GM foods can also be designed to make them naturally pest-resistant-thereby obviating the need for the chemical sprays that might otherwise be banned under the precautionary principle. But with neither GM foods nor pesticides, the only people who'll benefit materially from the Cartagena Protocol are organic farmers, an interest group with powerful allies in the media and many of Europe's Green-coalition governments.
EFSA could be a force for good, but I suspect it will just make the life of environmental lobbyists easier. Bans will be enforced to win back consumer confidence, which may lead to more food poisoning deaths and even greater alarm. The only winners will be those whose job it is to promote each new scare.
Comments on this posting?
Click here to post a public comment on the Trash Talk Bulletin Board.
Click here to send a private comment to the Junkman.