Biotech in Hot Oil
Review and Outlook
Copyright 2000 Wall Steet Journal
May 2, 2000
Apparently, some french fries are more equal than others. Last week
McDonald's told its suppliers it didn't want any more genetically altered
potatoes.
McDonald's isn't the first to flinch. Recently, Greenpeace went after
Kellogg's, whose Frosted Flakes uses genetically engineered corn. At the
company's headquarters in Michigan, activists dressed as "Franken Tony the
Tiger" and warned the company to stop harming "America's kids." Gerber and
Frito-Lay both caved under similar tactics earlier this year. These
companies know from experience that those who don't bend to or coddle the
environmentalist contingent make the A-List for protest targets. TV's
semi-news reports then tilt the playing field impossibly.
Though it hardly needs saying, this attack on one of the country's most
important industries has never been about science. We've been genetically
altering plants through cross-breeding and trait selection since
pre-industrial times. The process of gene splicing simply allows scientist
to be more precise in isolating and combining desirable species traits.
In the case of McDonald's the crop in question is the New Leaf Potato.
Created four years ago, the crop is internally equipped to repel a Colorado
Beetle that likes to eat it. By including a gene borrowed from a
micro-organism, the breed has effectively eliminated the need for the
pesticide spritzings. Pesticides have long enraged environmentalists, but
maybe that was never about the pesticide either.
The french fry was the first to go because it's the flagship item, but
beef, hamburger buns and oil used by the company also employ bioengineered
ingredients one way or another. Most items in your corner bodega do too.
Fortunately, most people seem considerably less freaked out by biotech than
the consumer advocates who claim to represent them. Even in Europe, where
the hysteria is worst, a recent effort to label GM foods had almost no
effect on sales.
On the day that the McDonald's news appeared, genetics was making
headlines elsewhere -- the industry's first big human success in curing
three "bubble" children, or kids suffering from a once fatal auto-immune
disorder. Using genetic modification, researchers literally erased the
problem in the afflicted kids.
That's a tangible benefit. While most people support the use of biotech
for medicine, GM foods have been plagued by precisely the fact that grocery
shoppers can't see the difference. Biotech crops yield enormous advantages
to farmers, protecting the crops from pests and yielding extra bushels for
each acre of production. But consumers don't realize that they benefit from
those changes through lower prices, less pollution and more efficient land
use.
Happily, the rate of innovation in the industry is already beginning to
change that. In addition to the more than 20 engineered crops that have
recently landed on grocery shelves, scientists are now working on
faster-growing salmon, low-fat ham and even a pig designed not to pollute
the environment.
Mergers like Monsanto and Pharmacia are driven by efforts to take
advantage of all the new opportunities. While something like the McDonald's
french-fry flipflop won't make much of a difference in the long run, the
real damage of Greenpeace's strategy to create a furor over biotech is that
it lends aid and comfort to the trial lawyers in their efforts to redirect
the proceeds of science away from more R&D and into their own pockets.
Today, we've found a way to eliminate pesticides; tomorrow, it may be
chemotherapy. Lets hope the activists and lawyers aren't able to stop these
benefits.
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