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Wartime Solidarity Doesn't Ease
USA/EU Tensions Over Frankenfoods

St. Louis Post-Dispatch
November 4, 2001

EUROPE'S CONCERNS OVER BIOTECH FOODS DON'T SEEM
LIKELY TO BE ASSUAGED SOON; OFFICIAL SAYS SOLIDARITY
AGAINST TERRORISM WON'T EASE THORNY TRADE BATTLE

BY: Bill Lambrecht St. Louis Post-Dispatch Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON, DC

A new spirit of cooperation between the United States and Europe in fighting
terrorism may do little to solve another thorny foreign policy matter:
Europe's stubborn rejection of genetically modified foods.

Industry and government officials who were gathered last week for a "Future
of Food Biotechnology" conference heard a bleak assessment from a European
Union official about prospects for ending Europe's three-year freeze on new
imports and plantings of gene-altered products.

Genetically modified food has become common in the United States. But
concerns by the Europeans have slowed global acceptance - and cost American
corn farmers about $600 million in lost exports. "I would warn you against a
traditional American attitude of saying that what is good for America is
good for Europe," Tony Van der haegen, the European Union commissioner of
agriculture, fisheries and consumer affairs, told the gathering.
Van der haegen chided his American audience for vigorously contesting
Europe's proposed new rules for labeling genetically modified products and
keeping records of their origins.

"I hear from you that there is no difference between GMOs (genetically
modified organisms) and traditional products. If that is true, why does the
biotech industry want to patent the differences?" he asked.

In an interview, Van der haegen said he had seen no change recently in
consumer resistance to engineered food in Europe even though scientists for
the 15-country European alliance had pronounced it safe.

"Perhaps there will be more solidarity now, but I don't see how that could
influence a problem that is a consumer problem and a political problem," he
said.

U.S. officials have been pressured by farm interests to file a complaint in
the World Trade Organization charging the Europeans with unfair trade
practices.

Hans Klemm, a State Department agriculture official, said that for now,
Americans would continue their efforts to convince the Europeans to change
their policies. "What we are doing for the moment is working behind the
scenes at the very highest levels possible to try to get resumption of
approvals," he said.

Given the war on terrorism, the likelihood of Americans mounting a World
Trade Organization protest seemed remote to Carol Tucker Foreman, a consumer
leader and a member of the White House's agriculture trade policy advisory
committee. "We have every reason to get along with the European Union right
now. They are our biggest supporters in a life-and-death struggle," she
said.

Perceptions of risk

Participants in the conference heard results from polls that showed stark
difference in how Americans and people in other countries view genetically
modified food. The nonprofit Food and Drug Law Institute sponsored the
conference.

A new poll released at the conference showed Americans relatively
unconcerned and even ignorant about genetically modified products despite
new worries about contaminated food since the terrorist attacks.

"This issue (genetically modified food) is just not a front-and-center issue
with American consumers," said Sylvia Rowe, president of the International
Food Information Council, which sponsored the new poll.
But internationally, several countries have grown decidedly more negative,
said Doug Miller, president of the Toronto-based Environics International, a
polling and consulting company.

He interviewed 30,000 people around the world for industry clients and did
not release complete findings. But, he said, negative public attitudes
toward genetic engineering had risen sharply in Japan and Australia.
Opposition had receded somewhat in Britain but had increased markedly in
France and Germany.

Officials from biotech companies said the Sept. 11 attacks had blunted
efforts by U.S. activists and congressional skeptics pushing for more
stringent regulation of genetically modified food.
Nonetheless, participants in the conference raised the potential of fallout
from new concerns about food security.

"Increasingly, food safety is the context in which the GMO issue will play
out," Miller said.

Stanley Abramson, a lawyer in Washington, said that it was too early to
calculate the effects. He added: "Perceptions of risk have changed."