End of Doom

Ronald Bailey has an excellent piece in the October print edition of Reason Magazine entitled, "The End of Doom" and a recently released book with the same title.  It's a nice counterweight to the oft-heard refrain that the world is going to hell.  

Here are a a few quotes I found particularly interesting.  In critiquing Rachel Carson's Silent Spring:

“At its heart is this belief: Nature is beneficent, stable, and even a source of moral good; humanity is arrogant, heedless, and often the source of moral evil. Carson, more than any other person, is responsible for the politicization of science that afflicts our contemporary public policy debates.”

In discussing our out-sized fears of cancers from synthetic chemicals and of biotechnology:

“It should always be borne in mind that environmentalist organizations raise money to support themselves by scaring people. More generally, Bonny observes, “For some people, especially many activists, biotechnology also symbolizes the negative aspects of globalization and economic liberalism.” She adds, “Since the collapse of the communist ideal has made direct opposition to capitalism more difficult today, it seems to have found new forms of expression including, in particular, criticism of globalization, certain aspects of consumption, technical developments, etc.””

He ends with some choice words about the precautionary principle.  

“Why does it matter if the population at large believes these dire predictions about humanity’s future? The primary danger is they may fuel a kind of pathological conservatism that could actually become a self-fulfilling prophecy.”

and

“The precautionary principle is the opposite of the scientific process of trial and error that is the modern engine of knowledge and prosperity. The precautionary principle impossibly demands trials without errors, successes without failures.

...

”An indirect implication of trial without error is that if trying new things is made more costly, there will be fewer departures from past practice; this very lack of change may itself be dangerous in forgoing chances to reduce existing hazards.” ”

GMO regulations in the US and EU

There is a myth going around that GMO crops are banned in Europe.  That's simply untrue.  This group of grad students out of Harvard (going by Science in the News - SITN) put together a nice post on the difference in US and EU regulation of GMOs.  

As this graphic from their piece shows, The EU has approved many of the same crops as in the US (though they are slower and haven't approved as many yet).

One way to look at this is to say the EU was more prudent and cautions.  Another view is that the more bureaucratic process cost the EU 10 years or more before they could have access to Bt corn and round-up ready beets, and that for a decade US farmers were able to reduce insecticide use and transition to no-till because our regulatory process was more expedient.    

Yesterday I taped a segment with CBC radio in Canada (I'll post to it when it airs) that involved  a discussion between several people on genetic engineering in animals.  One of the panelists on the anti-GMO side was very critical of the US and Canadian regulatory processes, and there seemed to be an implicit argument that these crops/animals wouldn't be approved if our regulator process were different.  However, as the above graph shows, some of these crops can indeed be approved under very different regulatory regimes - though at a much slower rate.

Here's another nice graphic from the piece on differences in US and EU regulatory processes for GMOs.

NPR story on GMOs

On the way into work this morning, I heard this story on NPR about GMOs.  While I don't always agree with the slant on every story run by NPR, I generally expect their stories to be fair and  insightful.  But, in this case, I think they missed some critical nuance.  

After a "woman on the street" interview in which a some of typical unsubstantiated claims about GMOs were made, the reporter followed up with the following statement (about the 2:20 mark on the recording): 

“The world’s leading scientists say they [GMOs] are safe to eat. That said, there are concerns about possible carcinogens coming the pesticides used on those crops.”

That's a highly misleading claim for several reasons.  First, there are many GMOs that have nothing to do with pesticides.  Arctic apples, golden rice, low linoleic acid soybeans, and many others have nothing to do with pesticides use or carcinogens.  In fact there is now a GMO potato explicitly designed to reduce carcinogens.  Moreover, some GMOs, like Bt corn and virus resistant papaya reduce the use of insecticides.  

Even if we move to herbicide resistant, Roundup-Ready corn and soy, the question isn't whether Round-up is carcinogenic, but rather: what has been the overall change in toxicity from the move toward Round-up and away from older herbicides that were more toxic?  Several USDA reports suggest that overall toxicity has gone down with the adoption of herbicide resistant crops.

After the above statement, the reporter followed up by making an important point but then following it up with another misleading statement.  She said: 

“non-GMO food may not be as wholesome as you think, they can also be made from plants that were doused with pesticides. It doesn’t mean it’s organic.”

She's right that non-GMO can use just as much pesticide as GMO. In fact, as was pointed out by Andrew Kniss, Chipotle's move to remove non-GMOs from their supply chain may have actually led to adoption of crops (sunflowers) that use pesticides with higher toxicity than was the case for the GMO crops.  However, when I first heard this story on air, I mis-interpreted the reporter as saying GMOs (rather than non-GMOs) were "doused with pesticides."  My reaction was, first, that no farmer "douses" with such expensive products and second that non-GMOs don't mean no-pesticide.  That latter point is, of course, the one that she was making, though I didn't get that in real time.  

The second statement seems to imply organic means no pesticides.  That's patently false.  

August FooDS - Livestock Antibiotics and Plant vs. Animal GMOs

The August 2015 edition of the Food Demand Survey (FooDS) is now out.

This month, there was a significant rise in willingness-to-pay (WTP) for all food products.  In fact, WTP for all meat products are at their highest levels since we began the survey over two years ago in May 2013.  It is unclear what is behind the price rise, but it was also matched by a rise in reported food expenditures at home and away from home.

Three new ad hoc questions were added this month.  The first was designed to test knowledge of different meat cuts, and it was suggested by David Ortega at Michigan State University.  Respondents had to match pictures of different meat cuts with the animal it came from.  By and large, consumers were able to correctly match up the cuts.  The biggest error was that 6% of people matched ham to cow.

The second question was designed to explore preferences for animal antibiotic policies being pursued by different retailers.  In particular, we asked, “A restaurant is considering different antibiotic policies related to the sourcing of their animal products. Which of the following policies would you support or oppose the restaurant implementing for the farmers who supply their animal products?”

Six statements were provided and participants to responded with "support" or "oppose." Approximately 77% of participants opposed the statement “The farmer can use antibiotics for growth promotion.” About 75% of respondents also opposed the statement ‘The farmer can use antibiotics for any purpose they deem reasonable.”

In contrast, a majority of participants supported the statements “The farmer can use antibiotics for disease prevention” and over 80% supported a policy in which “The farmer can use antibiotics to treat sick animals”.  This latter result is interesting in light of the move by many retailers' "never ever" policies regarding animal antibiotics.  

The last set of questions were designed to measured consumers support or opposition to different breeding techniques used in crop and animal agriculture.  The sample was split in two and half the respondents saw questions about crops and the other half saw questions about animals.  The following figure summarizes the results (the figure shows the wording for the crop question but the animal question was similarly worded).

In general, consumers tended to oppose all the methods mentioned.  This included traditional breeding methods.  For all issues, livestock breeding practices were less supported than crop breeding practices.  The least supported practice for both crops and livestock was transgenics - transferring genes from one species to another.  Gene editing and cysgenic technologies were only slightly more supported.  It should be noted that other research we've conducted has shown much higher levels of support if a reason (any reason) is given for why the crop breeding or genetic modification is performed.  Moreover, it may be possible that opposition to even traditional breeding methods  in this survey is a result of the wording of the question which mentioned gene movement across varieties (or breeds) and a general lack of understanding of genetic reproduction.         

Do People Really Want to Express an Opinion on GMO Labeling?

With Gwyneth Paltrow making her way to Washington to make the case for mandatory GMO labeling, and with competing bills circulating through the US Congress (one of which was passed by the House), I'm hearing a lot about GMO labeling these days.  

I wanted to draw your attention to an aspect of this debate that you probably don't hear a lot about.  Let's start with this quote from an interview in the Verge with William Hallman of Rutgers who has done lots of polling on GMOs over the years: 

“A number of surveys show that consumers overwhelmingly support GMO labeling, but Hallman says there’s an important caveat to keep in mind. Most polls don’t give the option of saying “I don’t know” when asked about support for labeling, and few consumers will say they don’t want more information. In fact, Hallman’s own survey shows most Americans aren’t even part of the conversation”

I largely agree with Hallman's statement.  Yes, if you ask people whether they want GMO labeling, a large majority will say "yes."  But that sentiment is not very deep (I've found similar levels of support for absurd policies like DNA labeling; moreover, the policy has failed to garner majority support now in 5 state ballot initiatives where people actually had to vote).  

More broadly, asking people whether they want mandatory GMO labeling misses a larger question: how seriously do consumers take their own views?  Do they even want to have to express an opinion on the issue?  

Back in May, I polled a representative sample of over 1,000 US consumers.  I asked them:  “How should the issue of mandatory labeling of genetically engineered food be decided?”  They could choose from one of six options.  

The majority, 61%, of the respondents stated “by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)”.  Just over 10% of respondents stated “I don’t know” and only 5% of respondents stated “by ballot initiatives in each state”.

So, despite the fact that ~80% of people will say they want mandatory GMO labeling in a poll, the above results suggest that they also don't want themselves or fellow citizens to directly decide that policy (9.1% want a nationwide ballot initiative and 5.3% want a statewide vote).  Interestingly, only 8.8% want Congress to decide.

My interpretation of this result is that, if forced to state an opinion, most consumers will express positive support for labels (absent any information on costs or consequences).  But, consumers also realize that they are not terribly knowledgeable on the issue and would defer to "experts" like those at FDA.  

In fact, back in July of 2014, I directly asked over 1,000 US consumers whether they thought decisions about labeling of GMOs should be based on views of experts or views of average Americans.  Over 70% said decisions should be based on views of experts.  

Maybe that seems a bit elitist.  But, I'm not sure that's the right word.  These aren't experts saying experts should decide.  These are normal, everyday people saying they want experts to decide.  This is an entirely reasonable position.  Many of us could do our own taxes or make our own retirement planning decisions, but instead we farm these decisions out to experts because it simply isn't worth our time to become experts in everything.