Genetically Engineered Products Stonewalled : Ideology of Fear & Ignorance

When the ideology of ignorance and fear of the unknown rules the day, only bad things can be expected of occur. That a progressive socialist liberal government would decide that innovation in agriculture products is a threat to our safety just because they don't like or understand innovation, is just another reason, among many others, to vote them all out of office.

Isn't this much like the global warming, climate change insanity that infests the minds of the progressives that are in control of our government? When logic and common sense are a thing of the past, and replaced with ideological principles of repression and control, all will be lost.

The question again is what advantage did the Obama administration believe it had to have by stopping genetically engendered products? Was it just to stop American leadership for prosperity? Can it be that simple? New products that bring new forms of prosperity to the citizens and therefore a threat to progressive socialistic ideology?


To Market, To Market
Source: Henry I. Miller, "To Market, To Market," Hoover Institute, 2015.

July 30, 2015

In March the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) certified that several new varieties of genetically engineered potatoes and apples are safe to eat, closely following the Department of Agriculture's approval of them for unlimited cultivation and sale. The new products offer intriguing benefits such as:

• Bruise-resistance.
• Browning resistance when cut.
• Less waste.
• Less of a chemical that is converted to a presumptive carcinogen when heated.

By withholding or delaying approvals of new products that offer improvements in safety, agronomic traits, and appeal to consumers, federal regulators for years have done their best to prevent U.S. researchers and companies from realizing transformative changes in American agriculture using the most modern techniques of genetic engineering:

• High amounts of time are needed from submission to decision for genetically engineered plants (1,210 days for the USDA, compared to 372 days for Brazil and 771 days for Canada).
• The average cost of bringing a genetically engineered crop plant to market is $136 million, far more than for other new plant varieties.
• Redundant prolonged case-by-case reviews are the rule for organisms modified with molecular genetic engineering techniques.

The blame and shame are shared by senior officials at USDA and FDA and in the Obama White House. Kathleen Merrigan, deputy secretary of agriculture during the first Obama term, was relentlessly opposed to genetic engineering and obstructed its advances at every opportunity.

Excessive regulation comes at a cost of preventing the introduction of beneficial innovation, and eventually lack of innovation is a source of heightened risk to human health and the environment.