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The Bush administration deals a blow to biotechnology—and itself

Nature Biotechnology volume 19, pages 807–808 (2001)Cite this article

A persistent criticism of the Bush administration, according to polls, is that its policies too often favor the interests of big business over those of consumers. Although these criticisms of “deregulatory” policies usually have been dubious at best, on July 19 the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA; Washington, DC) issued a regulation that is genuinely anti-consumer, anti-environment, and anti-farmer. The only beneficiaries will be a handful of big agribusiness companies and the regulators themselves.

The subject of the regulation, the use of recombinant DNA techniques to enhance the intrinsic pest resistance of crop and garden plants, offers a safe, viable alternative to chemical pesticides; but the testing and commercialization of these plants have been systematically obstructed since 1994, when EPA first proposed to regulate them as though they were dangerous chemical pesticides. EPA remonstrates that it is regulating not new plant varieties, but only the introduced pesticidal protein, which it now calls by the neologism “plant-introduced protectant” (PIP). However, that is a distinction without a difference, similar to suggesting that US states enforce emission standards not for automobiles, but for engines and exhaust systems.

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References

  1. US National Research Council. Field testing genetically modified organisms: Framework for decisions. (US National Research Council, National Academy Press, Washington, DC, 1989).

  2. Editorial. Nature 356, 1–2 (1992).

  3. Appropriate oversight for plants with inherited traits from resistance to pests. A report from eleven scientific societies. (Institute of Food Technologists, Chicago, IL, 1996).

  4. Council on Agricultural Science and Technology. The proposed EPA pesticide rule. (CAST, Issue Paper No. 10, October 1998).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. fellow at the Hoover Institution,

    Henry I. Miller

Author notes

  1. He was an FDA official from 1979 to 1994 and is the author of “Policy Controversy in Biotechnology: An Insider's View.”

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    1. Henry I. Miller
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    Miller, H. The Bush administration deals a blow to biotechnology—and itself. Nat Biotechnol 19, 807–808 (2001). https://doi.org/10.1038/nbt0901-807

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