The Regulation of Genetically Modified Foods, Including the FDA's Role

http://www.newswithviews.com/Smith/jeffrey17.htm

This article was posted on October 21, 2007 by Jeffrey Smith, author of the book Seeds of Deception and Genetic Roulette, on NewsWithViews.com. Previous articles have dealt with the FDA's role in regulating GM foods and their labelling. Both of these issues remain controversial, and this article examines the reasons for the contrversies.
Part of this controversy is that fact that according to the FDA, a food that gains GRAS status (generally recognized as safe) is allowed to be commercialized without any additional testing. GM crops have GRAS status, even though they did not undergo the rigorous testing and research that other foods must in order to be considered GRAS. This was decided by the FDA in 1992, and it still holds today.
The FDA's policy of overlooking the potential dangers of GM foods and classifying them as safe has largely been attributed to the influence that the agricultural technology company Monsant has on the FDA. There are many sources of evidence surrounding this debate, such as the fact that the FDA's Deputy Commissioner for Policy Michael Taylor was an attorney for Monsanto and became Vice President of Monsanto after his work at the FDA, which included the year 1992. This conflict of interest raises many questions and doubt in the American public over how responsible the people that are overseeing their health are.
One would assume that since 1992 the FDA must have conducted studies on GM foods and their safety. They have, but the transparency of their results raises another debate. According to public interest attorney Steven Druker, the negative effects of GM foods were deleted rom the safety reports, allowing the FDA to clear the foods for production.
The FDA controls the safety of food, which makes it a clear conflict of interest when they publicly promote GM foods as they do. Certainly the debate over the FDA's role in regulating GM foods must be elevated to the level of a national health concern and included in health care debates. Health care reform must take the FDA into account, especially if health care is going to be under the direct mandate of the government. Since the FDA is a government agency, its employees must have background checks for conflicts of interest, such as ones with biotech companies. If extra health care funding needs to be enacted to ensure that the FDA is organized and focused, then it should be a high priority in health care reform.