The world according to Monsanto : pollution, corruption, and

the invention of gmos 147centuries. . . . Using Roundup Ready soybeans as an example, this is a plantwhich has a modified enzyme that is essentially the same enzyme that’s alreadyin the plant: it has a very small mutation, so, in terms of safety, there’sno big difference between that introduced enzyme and the one that alreadyoccurs in the plant” (emphasis added).In other words, GMOs are roughly identical to their natural counterparts.And it is precisely this “roughly”—rather surprising coming from amicrobiologist—that makes the concept of substantial equivalence suspectin the eyes of those who denounce its emptiness, such as Jeremy Rifkinof the Foundation on Economic Trends, one of the earliest opponents ofbiotechnology. “Here, in Washington, if you were to have an evening and goout and get a drink at one of the local haunts where all the lobbyists hangout, everybody would laugh about this. They all know this was a joke, this‘substantial equivalency.’ This was simply a way to paper over the need forthese companies, especially Monsanto, to move their products into the environmentquickly, with the least amount of government interference. And Ishould say they were very, very good at getting their interests expressed,” hesaid to me in July 2006.Michael Hansen, the Consumers Union expert, drove the point homewhen I spoke to him around the same time. “The principle of substantialequivalence is an alibi with no scientific basis created out of thin air to preventGMOs from being considered at least as food additives, and this enabledbiotechnology companies to avoid the toxicological tests provided forin the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act and to avoid labeling their products.That’s why we say that American regulations of transgenic foods violate federallaw.” To support his argument, Hansen showed me a document relatingto an amendment to the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, passed in 1958, entitledthe Food Additive Act. As the name indicates, this amendment wasaimed at regulating food additives such as coloring agents, preservatives, or“any substance the intended use of which results or may reasonably be expectedto result, directly or indirectly, in its becoming a component or otherwiseaffecting the characteristics of any food (including any substanceintended for use in producing, manufacturing, packing, processing, preparing,treating, packaging, transporting, or holding food).”Following this definition, many are the substances that might be consideredfood additives, the safety of which would then have to be rigorously assessedthrough an obligatory procedure, including toxicological tests that