Debating the Food Debate

Derek Maurer / The Scientist 14[24]:6, 11dec00

It's understandable that The Scientist's coverage of the GMO [genetically modified organism] debate focuses on the science of crop technology, and understandable if most of your readers favor continued research and development of GMOs. However, I should hope your editors, reporters, and readers also understand that technology is just one dimension of the controversy. For some GMO critics, social and political concerns outweigh arguments over bioengineered crops' safety to humans and the natural environment.

By framing practically every one of your reports in terms of the safety issue, The Scientist, like most mainstream news organizations, risks portraying GMO critics merely as anti-science. An article quoting three sources who weigh in on the side of GMO benefits, plus a fourth who expresses some mild caution, [can] leave the impression that anyone who opposes bioengineered crops must be willfully ignorant or ideologically motivated. Left unexplored is the question at the core of many skeptics' doubt: Who will control this brave new technology?

Perhaps it would be convenient if social and political factors didn't intrude on the practice of science, if new technologies took root and spread without regard to the influences of wealth, power, and dominance, if inventions served human need above human greed. In some other universe it might be so--but not in ours. Divorcing the GMO debate from its larger cultural context doesn't just present a false (if comforting) science-versus- ignorance dichotomy; it also deprives your readers of information they need to understand thoughtful and legitimate opposition to the biotech enterprise.

Derek Maurer
Health Science Relations
The University of Iowa
5118 Westlawn
Iowa City, IA 52242-1178

1. K. Devine, "GM food debate gets spicy," The Scientist, 14[21]:10, Oct. 30, 2000.