In Support of Food Biotechnology

"Biotech enables farmers to create hybrid plants more quickly. And the scientific data show that biotechnology can result in healthier foods and be better for the environment. Biotech foods could improve food yields by up to 25 percent in the developing world and feed the more than three billion people to be born in the next three decades. This will save forestland, reduce the use of chemical pesticides and provide a higher standard of living for everyone, whether in the U.S. and Europe or in places like Sub-Saharan Africa and other developing regions."
Tommy G. Thompson, Secretary of Health and Human Services
Biotechnology and Humanity at the Crossroads of a New Era
February 11, 2002

"Some governments are blocking the import of crops grown with biotechnology, which discourages African countries from producing and exporting these crops. …The ban of these countries is unfounded. It is unscientific. It is undermining the agricultural future of Africa."
George W. Bush, President of the United States of America
"Europeans remain reluctant to accept genetically modified foods" - St. Joseph News-Press
July 21, 2003

"Leading the biotech revolution are our agricultural producers who provide us with the most affordable, most abundant and safest food supply in the world. …The EU has simply refused to accept the reality that agriculture biotechnology has been subject to the strictest testing by the United States Department of Agriculture, Food and Drug Administration and Environmental Protection Agency prior to planting or consumer consumption. …In addition to their anti-American policies, the EU has pursued policies to undermine the development and support of genetically engineered products around the world. Including countries facing famine. …Last fall, three impoverished African countries turned down shipments of safe, nutritious, U.S. humanitarian biotech food-aid, because the EU had distributed false information about health and environmental concerns. The EU should try honesty for once to explain the real reason they do not like American biotechnology: they want to protect their market from competition."
Senator Jim Talent, R-MO
"Bond-Talent Blast Europe for Biotech Ban" - Sen. Kit Bond Senate Web site
May 23, 2003

"The European Union, for reasons rooted in old-fashioned agricultural protectionism, has placed an illegal moratorium on U.S. crops produced with scientifically approved biotechnology and this illegal moratorium should be confronted. …The EU made agreements with us to abide by rules that they are now flagrantly ignoring. They made promises that they should keep and the U.S. and its partners should press their rights before the WTO for the good of everyone including the EU. …It is not legal for the EU to prevent safe food from entering their country on some trumped up baseless charge that it is not safe. The science and the law are clear on the matter."
Senator Kit Bond, R-MO
"Bond-Talent Blast Europe for Biotech Ban" - Sen. Kit Bond Senate Web site
May 23, 2003

"The European Union's [labeling] practice may lead other countries to block trade by imposing such needlessly burdensome labeling, traceability and documentation requirements, …And those could prompt a host of new non-tariff barriers just when we are trying to stimulate global trade.''
Nancy Beck, State Department spokeswoman
"EU's Gene-Modified Laws Approved, May Spark U.S. Case"- Bloomberg
July 22, 2003

"Today we're worried about terrorism. Is there any better, fertile seedbed for terrorism than hunger and human misery? It's a time bomb to have as many miserable people as we have in the world today. …We should use any new crop variety that has an advantage over what is already out there.. …When I was born in 1914 there were 1.6 billion people in the world. Today we have 6.2 billion, with 80 million more each year. By using improved technology, we have been able to feed the world on 660 million hectares of land. If we used the same methods that were used in the 1950's, we would have had to put an additional 1.1 billion hectares under the plow."
Norman Borlaug, 1970 Nobel Prize Recipient
"Biotechnology is one key to feeding the world, says Nobel Laureate Norman Borlaug" - UC Berkeley News
July 11, 2003

"Some critics of biotechnology will say all this talk of genetic modification sounds "unnatural." But they fail to realize that the history of agriculture is nothing but the history of genetic modification. For eons, farmers have crossbred their plants to create better crops. The miracle of biotechnology is that we can continue to do what farmers have done for untold generations--except that now we can make bigger leaps in shorter spans of time."
Dean Kleckner, Chairman, Truth About Trade and Technology
"Saving the Potato" - AgWeb
August 20, 2003

"Biotechnology - especially genetic modification - represents an important technology option for meeting the long-term food needs of developing countries. ...The choice of technology should be driven by the determination of local needs. Many developing countries have already indicated priorities that could be addressed by using genetic modification in their agricultural development strategies."
Calestous Juma, Director
The Science, Technology and Innovation Program
Center for International Development at Harvard University
Appropriate Technology for Sustainable Food Security: Modern Biotechnology
August 2001

"These (biotech crop) varieties have 50 percent higher yields, mature 30 to 50 days earlier, are substantially richer in protein, are far more disease and drought tolerant, resist insect pests, and can even out-compete weeds. And they will be especially useful because they can be grown without fertilizer or herbicides, which many poor farmers can't afford anyway."
Mark Malloch Brown, Administrator
United Nations Development Program
Human Development Report 2001
July 10, 2001

"I believe the world will be able to produce the food needed to feed [its] projected population of 8.3 billion by 2025. ...But it cannot be attained without permitting use of of technologies now available, or without research...including biotechnology and recombinant DNA."
Norman Borlaug, 1970 Nobel Prize Recipient
"We Need Biotech to Feed the World," The Wall Street Journal
December 6, 2000

"Based on a detailed evaluation of the intended and unintended traits produced by the two approaches to crop improvement, the committee finds that the transgenic process presents no new categories of risk compared to conventional methods of crop improvement but that specific traits introduced by both approaches can pose unique risks."
National Research Council
Environmental Effects of Transgenic Plants
February 2002

"There is at present no evidence that GM foods cause allergic reactions. The allergenic risks posed by GM plants are in principle no greater than those posed by conventionally derived crops or by plants introduced from other areas of the world."
The Royal Society (United Kingdom)
Genetically Modified Plants for Food Use and Human Health - An Update
February 2002

"Thirteen years of experience with biotech products in the U.S. have shown us that biotech foods developed and used in the U.S. present no food safety risks beyond those of their 'natural' counterparts - not a single ailment has been attributed to biotech foods. Not one! Not a sneeze, not a rash, not a headache."
David L. Aaron
Former Undersecretary of Commerce for Trade
April 2000

"The people of Africa cannot wait for others to debate the merits of biotechnology. America and other developed nations must act now to allocate technologies that can prevent suffering and starvation."
Florence Wambugu, Former Director
International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech
Applications AfriCenter
"Taking the Food Out of Our Mouths," The Washington Post
August 26, 2001

"As we have evaluated the results of the seeds or crops created using biotechnology techniques, we have seen no evidence that the bioengineered foods now on the market pose any human health concerns or that they are in any way less safe than crops produced through traditional breeding."
Jane E. Henney, M.D.
Former U.S. Food and Drug Administration Commissioner
FDA Consumer Magazine
January/February 2000

"There is no reason to suppose that the process of food production through biotechnology leads to risks of a different nature than those already familiar to toxicologists or that cannot also be created by conventional breeding practices for plant, animal or microbial improvement. It is therefore important to recognize that it is the food product itself, rather than the process through which it is made, that should be the focus of attention in assessing safety."
Society of Toxicology
The Safety of Food Produced Through Biotechnology
March 2002

"Risks associated with biotechnology-derived foods are not inherently different from the risks associated with conventional ones."
Report of the Task Force for the Safety of Novel Foods and Feeds
Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development
May 17, 2002

"Right around the world, the scientific evidence is that there is no problem with GMOs over and above any other food."
David Byrne, Commissioner for Health & Consumer Protection
European Commission
The Lancet
September 2000

"FAO recognizes that genetic engineering has the potential to help increase production and productivity in agriculture, forestry and fisheries. It could lead to higher yields on marginal lands in countries that today cannot grow enough food to feed their people. There are already examples where genetic engineering is helping to reduce the transmission of human and animal diseases through new vaccines. Rice has been genetically engineered to contain pro-vitamin A (beta carotene) and iron, which could improve the health of many low-income communities."
UN Food and Agriculture Organization
Statement on Biotechnology
March 2000

"While current biotech crops have not been shown to cause any health problem and only minor environmental disturbances, they have begun to yield major benefits. Biotech cotton, for instance, has reduced insecticide usage by more than two million pounds a year. That saves a lot of beneficial insects (not just butterflies) and reduces farmers' exposure to dangerous chemicals. Biotech cotton also has meant higher profits for farmers."
Michael Jacobson, Executive Director
Center for Science in the Public Interest
"Common Sense on Biotechnology," The Wall Street Journal
January 25, 2001

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