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Insights From Some More Recent Trends
Where does that leave us? I am tempted to quote Hegel, who said that what
history teaches is that people and governments never learn from history. (Slide
with full quote.) But perhaps we have now reached a "teachable moment"
in the history of biotechnology. Certainly, several conditions today probably
did not exist as these past technologies were struggling for acceptance:
· We have learned a great deal about risk communication in the past
30 years or so;
· Consumers today are more sophisticated and more interested in the
societal impacts of products they buy;
· It's a much more global market now.
Risk Communication. Social psychologists demonstrated years ago that citizens and scientific experts perceive risks differently.(84) We scientists tend to focus on quantitative aspects like morbidity, mortality and probability; ordinary consumers tend to view risks more qualitatively and to be sensitive to subjective value components, such as fairness, and freedom to take or avoid a risk, which science typically ignores. Neither point of view is wrong, but the two are different and often incompatible. One of the challenges in communicating about risks is to ensure that the dialogue is broad enough to encompass both kinds of perceptions of risks-the scientists' and the citizens'-and to ensure that both perspectives are treated respectfully.(85,86,87)
A question fundamental to any risk communication effort is, what is the objective of the communication process? Often, an industry and its supporters mount "communication" campaigns aimed at persuading the public to see the issues the way they, the insiders in the industry and expert community, see them. This certainly appears to have been the goal of Monsanto's early efforts to reach out to its critics.(88) Such efforts almost always fail, as we've seen from my historical examples, and as Monsanto learned the hard way. To be effective, communication strategies must seek to elicit the actual concerns of the critics, and to clarify them so that all parties understand the issues. Then the concerns must be addressed. That is, the critics need to see that their concerns are understood and taken seriously, and ideally, that those perceived as responsible for the risks (in this case, the biotech industry and its supporters) have adjusted their own positions to take those concerns aboard. Efforts that seek only to persuade the public that you're right and your critics are wrong will be perceived as cynical public relations intended to brush aside the public's legitimate concerns. Such efforts will breed outrage, more than acceptance.(89)
In short, effective communication involves listening, more than persuading. My view is that the future potential benefits society will gain from food biotechnology hinge largely on the extent to which a societal consensus can be developed that we want to reap those benefits, and can do it without unacceptable risk. To reach such a consensus, the industry has to reach out to its critics, sit down with them around a table, and in an atmosphere of mutual respect, try to work out a common agenda for how to advance the technology.
To be acceptable to all parties, such a consensus approach would involve incremental progress in the use of food biotechnology, with intensive assessments of possible risks both before and after new applications are introduced. Compromises would probably be necessary on everyone's part. The pace of introduction of new products might be slower than the industry would like, but faster than concerned citizens are currently comfortable with. (At the same time, the pace of innovation of systems for ensuring and monitoring safety might be much more rapid, and of broad value to society.) The thought of brakes on innovation might dissuade industry from embracing a consensus-building approach, understandably. But there appear to be few other viable options. I could easily imagine a massive "our friend the transgene" public information campaign, for instance, but history suggests that such efforts will waste time and money, and make achieving a consensus all the harder.
Consumers as Citizens. Another relatively recent trend, dating back to the first "Earth Day," perhaps, is an increasingly explicit commitment on the part of many consumers to use their product-purchasing power to promote a better world, including to support food production methods that are perceived to be more environmentally sustainable. Various surveys over the years have suggested that between 10 and 20 percent of consumers are "committed greens," for whom buying environmentally safer products is a prominent concern. Another 30 to 40 percent of the public are "opportunistic greens;" that is, they will buy the "greener" product when it costs no more and is equivalent in quality to the "conventional" competitors.(90) Green consumer preferences underlie the rapid growth of the market for organically grown foods, and the proliferation of labeling schemes that promote foods as produced in environmentally-sounder ways.(91)
Certainly when it
comes to what we choose to eat, more and more consumers today are assuming
an activist posture: They no longer simply accept whatever food companies
put on the market; they demand choices. Sustainable food production is just
one factor that consumers-as-citizens care about. Among the others:
· Right-to-Know. Consumers have a right to know what they are
eating. Labeling that clearly identifies genetically engineered foods and
ingredients would both serve that right, and make any perceived risks associated
with genetic modifications voluntary, and thereby far less worrisome.(92)
(How any food industry executive who understands these facts could
oppose labeling biotech foods remains a mystery to me.)
· Freedom. Consumers have a right to choose, and if offered
a choice, most will choose to buy genetically engineered foods-especially
foods that offer benefits to consumers, as opposed to, say, those that benefit
growers or help boost herbicide sales. Some consumers are also likely to prefer
to avoid genetically engineered foods, for a variety of reasons. They have
that right. And here again, labeling is essential so consumers can exercise
their right to choose.
· Trust. Consumers generally trust that the foods they see in
the supermarket are safe and wholesome. When doubts are raised, though, they
tend not to trust industry (or FDA) assurances that everything is perfectly
safe. Here, too, refusing to label foods as containing genetically engineered
materials suggests that the producers are trying to hide something, and increases
distrust. Trust is a two-way street. If the industry expects consumers to
trust its products, it has to trust consumers to use the fact that something
is genetically engineered sensibly. If marketers treat a label declaring the
presence of genetically-engineered ingredients as a skull and crossbones,
people may well see it that way and fear labeled foods more than they should.
But if they treat it as simply a fact-a data point that shoppers can weigh
along with all the other facts and values that come into play in their food-buying
decisions-most consumers will use it just that way, and not over-react.
Activist organizations that have raised public concerns about food biotechnology share these consumer concerns, but also are interested in avoiding any long-term unintended consequences of food biotechnology, and in some deeper value questions. The crux issue is, how will society manage applications of crop biotechnology so that the net benefit/risk ratio is maximized? Social justice and ethical issues also come into play, such as who benefits, and who bears the risks? How are rights of one sector to pursue benefits to be balanced against rights of other sectors to avoid risks? And perhaps most importantly, how do we decide which benefits are most valued, and which risks are most acceptable? Many citizens are no longer willing to leave those decisions to the market or to individual companies. Our society needs a broader, more inclusive process for finding consensus answers to such questions.
Notes:
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84. Slovic, P. (1987), Perception of Risk. Science 236:280-285.
85. National Research Council (1996), Understanding Risk: Informing Decisions
in a Democratic Society. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.
86. National Research Council (1989), Improving Risk Communication. Washington,
DC: National Academy Press.
87. Sandman, P.M. (1987), Risk Communication: Facing Public Outrage. EPA Journal,
November 1987, pp. 21-22.
88. Eichenwald, et. al., op. cit. (Note 1). Numerous quotes from Monsanto
managers who led the company's outreach efforts indicate clearly that their
goal was to persuade the critics of crop biotechnology that Monsanto's view
was correct. The effort failed at least partially because top management abandoned
it, but whether it could have hoped to succeed is doubtful.
89. For an example of such outrage, much of it focused on issues related to
genetically engineered foods, see S. Rampton and J. Stauber (2001), Trust
Us, We're Experts: How Industry Manipulates Science and Gambles With Your
Future. New York: Jeremy P. Tarcher/Putnam.
90. Hartman, H. (1996), The Hartman Report: Food and the Environment: A Consumer's
Perspective. Seattle, WA: The Hartman Group.
91. Eco-labeling of foods is discussed by Benbrook et al. (1996), op. cit.
(Note 62), as an emerging market trend. Today, "green labels" on
foods have proliferated and there are at least 100 different food eco-labels.
The potential for consumer confusion over what the different labels mean,
and whether claims of environmentally less harmful methods of production are
credible, is large. Consumers Union, with the support of the Ford Foundation,
has developed evaluations of different food eco-labels and will launch a web
site presenting the information in the Spring of 2001.
92. Groth, E. (1999), remarks at a public hearing on genetically engineered
foods, held by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Chicago, IL, November
18, 1999.
93. For detailed discussion of issues related to crop biotechnology and the
food needs of developing countries, see http://www.cid.harvard.edu/cidbiotech/seminar/.
