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One of President Clinton’s top goals at the World Trade Organization in Seattle from Nov. 30 - Dec. 3 is to increase trade in farm products. Unfortunately, WTO policies have already increased food trade at the expense of food safety. Instead, citizen groups are challenging the Clinton administration to take executive action to fix the trade rules that are putting our families’ health at risk. Imports Up, Safety Down America is importing more and more of its food. Since the 1980s, food imports have more than doubled, but safety inspections at our borders have fallen. For instance, inspections of fruit and vegetable have been cut from 8 percent to less than 2 percent of shipments. As a result, we face a growing number of disease outbreaks from imported food:
"[W]e’ve got a lot of fruits and vegetables imported from countries where we’re warned not to eat them [raw] or to drink the water. The question is, why is it safe to eat when its imported?" says Caroline Smith DeWaal of the Center for Science in the Public Interest. Standards Weakened To increase international food trade, the WTO pressures countries to lower their strong food safety standards to comply with weaker international standards. For instance, the WTO recently ordered Europe to lift its ban on American beef treated with growth hormones. Some scientists believe that hormone residues in beef contribute to rising breast cancer rates. So European regulators banned hormone-treated beef rather than expose large numbers of people to a potential health risk. Under WTO rules, however, food safety officials must prove conclusively that a food product is risky before they take action to protect the public. They can no longer take precautionary measures based on preliminary scientific evidence to prevent an emerging risk. The US challenge to the European standard sets a dangerous precedent that could one day force the US to lower its own food safety standards. For instance, to protect children who are more vulnerable to pesticides in their food than adults, the US has set very stringent standards for pesticide residues on fresh fruits and vegetables. Nevertheless, recently adopted international standards for pesticide residues in fruits and vegetables are much weaker than the US standards and ignore the potential health impacts on children. Our stronger standards could now be successfully challenged in the WTO as an illegal trade barrier. Hear No Evil, See No Evil To increase food trade flows, the WTO pressures importing countries to accept the safety certifications of exporters in place of their own governments’ standards. So products can now be labeled as if they meet US standards, even if they do not. There is no guarantee that the foreign safety systems are up to the job of protecting our families’ health and safety. For instance, the US Department of Agriculture recently declared that Australia’s new beef inspection system is "equivalent" to the US system. However, the Australian system is much weaker because it relies on the beef processing industry to conduct inspections of its own facilities. In contrast, the US system requires government inspection. After the Australian beef inspection system took effect, salmonella poisonings there jumped sharply. That same meat is now being sold on US grocery store shelves and is indistinguishable from American beef. Frankenstein Foods There is concern that the Clinton Administration will use the Seattle summit to launch new talks that would require countries to accept bio-engineered food and seeds. Bio-engineering splices genes from one organism into the genetic make-up of another, creating completely new organisms that could never exist in nature. Genetically modified crops -- some including natural pesticides built into their makeup -- are now widely grown in the United States. But the federal government treats them as normal food products and does not require testing before their introduction into the environment or food supply. Many Americans woke up to the potential impacts of genetic engineering when pollen from genetically modified corn was found to kill monarch butterflies. But the potential risks extend to food safety. Scientific studies show that some genetically modified foods may be toxic, others may trigger allergic reactions, and others can provoke resistance to life-saving antibiotics. Clearly, we should not promote more trade in genetically modified foods until we are sure they are safe. Make Trade Clean, Green, and Fair! A responsible trade policy would open markets -- and not put our families’ health at risk. To make trade clean, green, fair -- and safe, Sierra Club is urging the Clinton administration to take executive action to:
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