*EPF313 03/21/01
Transcript: U.S. Expert Urges Diligence With Foot-and-Mouth
(Current European efforts are right approach) (2200)

Georgetown University Professor Lester Crawford, an expert on food health and agricultural biotechnology, says all countries must take the needed precautions to prevent the further spread of foot-and-mouth disease that is now infecting livestock in Europe.

"Problems like foot-and-mouth disease and mad cow disease are huge international problems that can destroy the international food trading system," Crawford said in a recent digital video conference with the Italian journal Il Giornale sponsored by the U.S. Department of State. "All countries have to be on high alert to prevent these diseases from entering."

Crawford also hailed current European efforts to quarantine and destroy animals exposed to the virus "because once the disease becomes established in your country, you cannot get rid of it." He said that vaccination only prolongs a country's difficulties.

Crawford said that the United States has spent large sums of money and maintains strict regulatory controls to prevent the entrance of foot and mouth disease.

During the March 12 interview, Crawford also discussed agricultural biotechnology. Bioengineered foods, he said, posed no known dangers and are more environmentally sound because they require less chemical fertilizers and offer the potential for increased crop yields for developing countries.

Following is the transcript of Crawford's interview:

Note: In the text "billion" equals 1,000 million.

(begin transcript)

QUESTION: It has been said that (genetically modified food) safety is in danger. Is this true, or is this exaggerated? ... Which precautionary measures are you adopting in the United States?

MR. CRAWFORD: With respect to food safety technology, as you know, there are no food safety issues that have been uncovered to this point. There have been no adverse reactions or any difficulty with biotechnology. Problems related to technology that might occur would probably be environmental. So far, we have not had trouble with environmental aspects of biotechnology, but that, in my opinion, would be something that we need to continue to be very careful about.

Each nation, in my opinion, needs to have a competent regulation program. We should not let biotech foods, biotech drugs, and biotech pharmaceuticals and vaccines on the market without subjecting them to the same regulatory system for all other foods, drugs and vaccines.

Q: (Inaudible)?

As a result of the World Trade Organization treaty of almost seven years ago, food trade has increased fivefold in the world. I believe all nations in the world are better off as a result, and do not think we are going to retreat from this kind of globalization.

In the U.S., we attempt to prioritize, or rank-order, dangers that might come to us through food. With biotechnology-produced foods, thus far we have seen no risks, so there are no more considerations for these foods than for any other food.

We are aware that other countries are somewhat taking the lead in advancing aspects of biotechnology. Spain, as you know, last week announced a new orange tree that will mature in one year rather than the usual five years. Spain also announced the bioengineering of a potato, which will enable an extra potato crop per year.

I believe these are the two most remarkable biotechnology developments up to this point. Other countries, particularly some in Europe, are now entering the biotechnology development phase, so the whole world will be awash with biotechnology foods. I don't think these pose any special risks, but we might be more careful than we have been in the past.

With respect to real food safety risks like mad cow disease, or BSE, and to the indirect risk of foot-and-mouth disease, we in the U.S. are on high alert. These are real food safety risks, but we do not think we or any other country should miss the fact that biotechnology is not a food safety risk. But if you spend all your resources policing biotechnology, as you have with mad cow disease, you probably would miss mad cow disease because you would have emphasized the wrong thing.

Problems like foot-and-mouth disease and mad cow disease are huge international problems that can destroy the international food trading system. All countries have to be on high alert to prevent these diseases from entering.

Q:: Which institutions in the United States protect safety? What kind of activities do they do?

MR. CRAWFORD: In the U.S. we have seven different federal agencies that protect the food supply. The three main ones are the Food and Drug Administration, or the FDA; the U.S. Department of Agriculture, or the USDA; and the Environmental Protection Agency, or the EPA.

The resources these agencies put into food safety are tremendous. The overall budget for the Environmental Protection Agency, the largest of the three, is $7.5 billion. The Food and Drug Administration's budget is almost $2 billion, and the Food Safety and Inspection Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture is almost $1 billion.

The largest food safety agency in the world is the Food Safety and Inspection Service, which has a staff of 9,000 food inspectors. FDA and EPA have fewer employees, but combined have approximately 3,000 staff.

We also have strong laws. We have two main food safety laws. Both were passed in the year 1906 when the first Roosevelt was President, and have been amended very little since. These laws require policing the food supply and provide for fines and prison terms for violators.

Meat and poultry inspections are the strongest parts of those laws because they give the U.S. government the right to take away the so-called "grant of inspection," which closes a food plant if an inspector finds a violation has occurred, and restricts the chief executive officer or president of that plant from ever selling food again in the United States.

Q: According to some Italian ... (sources), one danger for human beings and for safety is genetically modified organisms. Are they dangerous, and why is it necessary to use biotechnologically modified foods?

MR. CRAWFORD: Actually, biotech foods are safe. There are no problems with them in terms of food safety. Traditional plant breeding introduces large numbers of genes through splicing, hybridization and other techniques, but biotechnology was selected as the way all plants are going to be developed in the future, because, in my opinion, it is so safe; it's precise. You add only one gene, you know what the gene is, you have experience with it, and so this is the safest technology imaginable.

So far, there have been no difficulties with biotechnology. I think it is being used for some political reasons. I'm not a politician so I don't really know why it is that biotechnology is such a target, but I recognize that it is.

Q: Europeans are reluctant to accept biotechnological food out of respect for tradition or for fear of new things and programs. What would you say?

MR. CRAWFORD: I'm not sure the actual European consumer has much difficulty with biotechnology. I think there are some political groups and some activist organizations that are opposed to biotechnology for reasons of their own. If a country believes its food supply has been the same since the beginning of time -- I was just in Japan where people believe that since time began they've eaten primarily rice -- that might be one reason. In fact, Japan's rice has changed over the years so that it is unrecognizable from the rice of even 100 years ago. I think it's more a political issue. I don't think it's a consumer issue, particularly.

Q: In the U.S., genetically modified corn has been used only for animal breeding. Do you think that [the accidental mixing of grain for animal consumption with that for human consumption that happened last year in the United States] can happen again with other genetically modified crops?

MR. CRAWFORD: Well, that particular problem will not happen again because we have announced a new policy that we will not approve a feedstuff for animals that is not also approved for humans. In this incident, corn was put on the market for animal feed, the market for human food was delayed, and quite understandably, some of the corn got into human food distribution channels. That should not have happened and obviously will not happen again.

Q: What kind of benefit will genetically modified organisms or crops bring to third world and developing countries? Some figures mention a 30 percent increase in crops using genetically modified seeds.

MR. CRAWFORD: That figure comes from the fact that today we have 6 billion humans on the planet, and it is estimated that by the year 2050 we will have 8 billion. So we will need to increase our food production by one-third. Most experts do not believe we can do that without bioengineering. If we have food shortages, they are not likely to be in the Western or developed world. They will likely be in the developing world.

It is a question, I personally believe, of survival. I think there are going to be great food shortages unless biotechnology is allowed to be used throughout the world.

Q: An Italian environmental association claims that transgenic soy is unstable. Is it possible that transgenic, unstable soy is dangerous for human health?

MR. CRAWFORD: No. When a transgenic plant is produced, it is necessary first to show that the genetic change will persist for generation after generation after generation, for as long as that germ line or plant line is planted. For however many generations, it will always be changed in that way.

So bioengineered plants are as stable as any other plant and will remain stable for generations. There is little or no risk of instability in the environment, and there is no evidence that any food safety danger might develop.

Q: Animals bred with ... bioengineered foods, including corn and transgenic corn and soy -- is that meat really safe? Is there any difference from meat of animals bred with foods free of genetically modified organisms?

MR. CRAWFORD: No, there is no difference whatsoever. Absolutely no change. That has been tested. Now, an advantage of feeding animals bioengineered ingredients is that you are less likely to have pesticides because the bioengineered grains often have pesticidal substances in them so you don't have to add chemical pesticides.

You also don't have to add chemical fertilizers to the same extent as with non-bioengineered crops, so grain can be raised on low-tilled soil and there is less opportunity for contamination.

In my opinion, animal feed grown this way is far safer than animal feed raised by traditional methods.

Q: How does the United States judge the epitome of anguish in Europe today with foot-and-mouth disease and the closing of boundaries? Did the United States ever experience a similar situation and what did you to prevent or to cure it?

MR. CRAWFORD: In the early part of the last century we had several food-and-mouth disease outbreaks. The last one was in the year 1929. What you have to do with foot-and-mouth disease is kill the animals that have been exposed to the virus, because once the disease becomes established in your country, you cannot get rid of it.

Vaccination only prolongs it. Virtually all cloven-hooved animals, in fact, every animal except the horse, is somewhat susceptible to foot-and-mouth disease.

What they are doing in Europe with quarantine and what we call depopulation is the right approach.

In 1929 we decided we had to keep this from ever happening again, so we put forward some new laws. We also police the borders so that we do not allow animals in without quarantine. We do not allow garbage off airplanes to be fed to animals, and we require that any garbage or nontraditional food to be fed to pigs be cooked at a high enough temperature to kill organisms. Remember, the food-and-mouth disease virus cannot be killed by pasteurization. It has to be cooked at a much higher temperature.

We also cooperate greatly with the Mexican government. We created a 500-mile safe zone where we share policing with the Mexican government to keep animals from crossing into the U.S. We did a similar thing in Canada. We have declared the U.S. to be foot-and-mouth disease free, and continue to spend a lot of money and effort keeping it out because a country is not the same for a long time once the disease enters.

Q: Which countries do not import bioengineered animal feed?

MR. CRAWFORD: England. I do not have a complete list, but basically, any country that has reported BSE (bovine spongiform encephalopathy). If a country has just one case of BSE or a few cases, it rapidly gets off the list but we have to work out a plan with them. And they don't even have to have BSE. Brazil, for example, was importing cattle from Great Britain but could not be sure it was not also importing animal feed, so the U.S. government temporarily suspended Brazil for a few weeks this year until we could get the assurances.

(end transcript)

(Distributed by the Office of International Information Programs, U.S.
Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
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