Turning to the specific issue of biotechnology in agriculture, I would like to address the respective roles and responsibilities of governments and consumer groups. When society is confronted by a promising new technology with broad application, there can be concerns as well as opportunities. I will touch briefly on food safety, on the role of precaution and on the environmental, economic, ethical and foreign policy aspects of biotechnology. Living, as we are, in a globalizing world, biotechnology has an international, indeed a global, dimension. When it comes to food, safety must be the starting point.
American consumers demand the highest standards of food safety.
Public officials from President Clinton on down have pledged to provide it. U.S. regulations on food safety have been based on high scientific standards and on the intelligent use of precaution in risk assessment and risk management. Foreign consumers of U.S. food products in foreign markets should rest assured that our products are safe and that the U.S. government intends to keep it that way. On April 6, the independent National Academy of Sciences published an exhaustive study that confirmed that the existing biotech foods are as safe as traditional foods. Governments and consumer information groups, both here and abroad, have an obligation to disseminate this information so that consumers can make informed choices when they visit the supermarket or petition their governments.