Every industry likes to pretend that its products are the .most extensively researched and regulated products in existence. The .nuclear power industry has made this claim, as have the makers of vinyl .chloride, dioxin, fen-phen, MSG and Olestra. . . Instead, government .regulators rely on biotech companies to do their own safety tests and .also determine themselves if the product in question is GRAS. . . Testing biotech crops for their environmental safety is equally .lax. It is up to the USDA to ensure that genetically modified crops are .ecologically safe.
Biotechnology is therefore good for the environment. . .
So far, the opposite has been true. This year, more than half of the US soybean crop was genetically .engineered to survive spraying with Monsanto's best-selling weed killer, .Roundup. An analysis of 8,200 university research trials revealed that .farmers planting Roundup Ready soybeans are using two to five times as .much of the herbicide as farmers growing conventional varieties. Chuck .Benbrook, who reported the results of the studies, said nobody is .testing the crops for increased residues of Roundup. . The EPA, moreover, has raised the allowable residue limits for .Roundup on forage crops. . .