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TODAY Friday 9 May 1997 Each weekday. Conn Nugent on what's new in the world, on the site. |
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TODAY Friday 9 May 1997 Each weekday. Conn Nugent on what's new in the world, on the site. |
TODAY IN THE WORLD: Free Trade and Hormones
So it happened. For years now, many environmentalists have warned of an underside to the global economy and free trade: the potential for an international organization to void the national laws of a member state seeking to protect the health of its citizens from an environmental risk imbedded in products imported from abroad. Yesterday, the World Trade Organization issued a preliminary report -- which no one thinks will be changed -- declaring illegal the European Union ban on beef from cattle fed with growth hormones.
According to the report in this morning's New York Times, the decision was based on the finding that there was no scientific basis to believe that any of the five hormones at issue, including progesterone and testosterone, presented any threat to the health of the humans who eat the beef. Such was "the overwhelming consensus among scientific experts." And therefore, said the WTO, the European ban was an essentially capricious measure to limit trade, and illegal under the GATT treaty.
In financial terms, a final ruling would mean that beef producers from countries that use growth hormones -- the US, Argentina, Australia, Canada, New Zealand -- will be able to expand their share of the European market. How much is not clear. Concern about food additives runs high in many parts of Western Europe, and consumers may choose to pay more for the privilege of eating hormone-free beef. Non-hormone-using, range-grazing cattlemen in the US -- there's a league of them throughout the Great Plains -- may be presented with a fantastic export market.
In terms of environmental health, who knows? That there is an "overwhelming" scientific consensus that the hormones pose no health threat is, to me at least, reason enough to believe that the hormones probably pose no health threat. But just "probably." I know that DDT was once declared safe by an overwhelming scientific consensus, that CFCs were once deemed harmless by an overwhelming scientific consensus, and that it took a hundred years to develop an overwhelming scientific consensus that last century's overwhelming scientific consensus on atmospheric warming was wrong.
Besides, these hormone questions are nothing if not tricky. Anyone acquainted with the scientific literature on endocrine disruption knows that hormonal systems are astonishingly sensitive; that the timing of exposure to natural and synthetic hormones often matters more than the dose of the exposure; that exposure of a pregnant mother is often revealed only during the maturation of her offspring; and that being precise about all this is devilishly hard because of the difficulties of isolating just one factor in an extremely complicated stew of cause and effect.
Because, on balance, I tend to believe in the probability that the scientists cited by the WTO are correct, and because I just don't like to live with more anxieties than I've got already, I will continue to eat a hamburger about once a month and a little more often order curried beef from the Chinese take-out. And I will continue to try to change the topic when people who learn that I am "an environmentalist" want to talk with me about the healthfulness of their diet. But my personal decision for apathy on this question doesn't mean that there's no danger, or that scientific consensuses as discerned by bureaucrats are assurances enough on a complicated subject of chemistry and physiognomy. Where lies prudence? And who can invoke it?
So finally, then, this is also something to be considered in terms of sovereignty, personal and national. No one is suggesting (yet) that a person be compelled to eat hormoned beef, but the choice afforded by the meat department at the supermarket is the only operative choice for most of us. Almost all of us Americans who want to eat red meat will not endure the extra cost and inconvenience of finding alternative channels. We have already effectively ceded our right to hormone-free beef. But if the people and governments of Europe -- befogged by their cigarette smoke, overstimulated by their espressos, deluded by crackpot, narcissistic pseudo-science -- want to keep out our American product, I say that's their right, and I hope they take a stand.
TODAY ON THE SITE
For lots more on hormone systems and their vulnerabilities, go right to the Endocrine Disrupters portion of our In The Trenches section. Carolyn Strange does a great job of summarizing the science and presenting a wide range of analysis and opinion.
And in our next edition -- next Monday, 12 May -- you'll be able to read a piece on the same subject by John Peterson Myers, one of the three authors of last year's seminal book on chemicals and hormones, Our Stolen Future.
Finally, if you are interested in the environmental implications of trade policy, look into the Website recommendations of a person who has thought about these matters for a very long time. Mark Ritchie, President of the Institute For Agriculture and Trade Policy, has written a High Five that serves as an excellent starting point for anyone's education.
We'll be hearing about this issue for a long time to come.
5/08: Sherry Boehlert, Republican
5/07: Fort Davis, West Texas
5/06: Europe (yawn)
5/05: Divorce, Mothers, Equality
5/02: Killer Grannies and the Highway Bill
5/01: China
4/30: Pity the Mangrove
4/29: Grizzlies off Battery Park
4/28: Mighty Monsanto
4/25: Growth
4/24: Refrigerator Wars
4/23: The Day the Earth Day Stood Still
4/22: Doorman Ecology
4/21: Toyota Steps Out
4/18: Victims of Extremism
4/17: Our White Guy Problem
4/16: Coca-Cola and the Merrit Parkway