Laying Out The Facts
Mar 14, 2009
From a recent issue of Nature Biotechnology:
"Obama is clearly a science buff, and is really, honestly, into knowing the facts, having them laid out, and then making the best choices that can be mustered," says a policy watcher who was close to the transition team but is outside the federal government. "It is a whole different approach compared to the 'How can we spin this information?' approach of the [Bush administration]. Back to 'honest-to-goodness' curiosity, which is, yes, incredibly refreshing."
There has certainly been a problem in the past with closed mindedness and fact spinning with regard to the environmental and health benefits of biotechnology ( although I would say that this was likely due more to environmental hypochondriacs and those that are averse to capitalism and technology on the left , as opposed to the Bush administration’s policies) However, if the current administration is open minded and curious about the science of agriculture and willing to embrace the evidence and communicate that to others, that will be a great thing. As stated later in the article:
"The EU approach has helped keep African countries from adopting GM [genetically modified] crops," agrees De Greef of EuropaBio. "We hope if the EU and US become less adversarial, it could remove pressure from Africa, which feels forced to choose between US or EU regulations."
The current administration may warm up much better to the Europeans, and as a result win some influence that could be beneficial to the biotech industry. That would be refreshing, as long as we are not selling them on our policies in exchange for some of their more troubling ideas regarding healthcare , taxes, and unemployment.
Source: Nature Biotechnology 27 237-244 (2009)
Matt Bogard, Economic Sense
