A revolving door, round it goes. Similar to conflicts of interests, this political issue occurs when there is a circulating flow between government officials and industry employees, representatives, or lobbyists. When there is a vacancy within a federal agency to regulate the food industry, look no further than the industry’s corporate leaders. But how did this never ending cycle begin? Is it causing any damage? The revolving door phenomenon between the food industry and Monsanto evolved from the development of genetically engineered foods and has since negatively impacted public health, the environment, and the economy.
The revolving door has flourished in federal agencies responsible for regulating the food industry such as the United States …show more content…
In September 2009, the USDA was found by a federal court to have “failed to adequately access the environmental impact of Monsanto’s Roundup Ready sugar beets” (Waltz 970). Unfortunately, this was not the first instance that the USDA has failed to access the environmental impact of Monsanto products. Monsanto’s bent grass and alfalfa were also released into the market without the USDA fully evaluating the environmental effects. The agency failed to write an environmental impact statement, required by the National Environmental Policy Act. The USDA has “interpreted its authority as limited to reviewing environmental impacts like gene glow and weed resistance” (Waltz 970). This seems to be a direct impact of the USDA, FDA, and EPA having different and confusing responsibilities with regulating the food industry, With the EPA in charge of regulating the environmental impacts of the genetically modified foods, the responsibilities of the USDA in terms in environmental effects were distorted, allowing the environmentally threatening Monsanto products to be approved. However, Om V Singh argues there is no reason to be concerned over the contamination of genetically modified foods into the natural environment. The author claims that genetically modified genes can be tracked in the environment from their polymerase chain reaction or PCR, which he states to be a “very effective approach to detecting transgenes in the environment” (Singh 2). With this type of identification, there is no need to craft environmental impact statements for biotech products. If there is any devastation resulting in a particular product, scientists have the ability to trace the problem to its source with the PCRs. With this argument, any environmentally dangerous product should not be investigate further until
The revolving door has flourished in federal agencies responsible for regulating the food industry such as the United States …show more content…
In September 2009, the USDA was found by a federal court to have “failed to adequately access the environmental impact of Monsanto’s Roundup Ready sugar beets” (Waltz 970). Unfortunately, this was not the first instance that the USDA has failed to access the environmental impact of Monsanto products. Monsanto’s bent grass and alfalfa were also released into the market without the USDA fully evaluating the environmental effects. The agency failed to write an environmental impact statement, required by the National Environmental Policy Act. The USDA has “interpreted its authority as limited to reviewing environmental impacts like gene glow and weed resistance” (Waltz 970). This seems to be a direct impact of the USDA, FDA, and EPA having different and confusing responsibilities with regulating the food industry, With the EPA in charge of regulating the environmental impacts of the genetically modified foods, the responsibilities of the USDA in terms in environmental effects were distorted, allowing the environmentally threatening Monsanto products to be approved. However, Om V Singh argues there is no reason to be concerned over the contamination of genetically modified foods into the natural environment. The author claims that genetically modified genes can be tracked in the environment from their polymerase chain reaction or PCR, which he states to be a “very effective approach to detecting transgenes in the environment” (Singh 2). With this type of identification, there is no need to craft environmental impact statements for biotech products. If there is any devastation resulting in a particular product, scientists have the ability to trace the problem to its source with the PCRs. With this argument, any environmentally dangerous product should not be investigate further until