People who have been involved in commercializing biotechnology.... And I had moved down the path of developing a plan and a business case for commercializing a genetically engineered oilseed that would produce fish oil, so I have an idea. The product was still a couple of years away from commercialization when I left the company. But the investment and the required scrutiny analysis--the number of toxicity and safety studies that were done--were incredible. And yet we were marketing organic products and the scrutiny wasn't the same.
I was talking to the communications director from CFIA at one point in time, and he said that there were more health issues and incidents that they encounter in organic production than there were in a conventional or a GM production system. You've seen the example of the California spinach that had E. coli contamination. The ability to store and to treat food products in an organic system is limited compared to a conventional system.
The other thing I learned, being in the organic business for 10 years, was that not all organic certification bodies are created equal. They're not the same, and it's the certifying body itself that should be scrutinized.
One of the benefits of the organic system, and one of the things we argued in our company, was that we had to develop an identity preserve system and a traceability system that enabled us to trace any product back to its source so we could demonstrate it was organically certifiable. That same system could be applicable to a GM system, to keep the containment and the control. And in fact it does, and it was a very good system and we made a significant investment in the company to do that traceability.
But to put a new dietary supplement on the market you didn't need to go through any sort of regulatory approval. All you had to do was just accept responsibility. If it caused harm to somebody, you'd be liable.