Genetically Engineered Foods: The Naked Truth

Speaker:

Gregory Jaffe

01 Nov 2011

6:00 PM

South Ballroom, Memorial Union

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Gregory Jaffe is the Director of the Biotechnology Project at the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), an advocacy and educational organization that focuses on nutrition and health, food safety, and sound science. CSPI was instrumental in pushing through the federal law to set standards for nutrition and health claims on food labels and create the "Nutrition Facts" label. Jaffe joined CSPI in 2001 after working for several government agencies, including as a trial attorney for the Department of Justice's Environmental and Natural Resources Division and then as senior counsel with the Environmental Protection Agency's Air Enforcement Division. He was recently reappointed to the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture's Advisory Committee on Biotechnology and 21st Century Agriculture, on which he also served in 2003-08. Part of the National Affairs Series and the Live Green! Sustainability Series.

Are genetically engineered foods as risky as some people claim? Others state that engineered crops and animals will solve the world's agricultural constraints and eliminate food insecurity? Gregory Jaffe will cut through the heated rhetoric and discourse and provide the naked truth about these new agricultural products and their impact on our food. He will summarize the benefits and risks of engineered crops during their first decade and give his insights into the challenges and issues that face this technology in the coming years. He will critique the U.S. regulatory system as well as provide an international perspective of how this technology is spreading around the world. His talk will provide a unique consumer perspective that will make sense of this controversial topic.