Leaders’ failure causes isles to lose out in GMO debate

If you stick around long enough, all history eventually repeats.

So it is that the current pitched battles on Kauai and Hawaii island over genetically modified crops have the oldie-but-moldy feel of the fight on the Big Island in the mid-1970s over fluoridating the water supply.

Then, as now, it was the certainty of science vs. the doubts of the masses.

In 1975, the Hawaii County Council voted to add fluoride to the island’s water — nationally popular for fighting tooth decay in children — at the behest of the dental association and the ILWU.

As with GMOs, many residents emotionally opposed putting a chemical in the water that some believed caused cancer and other deadly diseases.

The Council majority stood behind scientific testimony that fluoride was safe and effective,dismissing the opposition as uneducated parochialism.

The official view was similar to that expressed this year by a biotech lobbyist about GMO opponents: "It is nothing short of modern ‘know-nothingism.’"

The Big Island charter allows for voter initiative, and fluoride opponents got the issue on the 1976 ballot. Voters not only rejected fluoridation by a wide margin, but also threw out six of the nine Council members.

Modern councils on Kauai and Hawaii island remember the political spanking and have embraced the anti-GMO emotionalism to a point that borders on pandering.

GMO advocates today are taking a beating because they didn’t learn the real lessons from 1976: You don’t fight the battle by calling the public ignorant, nor do you tell people they don’t get to control what goes into their bodies because scientists and government know better what’s good for them.

The Abercrombie administration and Legislature could have provided sorely needed leadership by promoting objective fact-finding, reasonable GMO labeling and meaningful safeguards in the fields.

Instead, they listened to the jingle of biotech campaign donations and did nothing as GMO fever rose on the neighbor islands.

The 11th-hour attempt by the governor and Kauai legislators to head off GMO regulations by Kauai County with an alternative that depended on voluntary industry compliance was laughable.

With both fluoride and GMOs, the cost of poor leadership is lost opportunity.

Two-thirds of Americans drink fluoridated water, which the Centers for Disease Control lists among the 10 greatest public health achievements of the 20th century.

But more than 35 years after the Big Island debacle, any proposal to fluoridate water in Hawaii is a nonstarter and our state has the worst dental health in the nation.

Because of the failure of the biotech industry, scientists and state government to respectfully address public concerns on GMOs, Hawaii may be denied the benefits that properly regulated transgenic farming could contribute to our economic and agricultural sustainability.

Reach David Shapiro at volcanicash@gmail.com or blog.volcanicash.net.