February 4, 2010
Guest Post by Susan Arnout Smith: “Into the Dark: Writing Out at Night”
Author Susan Arnout Smith’s latest thriller, Out at Night (Minotaur Books, 2009), blends crime investigation with the timely issue of genetically modified foods. (Click here for how to win a copy of the book, courtesy of Current Vine and Minotaur Books.)
Below, in a guest post exclusive to the Vine, Smith writes of the issues at the heart of her novel.
My son Aaron, now 28, grew mold as a kid in his room. He was fascinated by the green-grey sponge forming out of seeming air.
It bloomed for him on the rims of muddy saucers congealed with food, on pieces of old apples left under the bed. At one point, he got creative and tried to mix molds, growing a truly spectacular specimen that was an angry orange and black. I’m not certain, but I think it had teeth buds.
When I discovered his cache, he informed me he was working on a science project. Good save. He submitted it: “How Mold and Other Stuff Grows.” He got an A.
My daughter, Martha, now 21, grew tomatoes and radishes in the backyard with her dad the summer she was five. After a month, she proudly yanked up all the weeds and had me come take a look. I stared at the row of neatly arranged thin spindly shoots, white and translucent, drying on the ground. I didn’t have the heart to tell her she’d yanked up every single radish, thinking they were weeds, and left the weeds to flourish.
The radishes were goners, but the tomatoes were true miracles. They grew lopsided and pocked with insect holes into sweet-smelling treasures. I had forgotten how good actual food tasted until we enjoyed the bounty at our table.
Working on Out at Night reminded me of both.
The sweet taste of real things. And the ability in nature—sometimes with tweaking from us—to morph into things that can alarm us.
We need to eat.
Food makes us strong; it also makes us vulnerable.
Thirty years ago, in 1980, the United States Supreme Court issued a ruling that allowed for the patenting of genetically modified life forms. For sale. This single ruling, Diamond vs. Chakrabarty, opened the doors to the creation of genetically modified crops that could be made into food and sold.
Now about two-thirds of the food sold on American store shelves is made out of genetically modified crops.
Walk into any supermarket and there are labels telling you how many calories are in a box of corn cereal, or how many fat grams. Nowhere on an American label is there information about whether the product has been made from genetically modified crops.
The Brits, among others, have been sounding the alarm for years. They require strict labeling of all GM foods sold in their stores.
Not here. That might be changing soon—there’s a move in the U.S. to identify biotech products—but we’ve been slow to act.
I have to say something I’ve said before: Hunger is a terrible thing with a human cost and face. An argument can be made that good has come from genetically modified crops. In the lab, scientists have created seeds that are drought, insect, and weed resistant and even some—like golden rice genetically modified to carry vitamin A (funded by Bill and Melinda Gates)—could significantly improve the lives of children in Third World countries and prevent blindness.
But the truth is, we’re not quite sure yet what the downside to all this tweaking is.
And once these GMs are out in the world—well, there they are. With wind drift, there’s no way to contain a crop completely. An entire organic papaya crop on the Big Island had to be destroyed a couple of years back, after it was contaminated with pollen from GM crops. In parts of the world, GM crops overwhelm indigenous growth. Never good.
Some of these GM crops contain human genes, like the rice given preliminary patent approval by the USDA that would produce an anti-diarrhea medicine.
Human. Genes.
In rice.
Check, please.
This is not a rant about scientists or even big pharma. My main character, Grace Descanso, is a scientist, working in a police crime lab. Many times it’s scientists, with specialized knowledge, who have enough data to realize a danger and sound an alarm.
I do believe—based on the response of Americans to the recent situation in Haiti, for example—that most of us have good intentions and huge hearts.
My point is that this whole genetic modification of crops issue is complicated.
And now thirty years old. The ship has sailed, the cat’s out of the bag, the rooster’s crowed.
We’re left to deal.
So. We have to eat. And in many ways we are still the ones that a hungry, impoverished world turns to for help. We try to protect ourselves by checking labels, buying from local farmers’ markets, growing our own.
Yet the truth is we operate partly on faith. That what we put in our mouths will make us strong. That what we eat won’t have unintended consequences. That what we eat won’t kill us.
Welcome to the world of Out at Night.
Related:
Giveaway: Susan Arnout Smith’s Latest Thriller
