从一场实验到一地鸡毛--2001年孟山都就该死

顾秀林按: 早在13年前的2001年1月25日，纽约时报就告诉我们：孟山都公司失败了，被收购了。文章娓娓道来，内容却杀气腾腾。生物技术公司，即转基因公司，不把世界改造成转基因的世界，誓不罢休。如果中国没有在那一年加入WTO,那么2001年孟山都公司就死定了。中国大豆成了米国孟山都公司的垫脚石，入世成了米国转基因扩散的合法渠道。中国救了转基因一次，救了对手美国。转基因农业因为中国敞开接纳生物技术的有毒产品而多延续了13年。不会再有下一次了——干掉无恶不作的孟山都公司，干掉转基因——星星之火正在燎原。 邪恶的转基因技术不久就要全面失败了。让我们做好一切准备，迎接它的垂死挣扎。2014-6-4 Biotechnology Food: From the Lab to a Debacle 生物技术食品：从一场实验到一地鸡毛 http://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/25/business/25FOOD.html January 25, 2001 2001年1月25日 By KURT EICHENWALD, GINA KOLATA and MELODY PETERSEN 科特▪艾欣沃尔德，吉拉▪考拉特，梅勒蒂▪彼特森报道 The following article was reported by Kurt Eichenwald, Gina Kolata and Melody Petersen and was written by Mr. Eichenwald. 以下文章内容来自科特▪艾欣沃尔德，吉拉▪考拉特和梅勒蒂▪彼特森的报道，由艾欣沃尔德撰写。 In late 1986, four executives of the Monsanto Company, the leader in agricultural biotechnology, paid a visit to Vice President George Bush at the White House to make an unusual pitch. 1986年末，四位孟山都公司—农业生物技术行业的龙头老大—的总经理来到白宫拜访了副总统乔治•布什。此行非比寻常。 Although the Reagan administration had been championing deregulation across multiple industries, Monsanto had a different idea: the company wanted its new technology, genetically modified food, to be governed by rules issued in Washington and wanted the White House to champion the idea. 里根当局一直主张放松对社会各行各业的行政管理，孟山都公司对此却有不同看法：它很想将自己的转基因食品这项新技术置于联邦法规的管理之下，很想白宫支持这一想法。 "There were no products at the time," Leonard Guarraia, a former Monsanto executive who attended the Bush meeting, recalled in a recent interview. "But we bugged him for regulation. We told him that we have to be regulated." “当时市面上还没有这种产品，”在最近的一次访谈中，参加了当年与布什会面的前孟山都总经理莱昂纳德•瓜雷亚忆起。“但是我们不停地烦他，要求他对此实施监管。我们告诉他这种产品必须受到监管。” Government guidelines, the executives reasoned, would reassure a public that was growing skittish about the safety of this radical new science. Without such controls, they feared, consumers might become so wary they could doom the multibillion-dollar gamble that the industry was taking in its efforts to redesign plants using genes from other organisms including other species. 这几位高管的理由是，政府的方针政策能安抚越来越敏感的公众，不对转基因这种全新技术的安全性担忧。他们担心，若没有那些管控措施，消费者的疑虑最终可能毁掉孟山都公司的这场大胆赌局—他们重塑了植物，用了来自其他生物的基因，已经花费了数十亿美元。 In the weeks and months that followed, the White House complied, working behind the scenes to help Monsanto long a political power with deep connections in Washington get the regulations that it wanted. 在其后的几个月里，白宫就给了孟山都公司它想要的管理规则。孟山都在华盛顿政界人脉极深广 It was an outcome that would be repeated, again and again, through three administrations. What Monsanto wished for from Washington, Monsanto and, by extension, the biotechnology industry got. If the company's strategy demanded regulations, rules favored by the industry were adopted. And when the company abruptly decided that it needed to throw off the regulations and speed its foods to market, the White House quickly ushered through an unusually generous policy of self-policing. 这个成功被一再被复制，已历三届政府。孟山都从华盛顿得其所求，那正是生物技术业界之所求。让政府来管理是公司的战略，政府的法规必会偏向公司；一旦公司决定要加速销售，白宫一定会宽宏大量地让公司自己管自己。 Even longtime Washington hands said that the control this nascent industry exerted over its own regulatory destiny through the Environmental Protection Agency, the Agriculture Department and ultimately the Food and Drug Administration was astonishing. 连华府的资深人士都说，这一新兴产业玩弄环保署，农业部，食品药物管理局以制定对自己有利的管理规则所显示的控制力令人心悸。 "In this area, the U.S. government agencies have done exactly what big agribusiness has asked them to do and told them to do," said Dr. Henry Miller, a senior research fellow at the Hoover Institution, who was responsible for biotechnology issues at the Food and Drug Administration from 1979 to 1994. “在这一领域，美国政府各部门机构就是农业巨头企业名符其实的忠仆，”胡佛研究所高级研究员，曾于1979至1994年间在食品与药物管理局负责生物技术问题的亨利·米勒博士如是说道。 The outcome, at least according to some fans of the technology? "Food biotech is dead," Dr. Miller said. "The potential now is an infinitesimal fraction of what most observers had hoped it would be." 对于一些生物技术爱好者来说，结果是：“食品生物技术已死，”米勒博士说道。“它只表达了所期待的巨大潜力的一点点” While the verdict is surely premature, the industry is in crisis. Genetically modified ingredients may be in more than half of America's grocery products. But worldwide protest has been galvanized. The European markets have banned the products and some American food producers are backing away. A recent discovery that certain taco shells manufactured by Kraft contained Starlink, a modified corn classified as unfit for human consumption, prompted a sweeping recall and did grave harm to the idea that self-regulation was sufficient. The mighty Monsanto has merged with a pharmaceutical company. 下判决的确为时过早，但这一行业确实陷入了危机。美国大半的食品中可能都含有转基因成分，但全世界对转基因食品的抵制越发强烈。欧洲市场禁止了这种产品。一些美国食品生产商也退出去了。不久前卡夫食品公司的某些玉米卷中发现了星联玉米，是规定为不适合人类食用的。卡夫公司不得不大规模找回产品，对企业自我监管的信心是致命一击。而强大的孟山都已开始合并制药公司了。 How could an industry so successful in controlling its own regulations end up in such disarray? 一个能玩弄监管措施如此得心应手的行业何以也会乱套？ The answer pieced together from confidential industry records, court documents and government filings, as well as interviews with current and former officials of industry, government and organizations opposing the use of bioengineering in food provides a stunning example of how management, with a few miscalculations, can steer an industry headlong into disaster. 找到答案有待凑齐行业机密文件、法庭文件和政府文档，加上对各方人士的采访记录，包括如今或以往任职本行业者或政府官员，还有反对将生物工程技术用于食品的机构。得到的是一个触目惊心的实例，让我们看到仅仅在监管上几步失算，就可以把一整个行业导入灾难。 For many years, senior executives at Monsanto, the industry's undisputed leader, believed that they faced enormous obstacles from environmental and consumer groups opposed to the new technology. Rather than fight them, the original Monsanto strategy was to bring in opponents as consultants, hoping their participation would ease the foods' passage from the laboratory to the shopping cart. 很多年来，业界无可争议的领袖，孟山都公司的高级管理人员一直相信，是环保和消费者团体反对新技术给他们造成了巨大的障碍。孟山都公司最初的战略不是打击他们，而是把反对者请进来做顾问，希望他们的参与能让转基因食品更加容易地从实验室走入市场。 "We thought it was at least a decade-long job, to take our efforts and present them to environmental groups and the general public, and gradually win support for this," said Earle Harbison Jr., the president and chief operating officer at Monsanto during the late 1980's. “当时我们认为，向环保组织和消费者展示我们的成果并逐渐让他们支持转基因技术至少需要十年之久的努力，”20世纪80年代末期担任孟山都公司总裁及首席运营官的小厄尔•哈比森说道。 But come the early 1990's, the strategy changed. A new management team took over at Monsanto, one confident that worries about the new technology had been thoroughly disproved by science. The go-slow approach was shelved in favor of a strategy to erase regulatory barriers and shove past the naysayers. The switch invigorated the opponents of biotechnology and ultimately dismayed the industry's allies the farmers, agricultural universities and food companies. 然而，到了20世纪90年代初，公司的战略变了。孟山都公司新上任的管理团队相信科学已经完全扫除了对这项新技术的担忧。“慢慢来”的方法被新的战略取代——清除监管壁垒，推开反对者。这下激怒了生物技术的反对者，并最终让这个行业的盟友们—农民，农业大学以及食品公司—大失所望。 "Somewhere along the line, Monsanto specifically and the industry in general lost the recipe of how we presented our story," said Will Carpenter, the head of the company's biotechnology strategy group until 1991. "When you put together arrogance and incompetence, you've got an unbeatable combination. You can get blown up in any direction. And they were." “自某时起，以孟山都和整个行业丢失了章法，”担任孟山都公司生物技术战略组负责人直至1991年的威尔•卡朋特说道。“当你变得既傲慢又无能时，你就没戏了。你会处处挨打。而事实也确实如此。” Biology Debate 辩论生物学 New Microbes Bring New Fears 新微生物带来新恐慌 In the summer of 1970, Janet E. Mertz was working at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, picking up tips on animal viruses from Dr. Robert Pollack, a professor at the private research center on Long Island and a master in the field. One day she began to explain to Dr. Pollack the experiment she was planning when she returned to her graduate studies in the fall at Stanford University with her adviser, Dr. Paul Berg. They were preparing to take genes from a monkey virus and put them into a commonly used strain of bacteria, E. coli, as part of an effort to figure out the purposes of different parts of a gene. 1970年夏，珍妮特·E·默茨在冷泉港实验室里忙碌着，她正在斟酌罗伯特.波拉克(Robert Pollack)博士关于动物病毒的建议。波拉克博士是长岛一个私人研究中心的研究员，也是该领域的专家。某日她对波拉克博士讲述她的实验计划。秋季她将到斯坦福大学继续研究生学业，和她的导师保罗.伯格(Paul Berg)博士一起进行这个实验。他们准备从猴子病毒中提取基因，插入到一种实验中常用的细菌大肠杆菌中，以弄清楚基因的每个部分的功能。 Dr. Pollack was horrified. The virus she planned to use contained genes that could cause cancer in rodents, he reminded her. Strains of E. coli live in human intestines. What if the viral genes created a cancer- causing microbe that could be spread from person to person the way unmodified E. coli can. Dr. Pollack wanted Ms. Mertz's project halted immediately. . 波拉克博士极为震惊，提醒她猴病毒中含有可导致啮齿动物患癌的基因。大肠杆菌也生活在人肠道中，假如病毒基因创造出一种致癌微生物，像没有转过基因的大肠杆菌一样在人际转播，那该怎么办？波拉克博士希望她的项目立刻停止。 "I said to Janet, `There's a human experiment I don't want to be part of,' " Dr. Pollack said in a recent interview. “我对珍妮特说，这是拿人做实验，我不想沾边”，波拉克博士在最近的一次采访中说道。 The resulting transcontinental shouting match between Dr. Pollack and Dr. Berg set off a debate among biologists around the world as they contemplated questions that seemed lifted from science fiction. Were genetically modified bacteria superbugs? Would they be more powerful than naturally occurring bacteria? Would scientists who wanted to study them have to move their research to the sort of secure labs used to study diseases like the black plague? 波拉克博士和伯格博士之间随后发生的争吵，引发了全世界生物学家的辩论，辩题就像来自科幻小说一样。转基因病菌是超级细菌吗？这些病菌会不会比自然中的细菌更加强大？研究此类病菌的科学家是否应该搬到万无一失的实验室去，就像研究黑死病那样？ "The notion of being able to move genes between species was an alarming thought," said Alexander Capron, a professor of law and medicine at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. "People talked about there being species barriers you're reorganizing nature in some way." 亚历山大.卡普纶(Alexander Capron)是南加州大学洛杉矶分校的一位教授，他说：“把基因在不同物种间移动的想法，令人警觉。人们这样谈论物种隔离，是有点想要重组自然。” As researchers joined in the debate, they came to the conclusion that strict controls were needed on such experiments until scientists understood the implications. In 1975, the elite of the field gathered at the Asilomar conference center in Pacific Grove, Calif. There, they recommended that all molecular biologists refrain from doing certain research and abide by stringent regulations for other experiments. To monitor themselves, they set up a committee at the National Institutes of Health to review and approve all research projects. 加入辩论的研究者得出结论：在科学家们弄清楚后果之前，对此类实验要严格控制。1975年，业内精英云集加州太平洋丛林市的艾西洛玛会议中心。在那次会议上，他们建议所有分子生物学家都不要做某些实验，在其他实验中严格遵守有关规定。为了自我监督，他们还在联邦卫生部设立了一个委员会来审核和批准所有的研究项目。 It took just a few years and hundreds of experiments before the most urgent questions had their answers. Over and over again, scientists created bacteria with all manner of added or deleted genes and then mixed them with naturally occurring bacteria. 为了回答最紧迫的问题，用了几年时间，做了几百次实验。科学家们一次又一次地制造各种细菌，有基因增加的，也有基因删除的，然后与自然的细菌混合。 But rather than creating superbugs, the scientists found themselves struggling to keep the engineered bacteria from dying as the more robust naturally occurring bacteria crowded them out. 超级细菌没有出现，科学家反而发现需要费尽心机保护被创造出的细菌存活，因为它们不断遭到生命力强大的自然细菌的排挤。 It turned out that adding almost any gene to bacteria cells only weakened them. They needed coddling in the laboratory to survive. And the E. coli that Ms. Mertz had wanted to use were among the feeblest of all. 事实证明在细菌中加入任何基因都只会削弱它们。这些细菌需要在实验室里精心培育才能存活。而默茨想要使用的大肠杆菌是最脆弱的一种。 By the mid-1980's, the Institutes of Health lifted its restrictions. Even scientists like Dr. Pollack, who sounded the initial alarm, were satisfied that the experiments were safe. 1980年代中期，卫生部取消了有关限制。即使最早敲响警钟的波拉克博士也相信了这种实验是安全的。 "The answer came out very clearly," he said. "Putting new genes into bacteria did not have the unintended consequence of making the bacteria dangerous." 他说：“答案是清楚的，将新的基因植入细菌不会使细菌变得危险。” That decision echoed through industry like the sound of a starter's pistol. First out of the gate were the pharmaceutical companies, with a rapid series of experiments on how the new science could be used in medicines. Hundreds of drugs went into development, including human insulin for diabetes, Activase for the treatment of heart attacks, Epogen for renal disease and the hepatitis B vaccine. 这一决定像发令枪一样响彻整个行业。医药公司率先做了一系列实验，探索新科学如何应用于制药。数百种药被开发，包括治疗糖尿病的人胰岛素、治疗心脏病的阿替普酶、治疗肾脏疾病的阿法依泊汀和乙肝疫苗。 "It's been huge," said Dr. David Golde, physician in chief at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York. "It has changed human health." 纽约纪念斯隆—凯特琳癌症中心首席医生大卫.戈尔德(David Golde)说到：“这件事非常大，已经改变了人类的健康。” The success that modifying living organisms would bring the pharmaceutical industry quickly attracted attention from some of the nation's largest agricultural companies, eager to extend their staid businesses into an arena that Wall Street had endowed with such glamour. 修饰生物体在医药业取得成功，很快引起了美国最大的几家农业公司的注意。它们迫切想要扩展停滞的公司业务，走进这个被华尔街追捧的领域。 Reaching Out 推广 Monsanto Takes a Soft Approach 孟山都智取不硬来 In June 1986, Mr. Harbison took control of Monsanto's push into biotechnology, a project snared in mystery and infighting. A 19-year veteran of Monsanto who had recently become its president and chief operating officer, he formed a committee to lead the charge. 1986年6月，​​孟山都大举进军神秘莫测又备受争议的生物技术行业时，哈比森（Harbison）在掌控大局。他是孟山都的一员老将，任职长达19年，最近成为该公司的总裁兼首席营运官。为此他组建了一个委员会。 "There is little more important than this task in our corporation at this time," Mr. Harbison wrote to the 13 executives selected for the assignment. “此时此刻，这是我公司的头等任务。”哈比森致信新上任的13个高管。 "We recognized early on," Mr. Harbison said in a recent interview, "that while developing lifesaving drugs might be greeted with fanfare, monkeying around with plants and food would be greeted with skepticism." And so Mr. Harbison drafted a plan to reach out to affected groups from environmentalists to farmers to win their support. “我们很早就认识到，”哈比森在最近的一次采访中说道，“研发救命的药物可能需要鼓吹，改变做食品的农作物会受到质疑。”哈比森为此起草了一个计划，试图赢得从环保主义者到农民这些群体的支持。 That same month, the company's lobbying effort for regulation began to show its first signs of success. The Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration were given authority over different aspects of the business, from field testing of new ideas to the review of new foods. 同月，该公司四处游说寻求监管的努力显示了最初的成功迹象。环保署、农业部和食品药品管理局被分别赋予针对这个行业的权力，从在田间测试新思路到审核新食品，不一而足。 In an administration committed to deregulation, the heads of some agencies had been opposed to new rules. At an early meeting, William Ruckelshaus, then the head of the E.P.A., expressed skepticism that his agency should play any role in regulating field testing, according to people who attended. That was overcome only when Monsanto executives raised the specter of Congressional hearings about the use of biotechnology to create crops that contain their own pesticides, these people said. 那是一个到处在撤销管制规定的时代，某些部门的负责人始终反对搞新规定。据到会者说，在很早的一次会议上，时任环保局负责人的威廉·拉克尔肖斯（William Ruckelshaus）就表示过怀疑，他的机构对于在田间做的实验能有什么作用？孟山都高管提出，他们的生物技术植物里面有公司的杀虫剂，环保署不管就只能去搞国会听证会这才将质疑压下去。 By fall, Monsanto's strategy committee was developing a plan for introducing biotechnology to the public. A copy of a working draft, dated Oct. 13, 1986, listed what the committee considered the major challenges: organized opposition among environmental groups, political opportunism by elected officials and lack of knowledge among reporters about biotechnology. 一直到秋季，孟山都的战略委员会都在制定把生物技术推介给公众的计划。一个工作草案的副本（日期为1986年10月13日）开列出他们面临的重大挑战：环保团体有组织的反对、政府官员的政治投机，媒体记者不了解生物技术。 It also highlighted more complex issues, including ethical questions about "tinkering with the human gene pool" and the lack of economic incentives to transfer the technology to the third world, where it would probably do the most good. 还有一些更复杂的事，如“扰动人类基因库”的伦理问题，以及向第三世界转移这个技术缺少经济激励,在那里转基因技术才最有用武之地 To solve political problems, the document suggested engaging elected officials and regulators around the world, "creating support for biotechnology at the highest U.S. policy levels," and working to gain endorsements for the technology in the presidential platforms of both the Republican and Democratic Parties in the 1988 election. 为了解决政治方面的问题，该文件提出把世界各地的官员和监管者都拉进来，“在美国最高的政治层面上把对生物技术的支持建构出来”，并努力争取在1988年的总统大选中让两党都支持转基因技术 。 To deal with opponents, the document said, "Active outreach will encourage public interest, consumer and environmental groups to develop supportive positions on biotechnology, and serve as regular advisers to Monsanto." 对付反对者，文件提出，“以积极的工作推动公众利益组织、消费者和环保组织采取支持生物技术的立场，把他们变成孟山都当顾问。” Former Monsanto executives said that while they felt confident of the new food's overall safety, they also recognized that bioengineering raised concerns about possible allergens, unknown toxins or environmental effects. Beyond that, there was a reasonable philosophical anxiety about human manipulation of nature. 孟山都的前高管们表示，虽然他们对新食品的一般安全性有信心，但他们也认识到，生物工程引起了人们对可能的过敏原、未知毒素或环境影响的关注。当然还有一种哲学上的不安，那就是人类操控自然。 "If this business was going to work, one of the things we had to do was engage in a dialogue with all of the stakeholders, including the consumer groups and the more rational environmental organizations," said Mr. Carpenter, who headed the biotechnology strategy group. "It wasn't Nobel Prize thinking." “如果想干成这件事情，我们不得不做的事情之一就是，与所有的利益相关者对话，包括消费者团体和更理性的环保组织，” 生物技术战略团体的负责人卡彭特先生说道，“这不是像诺贝尔奖那么高深的观点。 ” A Blunder Decision on Milk Causes a Furor 牛奶的错误引起轩然大波 Even as Monsanto was assembling its outreach strategy, other documents show that it was making strides toward what former executives now acknowledge was a major strategic blunder. The company was preparing to introduce to farmers the first product from its biotechnology program: a growth hormone produced in genetically altered bacteria. Some on the strategy committee pushed for marketing a porcine hormone that would produce leaner and bigger hogs. 与孟山都整合其产品的推广战略同时，有文件显示该公司前任高管日后承认的重大战略失误:向农民推广生物技术的第一款产品：应用转基因细菌生产的一种生长激素。能使生猪体形彪悍,肉质精瘦。公司战略委员会的一些人刚好正在敦促这种激素上市销售。 But, simply because the product was further along in development, the company decided to go forward with a bovine growth hormone, which improves milk production in cows despite vociferous objections of executives who feared that tinkering with a product consumed by children would ignite a national outcry. 由于该生长激素还在研发阶段，公司决定推行另一种乳牛生长激素，这种激素将提高牛奶的产量，但公司高管们担心在儿童食品上做手脚会激起全国性的抗议，都强烈反对乳牛生长激素的使用。 "It was not a wise choice to go out with that product first," Mr. Harbison acknowledged. "It was a mistake." “立即推广这种产品是不明智的，”哈比森先生说，“这是一个错误。” Scientists who watched the events remain stunned by Monsanto's decisions. 关注此事的科学家们对孟山都的决定震惊。 "I don't think they really thought through the whole darn thing," Dr. Virginia Walbot, a professor of biological sciences at Stanford University, said of Monsanto's decision to market products that benefited farmers rather than general consumers. "The way Thomas Edison demonstrated how great electricity was was by providing lights for the first nighttime baseball game. People were in awe. What if he had decided to demonstrate the electric chair instead? And what if his second product had been the electric cattle prod? Would we have electricity today?" “我觉得他们根本就没有把整个事情想明白。”斯坦福大学生物科学专业的教授，维吉尼亚·沃伯特（Virginia Walbot）博士这样评价孟山都推广有益于农民而非普通消费大众的产品的决定，“爱迪生通过为首次夜间棒球赛提供照明来展示电的神奇和伟大。人们由衷敬佩。但要是他当时决定展示电椅会怎么样？要是他发明的第二件产品是电牛棒呢？我们会接受用电吗？” The decision touched off a furor. Jeremy Rifkin, director of the Foundation on Economic Trends, an opponent of biotechnology, joined with family-farm groups worried about price declines and other organizations in a national campaign to keep the Monsanto hormone out of the marketplace. Some supermarket chains shunned the idea; several dairy states moved to ban it. The first step toward the shopping cart brought only bad news. 孟山都的这一决定引起轩然大波。经济走势基金会主席杰里米·里夫金（Jeremy Rifkin）就是一位生物科技的反对者，与担心价格下跌的数个家庭农场组织等一道，加入了阻止孟山都激素的全国行动。一些连锁超市纷纷效仿；还有几个产奶大洲也开始明令禁止这一做法。孟山都激素进军超市的第一步结果很坏。 One year later, in 1987, the E.P.A. agreed to allow another company, Advanced Genetic Sciences, to test bioengineered bacteria meant to make plants resistant to frost. But under the agency's guidelines, it had to declare the so-called ice-minus bacteria a new pesticide classifying frost as the pest. 一年后，即1987年，环保署准许另外一家公司——先进基因科学公司（Advanced Genetic Sciences）的加强植物抗霜性状的生物工程细菌进入试验。不过，根据环保局的规定，它必须宣布所谓的抗霜细菌是一种新型杀虫剂，这一来霜冻就被当作害虫了。 On April 28 and May 28, strawberry and potato plants were sprayed in two California cities. Photographs of scientists in regulation protective gear spacesuits with respirators were broadcast around the world, generating widespread alarm. 4月28日和5月28日分别对加州两个城市的草莓和马铃薯植株喷洒了这种东西。科学家们身如同宇航员那样的防护套服、佩戴防毒面具的照片疯传全球，一时间人心惶惶。 "It was surreal," said Dr. Steven Lindow, a professor at the University of California at Berkeley, who helped develop the bacteria. “这太离奇了！”加州大学伯克利分校教授史蒂芬·林多（Steven Lindow）博士如是说，他参与了开发这个细菌。 For the executives at Monsanto, these troubling experiences reinforced their commitment to the strategy of inclusion and persuasion. 对于孟山都的高管们来说，这些麻烦事使他们更加坚信无孔不入和大力疏导的战略。 The most complex challenge came in Europe, where there was deep distrust of the new foods, particularly among politically powerful farmers. Faced with such resistance, Mr. Harbison said Monsanto began subtly shifting its attention from the lucrative European market to Asia and Africa. The hope was that the economic realities of a global agricultural marketplace would eventually push Europe toward a more conciliatory attitude. 最麻烦的是来自欧洲的挑战，欧洲人，尤其是政治上有影响力的农民，对这新食物满腹疑虑。哈比森说，面对如此之大的反对势力，孟山都悄悄地从利润很大的欧洲市场向亚洲和非洲转移；它希望的是，全球农产品市场的现实经济力量会最终迫使欧洲的立场变得温和。 But by the early 1990's, company executives said, everything would change. Mr. Harbison retired. Soon, Monsanto's strategy for biotechnology was being overseen by Robert Shapiro, the former head of Monsanto's Nutrasweet unit, who in 1990 had been named head of the agricultural division. 不过，1990年之后，公司高管们又说，一切都会变。哈比森退休了。孟山都的生物科技战略由罗伯特·夏皮罗（Robert Shapiro）接手了，他曾是孟山都的阿斯巴甜子公司领导，1990年被任命为孟山都农业部总监。 In no time, former executives said, the strategy inside the company began to change. Mr. Shapiro demonstrated a devout sense of mission about his new responsibilities, these executives said. He repeatedly expressed his belief that Monsanto could help change the world by championing bioengineered agriculture, while simultaneously turning in stellar financial results. 据前任高管们所说，公司内部战略立即开始调整。夏皮罗对新职责虔诚的使命感充分展现。他多次说过，坚信孟山都将领军生物工程农业改变世界，并且创造出天文数字的利润。 Eager to get going, he shelved the go-slow strategy of consultation and review. Monsanto would now use its influence in Washington to push through a new approach. 急于求成的他抛弃了此前的请顾问、搞评审的“慢慢来”战略，动用孟山都在华府的影响力强推一种新策略。 Mr. Carpenter, the former head of the company's biotechnology strategy group, recalled going to a meeting with Mr. Shapiro, and cautioning that it seemed risky to tamper with a strategic approach that had worked well for the company in the past. But, he said, Mr. Shapiro dismissed his concerns. 卡彭特（Mr. Carpenter）是孟山都生物技术战略部门的总管，他回忆自己有次与夏皮罗一起开会，提醒过他完全改变过去行之有效的战略太冒险。但是，他说夏皮罗没有把他的担忧当回事。 "Shapiro ignored the stakeholders and almost insulted them and proceeded to spend all of his political coin trying to deal directly with the government on a political basis rather than an open basis," Mr. Carpenter said. “夏皮罗完全不顾及、不怕冒犯有关利益方，他一意孤行打政治牌，直接用政治手段跟政府非公开地打交道。”卡彭特说道。 Mr. Shapiro, now the nonexecutive chairman of the Pharmacia Corporation, which Monsanto merged with last year, declined to comment. But in an essay published earlier this year by Washington University in St. Louis, he acknowledged that Monsanto had suffered from some of the very faults cited now by critics. `We've learned that there is often a very fine line between scientific confidence on the one hand and corporate arrogance on the other," he wrote. "It was natural for us to see this as a scientific issue. We didn't listen very well to people who insisted that there were relevant ethical, religious, cultural, social and economic issues as well." 夏皮罗如今是法玛西亚公司（去年为孟山都所兼并）的非执行董事长，他拒绝发表评论。但是，在今年年初发表在圣路易斯华盛顿大学的一篇论文里，他承认孟山都确实犯了评论家们提到的一些重大错误而。“我们已经明白，科学上的信心与公司的自大二者之间的界限很容易混淆，”他写道，“我们把它看作个科学问题是很正常的。我们没有倾听人民的声音，他们坚持认为在这里还有伦理道德、宗教、文化、社会和经济问题。” Turning Point 转折点 Objections by Scientists 科学家们的反对 On May 26, 1992, the vice president, Dan Quayle, proclaimed the Bush administration's new policy on bioengineered food. 1992年5月26日，副总统丹·奎尔宣布了布什政府对生物工程食品的新政策。 "The reforms we announce today will speed up and simplify the process of bringing better agricultural products, developed through biotech, to consumers, food processors and farmers," Mr. Quayle told a crowd of executives and reporters in the Indian Treaty Room of the Old Executive Office Building. "We will ensure that biotech products will receive the same oversight as other products, instead of being hampered by unnecessary regulation." “我们今天宣布的改革，将会加快速度简化程序，把生物技术开发出来的更好的农产品带给消费者，食品加工业和农民”。在老行政办公楼的印度条约厅，奎尔先生告诉到场的高管和记者，“我们将确保生物技术产品受到同其他产品一样的监督，不让没有必要管制的阻碍它。” With dozens of new grocery products waiting in the wings, the new policy strictly limited the regulatory reach of the F.D.A, which had oversight responsibility for foods headed to market. 排队等待批准的新产品有几十种, 美国食品药品管理局负责监管即将上市的食品，新政策把监管范围做了严格的限制。 The announcement a salvo in the Bush administration's "regulatory relief" program was in lock step with the new position of industry that science had proved safety concerns to be baseless. 布什政府宣布的“监管解除”项目，和业界的新立场——科学已经证明对安全的担忧毫无根据完全一致。 "We will not compromise safety one bit," Mr. Quayle told his audience. 奎尔先生又说，“我们决不会在安全性上做出妥协，”。 In the F.D.A.'s nearby offices, not everyone was so sure. 然而，在食品药品管理局临近的办公室里的人都不敢那么肯定。 Among them was Dr. Louis J. Pribyl, one of 17 government scientists working on a policy for genetically engineered food. Dr. Pribyl knew from studies that toxins could be unintentionally created when new genes were introduced into a plant's cells. But under the new edict, the government was dismissing that risk and any other possible risk as no different from those of conventionally derived food. That meant biotechnology companies would not need government approval to sell the foods they were developing. 路易斯·J·Pribyl博士便是其中之一。他是17个制定关于基因工程食品政策的政府科学家之一。他在研究中发现，新的基因导入植物细胞时会在无意中会生成毒素。但在新政策下，这被认为与传统方法生产的食品无差别，这个风险和其它可能的风险都被政府放过了。这意味着生物技术公司无需获得政府批准即可销售他们开发的食品。 "This is the industry's pet idea, namely that there are no unintended effects that will raise the F.D.A.'s level of concern," Dr. Pribyl wrote in a fiery memo to the F.D.A. scientist overseeing the policy's development. "But time and time again, there is no data to back up their contention." 这是业内人士最喜爱的主意，也就是不存在非期望效应，食品药品管理局无须多虑。”Pribyl博士给食品药物管理局监负责相关政策发展的科学家写了一封短信，言辞激烈，“但一次又一次，能证明他们观点的数据根本就没有。” Dr. Pribyl, a microbiologist, was not alone at the agency. Dr. Gerald Guest, director of the center of veterinary medicine, wrote that he and other scientists at the center had concluded there was "ample scientific justification" to require tests and a government review of each genetically engineered food before it was sold. 在同事中并非只有Pribyl博士这一个微生物学家持这种观点。兽药中心主任杰拉尔德·格斯特博士曾写道，他与中心别的科学家曾得出结论，我们有“充分的科学理由”规定在销售转基因食品之前，对每一种基因工程食品都进行测试，还要由政府进行审查。 Three toxicologists wrote, "The possibility of unexpected, accidental changes in genetically engineered plants justifies a limited traditional toxicological study." 三位毒理学专家曾写道，“转基因植物发生意外改变的可能性，提出了进行一定范围传统毒理学研究的必要性。” The scientists were displaying precisely the concerns that Monsanto executives from the 1980's had anticipated and indeed had considered reasonable. But now, rather than trying to address those concerns, Monsanto, the industry and official Washington were dismissing them as the insignificant worries of the uninformed. Under the final F.D.A. policy that the White House helped usher in, the new foods would be tested only if companies did it. Labeling was ruled out as potentially misleading to the consumer, since it might suggest that there was reason for concern. 科学家们所表达的，恰恰是孟山都高管1980年代就预料到并且也认为有道理的担忧。现在，孟山都公司和业界以及华盛顿官员已经无视这些问题了，把它们当成因为无知才会产生无足轻重的担心。白宫出手帮助食品药品管理局最终推出由公司自愿做测试的新规定。贴标签的要求被拒绝，理由是误导消费者，暗示购买这种食品需谨慎。 "Monsanto forgot who their client was," said Thomas N. Urban, retired chairman and chief executive of Pioneer Hi-Bred International, a seed company. "If they had realized their client was the final consumer they should have embraced labeling. They should have said, `We're for it.' They should have said, `We insist that food be labeled.' They should have said, `I'm the consumer's friend here.' There was some risk. But the risk was a hell of a lot less." “孟山都忘了客户，”托马斯•N•厄本，美国一家种子公司先锋良种国际有限公司(Pioneer Hi-Bred International)，退休的董事长兼首席执行官说道。“如果他们认识到客户是最终消费者，他们就应欣然同意标识转基因食品。他们应该说：‘我们支持这样做。’‘我们坚持转基因食品应当标识。’他们还应该说：‘我们是消费者的朋友。’这么做确实也有一定的风险，但相比之下风险要小得多。” Even some who presumably benefited directly from the new policy remain surprised that it was adopted. "How could you argue against labeling?" said Roger Salquist, the former chief executive of Calgene, whose Flavr Savr tomato, engineered for slower spoilage, was the first fruit of biotechnology to reach the grocery store." The public trust has not been nurtured," he added. 对于这项政策，连可能直接受益的人都惊讶无比，“你们怎么可以反对标识？”卡尔金公司（Calgene）前任首席执行官罗杰•沙奎斯说道。卡尔金公司的莎佛（Flavr Savr）番茄是转基因食品，特点是不易腐烂，是第一个获准以食品销售的生物技术产品。“公众对转基因食品的信任还没有培养起来。”他补充道。 In fact, the F.D.A. policy was just what the small band of activists opposed to biotechnology needed to rally powerful global support to their cause. 事实上，反对生物技术的激进分子小群体正需要F.D.A.这一政策来集结强大的国际力量支持他们的要求。 "That was the turning point," said Jeremy Rifkin, the author and activist who in 1992 had already spent more than a decade trying to stop biotechnology experiments. Immediately after Vice President Quayle announced the F.D.A.'s new policy, Mr. Rifkin began calling for a global moratorium on biotechnology as part of an effort that he and others named the "pure food campaign." “这是一个转折点，”杰里米•里夫金说道，他是作家和活跃人士，早在1992年那时就已经干了10多年试图制止生物技术实验。在丹•奎尔副总统公布F.D.A.的新政策之后，里夫金先生立即呼吁在全球范围内停止生物技术研究，他们称之为“纯净食品运动”。 He quickly began spreading the word to small activist groups around the world that the United States had decided to let the biotechnology industry put the foods on store shelves without tests or labels. Mr. Rifkin said that he got support from dozens of small farming, consumer and animal rights groups in more than 30 countries. In Europe, these small groups helped turn the public against genetically altered foods, tearing up farm fields and holding protests before television cameras. 他很快便把一个消息传遍世界各地的小型激进组织：美国决定让生物技术产业把转基因食品放上货架，无须测试，也不用标识。里夫金先生说，他得到30多个国家几十个小型农业团体、消费者团体和动物保护机构的支持。在欧洲，这些小团体推动公众抵制转基因食品、铲除转基因植物，在电视摄像机前举行抗议。 If the F.D.A. had required tests and labels, Mr. Rifkin said, "it would have been more difficult for us to mobilize the opposition." 里夫金认为，如果F.D.A.规定转基因食品必须检测和标识，“那么动员公众抵制转基因食品就没有那么容易了。” Today, the handful of nonprofit groups that joined Mr. Rifkin's in lobbying the F.D.A. for stronger regulation in 1992 have multiplied to 54. Those groups, including the Sierra Club, Friends of the Earth, the Natural Resources Defense Council, Public Citizen and the Humane Society of the United States, signed a petition this spring demanding that the government take genetically engineered foods off the market until they are tested and labeled. 1992年与里夫金先生一道游说F.D.A.加强监管的非营利组织很少，如今的数量已扩大了54倍。这里有塞拉俱乐部、地球之友、自然资源保护委员会、公共市民团体和美国人道主义协会，他们今年春天联名签署了一份请愿书，要求政府把转基因食品撤下，做完测试贴上标签再出售。 "There is absolutely no question that the voluntary nature of the policy was unacceptable to many," said Andrew Kimbrell, one of the early activists to oppose biotechnology and now the executive director of the Center for Food Safety, which filed the petition. 此次请愿行动由食品安全中心提出，该机构现任执行主管、很早就反对生物技术的激进人士之一安德鲁•金柏利说道：“毫无疑问的是，许多人接受不了让公司自定是否做转基因测试、贴不贴标签的政策。” The F.D.A. policy has also helped organizations like Mr. Kimbrell's raise money. In late 1998 groups opposed to biotechnology approached the hundreds of foundations that give regularly to environmental causes and told them about the government's decision to let the companies regulate themselves. Since then, the foundations have given the groups several million dollars out of concern over the policy, said Christina Desser, a lawyer in San Francisco involved in the fund-raising effort. F.D.A.的政策还有助于金柏利先生的食品安全中心筹措资金。1998年底，反对生物技术的团体与数百家定期资助环保事业的基金会进行接洽，并告知他们政府让公司自行其是。自那时起，出于同样的担忧，各基金会已经向这些团体提供了数百万美元资金，旧金山一位参与筹款工作的律师克里斯蒂娜•德塞如是说。 There was also an about-face in the approach to dealing with overseas markets. As the Clinton administration came to Washington, Monsanto maintained its close ties to policy makers particularly to trade negotiators. For example, Mr. Shapiro was friends with Mickey Kantor, the United States trade negotiator who would eventually be named a Monsanto director. 处理海外市场的方式也完全变了。自克林顿入主以来，孟山都公司一直与决策者尤其是贸易谈判代表保持着密切联系。例如，夏皮罗先生的朋友米基•坎特就是美国贸易谈判代表，后来被孟山都公司任命为董事。 Confrontation in trade negotiations became the order of the day. Senior administration officials publicly disparaged the concerns of European consumers as the products of conservative minds unfamiliar with the science. 贸易谈判中的对峙成为家常便饭。美国政府高级官员公然贬低欧洲消费者的担忧为科盲和保守。 "You can't put a gun to their head," Mr. Harbison said of the toughened trade strategy with Europe. "It just won't sell." “你不能用枪指着他们的头，”哈比森先生如是评论对欧洲的强硬贸易策略。“这样不了卖东西。” And it didn't. Protests erupted in Europe, and genetically modified foods became the rallying point of a vast political opposition. Exports of the foods slowed to a stop. With a vocal and powerful opposition growing in both Europe and America, the perceived promise of biotechnology foods began to slip away. 真的就是不行。欧洲爆发了抗议，转基因食物成了政治反对派的聚会目标。转基因食物的出口渐停了。欧洲和美国都出现了强有力的反对派，生物技术食品的承诺渐渐消失。 By the end of the decade, the magnitude of Monsanto's error in abandoning its slow, velvet-glove strategy of the 1980's was apparent. Mr. Shapiro himself acknowledged as much. In the fall of 1999, he appeared at a conference sponsored by Greenpeace, the environmental group and major biotechnology critic. 到了20世纪90年代末才看出，孟山都公放弃80年代的外柔内刚战略是巨大的错误。夏皮罗承认这一点。1999年秋，他出席过绿色和平组织的一个会议，那是一个环保组织，也是生物技术最主要的批评者。 There, while declaring his faith in biotechnology, Mr. Shapiro acknowledged that his company was guilty of "condescension or indeed arrogance" in its efforts to promote the new foods. But it was too late for a recovery. Soon after that speech, with the company's stock price in the doldrums because of its struggles with agricultural biotechnology, Monsanto itself ended its existence as an independent company. It was taken over by Pharmacia, a New Jersey drug company. 在会上，夏皮罗先生仍表示坚信生物技术，但也承认在推行中他的公司犯了错误，“高高在上甚至太傲慢”。后悔也来不及了。那次会后不久，在农业生物科技上的表现让公司的股价大跌；孟山都公司被新泽西州的一个医药公司接管，不再是一家独立的公司了。 In recent months, biotechnology has been struggling with the consequences of its blunders. Leading food companies like Frito-Lay and Gerber have said they will avoid certain bioengineered food. And grain companies like Archer Daniels Midland and Cargill have asked farmers to separate their genetically modified foods from their traditional ones. That, in turn, creates complex, costly and as the Starlink fiasco shows at times flawed logistical requirements for farmers. 最近几个月，生物技术业界一直挣扎在自己犯下的重大错误里。食品公司巨头菲多利公司和格柏公司表示要避免某些转基因食物。粮食公司阿彻丹尼尔斯米德兰公司和嘉吉公司建议农场主把传统食物与转基因食物分隔开。星联（玉米）的惨败更表明，对农民提出的这些要求其实是多么复杂、多么昂贵，并且根本没有用。 Efforts have been made by industry and government to assuage public concerns although critics of the technology maintain that the attempts do not go far enough. Last week, the F.D.A. announced proposed rule changes requiring the submission of certain information that used to be provided voluntarily. But even supporters of the rule change say that it will make little practical difference in the way the business works, since companies have universally submitted all such information in the past, even under the voluntary standard. 业界和政府尽量缓和公众的担忧，但批评者认为做的很差。上周美国食品药物管理局宣布将变更规责，要企业提交某些信息，此前只是自愿提交。连支持新规的人都说，这改变不了转基因食品行业的运作，因为所有的公司以前都自愿提交过被提及的那些信息。 And the industry itself has started down a new path, with a multimillion-dollar advertising campaign promoting genetically engineered foods as safe products that provide enormous benefits to populations around the world an effort that some food industry officials say has come 10 years too late. 业界转向一条新路，投资几百万美元的广告宣传转基因食物安全并给世界人口带了了巨大的利益。食品产业的某些人士认为，10年前就该这样干了。 "For the price of what it would have cost to market a new breakfast cereal, the biotech industry probably could have saved itself a lot of the struggle that it is going through today," said Gene Grabowski, a spokesman with the Grocery Manufacturers of America, a trade group. “看看推出一款新的早餐麦片要付出多少代价，生物技术可以免除很多艰辛，”吉恩·格拉博夫斯基说道，他是美国杂货生产商（一家贸易集团）的发言人。 And in recent weeks, Monsanto itself has announced plans to chart a new course one with striking similarity to the course abandoned in 1992 reviving its outside consultations with environmental, consumer and other groups with concerns or interest in the technology. 近几周来，孟山都公司公布了一个新方案，与1992年前的道路惊人地相似。它要重启同外部咨询顾问的商讨，其中包括环保组织、消费者群体等。他们或者是担忧，或者是兴趣。 For the corporate veterans who set the original strategy, this is scant solace. A dream they had worked so hard to achieve had, at the very least, been set back by years. 对于制定过公司最初战略的前辈来说，这起不到安慰作用。他们为止奋斗的梦想至少被延误多年。 "You can't imagine how I have bled over this," said Mr. Carpenter, the former head of biotechnology strategy for Monsanto. "They lost the battle for the public trust." “你想象不到我在这件事上付出多少汗水，”孟山都公司生物技术战略的前任负责人卡彭特先生说道。“他们输掉了公众信任。” The New York Times on the Web http://www.nytimes.com 纽约时报网址http://www.nytimes.com /-----------------------------------------------------------------\ Visit NYTimes.com for complete access to the most authoritative news coverage on the Web, updated throughout the day. 登陆 NYTimes.com 浏览该网站最具有权威性的报道，每日更新。 Become a member today! It's free! http://www.nytimes.com?eta 今天注册会员！免费！http://www.nytimes.com?eta