Gregory Conko

Bio: Gregory Conko is an academic researcher from Competitive Enterprise Institute. The author has contributed to research in topics: Precautionary principle & Environmental impact assessment. The author has an hindex of 7, co-authored 14 publications receiving 226 citations. Previous affiliations of Gregory Conko include George Mason University.

A risk-based approach to the regulation of genetically engineered organisms

Abstract: Current regulatory regimes for genetically engineered crops fail to use a scientifically defensible approach or tailor the degree of regulatory review to the level of actual hazard or risk. We describe a rational way forward.

The Frankenfood Myth: How Protest and Politics Threaten the Biotech Revolution

Abstract: Foreword by Norman E. Borlaug Prologue by John H. Moore Acknowledgments A Brave New World of Biotechnology? More Like a Brave Old World! Myths, Mistakes, Misconceptions, and Mendacity Science, Common Sense, and Nonsense Caution, Precaution, and the Precautionary Principle The Vagaries of U.S. Regulation Legal Liability Issues The Vagaries of Foreign and International Regulation European Resistance to Biotechnology Climbing Out of the Quagmire Notes Index

Safety, Risk and the Precautionary Principle: Rethinking Precautionary Approaches to the Regulation of Transgenic Plants

Abstract: Operationalizing the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety will require resolving disputes about the meaning of the term 'precautionary approach' in the treaty text. Although the terms precautionary approach and precautionary principle have been referred to in the regulation of transgenic plants for nearly a decade, no customary expectation of what actions either requires has developed. If specific obligations for regulators, regulated entities, or both are not established, compliance will be impossible. This essay examines various interpretations of the precautionary principle, discusses their shortcomings, and suggests a way to rethink the regulation of transgenic plants that focuses on genuine uncertainty. Transgenic plants with familiar phenotypes should be subject to considerably less regulatory scrutiny than those whose risks are genuinely unknown, or known to pose heightened risk.

Safety, risk and the precautionary principle: rethinking precautionary approaches to the regulation of transgenic plants

Abstract: Operationalizing the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety will require resolving disputes about the meaning of the term 'precautionary approach' in the treaty text. Although the terms precautionary approach and precautionary principle have been referred to in the regulation of transgenic plants for nearly a decade, no customary expectation of what actions either requires has developed. If specific obligations for regulators, regulated entities, or both are not established, compliance will be impossible. This essay examines various interpretations of the precautionary principle, discusses their shortcomings, and suggests a way to rethink the regulation of transgenic plants that focuses on genuine uncertainty. Transgenic plants with familiar phenotypes should be subject to considerably less regulatory scrutiny than those whose risks are genuinely unknown, or known to pose heightened risk.

The Perils of Precaution

Abstract: Why Regulators' "Precautionary Principle" Is Doing More Harm Than Good ENVIRONMENTAL AND PUBLIC HEALTH activists have clashed with scholars and risk-analysis professionals for decades over the appropriate regulation of various risks, including those from consumer products and manufacturing processes. Underlying the controversies about various specific issues -- such as chlorinated water, pesticides, gene-spliced foods, and hormones in beef -- has been a fundamental, almost philosophical question: How should regulators, acting as society's surrogate, approach risk in the absence of certainty about the likelihood or magnitude of potential harm? Proponents of a more risk-averse approach have advocated a "precautionary principle" to reduce risks and make our lives safer. There is no widely accepted definition of the principle, but in its most common formulation, governments should implement regulatory measures to prevent or restrict actions that raise even conjectural threats of harm to human health or the environment, even though there may be incomplete scientific evidence as to the potential significance of these dangers. Use of the precautionary principle is sometimes represented as "erring on the side of safety," or "better safe than sorry" -- the idea being that the failure to regulate risky activities sufficiently could result in severe harm to human health or the environment, and that "overregulation" causes little or no harm. Brandishing the precautionary principle, environmental groups have prevailed upon governments in recent decades to assail the chemical industry and, more recently, the food industry. Potential risks should, of course, be taken into consideration before proceeding with any new activity or product, whether it is the siting of a power plant or the introduction of a new drug into the pharmacy. But the precautionary principle focuses solely on the possibility that technologies could pose unique, extreme, or unmanageable risks, even after considerable testing has already been conducted. What is missing from precautionary calculus is an acknowledgment that even when technologies introduce new risks, most confer net benefits -- that is, their use reduces many other, often far more serious, hazards. Examples include blood transfusions, MRI scans, and automobile air bags, all of which offer immense benefits and only minimal risk. Several subjective factors can cloud thinking about risks and influence how nonexperts view them. Studies of risk perception have shown that people tend to overestimate risks that are unfamiliar, hard to understand, invisible, involuntary, and/or potentially catastrophic -- and vice versa. Thus, they overestimate invisible "threats" such as electromagnetic radiation and trace amounts of pesticides in foods, which inspire uncertainty and fear sometimes verging on superstition. Conversely, they tend to underestimate risks the nature of which they consider to be clear and comprehensible, such as using a chain saw or riding a motorcycle. These distorted perceptions complicate the regulation of risk, for if democracy must eventually take public opinion into account, good government must also discount heuristic errors or prejudices. Edmund Burke emphasized government's pivotal role in making such judgments: "Your Representative owes you, not only his industry, but his judgment; and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion." Government leaders should lead; or putting it another way, government officials should make decisions that are rational and in the public interest even if they are unpopular at the time. This is especially true if, as is the case for most federal and state regulators, they are granted what amounts to lifetime job tenure in order to shield them from political manipulation or retaliation. Yet in too many cases, the precautionary principle has led regulators to abandon the careful balancing of risks and benefits -- that is, to make decisions, in the name of precaution, that cost real lives due to forgone benefits. …

Domestic Wastewater Treatment in Developing Countries

Abstract: Affordable and effective domestic wastewater treatment is a critical issue in public health and disease prevention around the world, particularly so in developing countries which often lack the financial and technical resources necessary for proper treatment facilities. This practical guide provides state-of-the-art coverage of methods for domestic wastewater treatment and provides a foundation to the practical design of wastewater treatment and re-use systems. The emphasis is on low-cost, low-energy, low-maintenance, high-performance 'natural' systems that contribute to environmental sustainability by producing effluents that can be safely and profitably used in agriculture for crop irrigation and/or in aquaculture, for fish and aquatic vegetable pond fertilization. Modern design methodologies, with worked design examples, are described for waste stabilization ponds, wastewater storage and treatment reservoirs; constructed wetlands, upflow anaerobic sludge blanket reactors, biofilters, aerated lagoons and oxidation ditches. This book is essential reading for engineers, academics and upper-level and graduate students in engineering, wastewater management and public health, and others interested in sustainable and cost-effective technologies for reducing wastewater-related diseases and environmental damage.

The Economics of Genetically Modified Crops

Abstract: Genetically modified (GM) crops have been used commercially for more than 10 years. Available impact studies of insect-resistant and herbicide-tolerant crops show that these technologies are beneficial to farmers and consumers, producing large aggregate welfare gains as well as positive effects for the environment and human health. The advantages of future applications could even be much bigger. Given a conducive institutional framework, GM crops can contribute significantly to global food security and poverty reduction. Nonetheless, widespread public reservations have led to a complex system of regulations. Overregulation has become a real threat for the further development and use of GM crops. The costs in terms of foregone benefits may be large, especially for developing countries. Economics research has an important role to play in designing efficient regulatory mechanisms and agricultural innovation systems.

Regulating transgenic crops sensibly: lessons from plant breeding, biotechnology and genomics.

Abstract: The costs of meeting regulatory requirements and market restrictions guided by regulatory criteria are substantial impediments to the commercialization of transgenic crops. Although a cautious approach may have been prudent initially, we argue that some regulatory requirements can now be modified to reduce costs and uncertainty without compromising safety. Long-accepted plant breeding methods for incorporating new diversity into crop varieties, experience from two decades of research on and commercialization of transgenic crops, and expanding knowledge of plant genome structure and dynamics all indicate that if a gene or trait is safe, the genetic engineering process itself presents little potential for unexpected consequences that would not be identified or eliminated in the variety development process before commercialization. We propose that as in conventional breeding, regulatory emphasis should be on phenotypic rather than genomic characteristics once a gene or trait has been shown to be safe.

The Emergence of New Global Institutions: A Discursive Perspective

Abstract: We examine how a new discourse shapes the emergence of new global regulatory institutions and, specifically, the roles played by actors and the texts they author during the institution-building process, by investigating a case study of the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) and its relationship to the new environmental regulatory discourse of ‘precaution’. We show that new discourses do not neatly supplant legacy discourses but, instead, are made to overlap and interact with them through the authorial agency of actors, as a result of which the meanings of both are changed. It is out of this discursive struggle that new institutions emerge.

CRISPR Crops: Plant Genome Editing Toward Disease Resistance.

Abstract: Genome editing by sequence-specific nucleases (SSNs) has revolutionized biology by enabling targeted modifications of genomes. Although routine plant genome editing emerged only a few years ago, we are already witnessing the first applications to improve disease resistance. In particular, CRISPR-Cas9 has democratized the use of genome editing in plants thanks to the ease and robustness of this method. Here, we review the recent developments in plant genome editing and its application to enhancing disease resistance against plant pathogens. In the future, bioedited disease resistant crops will become a standard tool in plant breeding.