Biotech regs that discriminate against technology

The invaluable Henry Miller draws attention in this piece in Tech Central Station to the damaging and inconsistent regulations of biotech. Whether you prefer more or less regulation, we all should want regulations to be rational. We haven't got that. Even though gene slicing methods are more presice, they are discriminated against because the method, not the outcome. This creates a perverse regulatory regime.

The dirty little secret of U.S. biotech policy is that regulation at the USDA and EPA is internally inconsistent and contradicts the official overarching federal policy -- developed during the previous Bush administration with the formal agreement of the agencies -- which stipulates that regulation of biotechnology products should be "risk-based," "scientifically sound," and focused on "the characteristics of the biotechnology product and the environment into which it is being introduced, not the process by which the product is created."