8 Unexpected Consequences
One prized product is fetal bovine serum, a growth medium used in
medicine and biopharmaceuticals to culture cells outside the body. The
polio vaccine, for example, came from research using cell cultures grown
in fetal bovine serum. Harvested from the fetuses of pregnant cows dur-
ing slaughter, it is the gold standard.
Its limited supply made the serum expensive. Countries free of specific
diseases like BSE, foot-and-mouth, and scrapie in sheep commanded
a premium price. From a country’s cattle population, I could estimate
potential supply. Yet when I looked at serum being traded interna-
tionally, significant discrepancies emerged. Serum exported by select
countries free of the aforementioned diseases far exceeded my estimates
of the available supply. After talking with experts and rechecking the
data, the most plausible explanation was that serum was being shipped
and relabeled as originating from disease-free countries. It was my first
introduction into potential fraud on a global scale.
International trade can benefit both commerce and consumers. But
it also creates opportunities for unethical behavior—behavior that
governments are poorly equipped to detect, let alone deter. While most
trade is legitimate, fraud does happen and can often persist with few, if
any, consequences for the perpetrators. Imported honey is one example.
Beekeepers who maintain their own hives are my preferred source
for honey. Typically offered in small local stores or at farmers’ markets,
it is commonly sold in mason jars, along with a free story or two. For
more than three decades, honeybees have battled a host of new viruses,
fungi, parasites, and pesticides. What scientists call Colony Collapse
Disorder still defies answers. Prime bee habitat is dwindling as more
land is developed or planted in monoculture crops. Over the last two
decades, honey production per colony has trended downward by more
than a pound per year.
Meanwhile, honey imports are skyrocketing—a thirty-four-fold
increase over four decades. Typically arriving in fifty-five-gallon steel
drums, imports now supply two-thirds of all honey consumed, of which
0 percent goes directly into manufactured foods. (Honey is just one
of at least sixty different ways that sugars are added to foods without
drawing attention to any one ingredient.)
In 00 , so much honey was arriving from China at bargain prices
that the United States levied antidumping tariffs, effectively tripling its