Mission

Background

State Involvement

International and National Involvement

People

Affiliate Organizations

WashBAC (Washington Biotechnology Action Council) is a nonprofit grassroots coalition of environmentalists, food safety and health advocates, educators, religious leaders, labor and trade organizations, and many others. WashBAC officially formed in 1991, in response to the dangers posed by an industry that was operating beyond the reach of ordinary people, who are bearing the costs and the risks.

Our mission is to help the general public to have a voice in decision making that involves biotechnology. We try to provide understandable, credible information about this highly complex field, and we try to alert people about opportunities for public participation. There's a great deal at stake -- notably, billions of dollars in private and public investment (yes, your tax dollar is involved), the potential for vast and permanent ecological harm, and the elevation of business interests over human values.

In recent years, a major focus of WashBAC has been the international regulation of GMOs, which includes the use of the Precautionary Principle, risk assessments, labeling, and holding industry liable for damages.

"Some of the best qualified people” on many of these current issues “may be in NGOs. . . The world has not recovered from the events in Seattle. The world is listening, so NGOs have to keep pushing.” - Ambassador Philemon Yang (Cameroons), Chair of the Intergovernmental Committee for the Cartagena Protocol, meeting with NGOs in Montpellier, 15 December 2000, along with Right-Livelihood Award Winner, Tewolde Berhan Gebre Egziabher (Ethiopia).