Jim, you missed the punch line, which was the sentence immediately following the one you cited, viz.: "No discernible harm to Americans has occurred. But if Europe and possibly other parts of the world reject or ban such [GM] products, the economic consequences may be measured in the billions of dollars."
In the United States, at least -- where agribusinesses like Monsanto have billions of dollars sunk in GM technology investments -- to be anti-GM *is* to be anti-business. There is no way that environmentalism of this sort in this nation can be construed as "rallying to the cause" of business interests.
Carl