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By Marc Kaufman
Corn seed about to be sold to farmers for this year's
crop has been found to contain small amounts of a genetically
engineered variety of the grain that prompted massive recalls
of food and crops last year, government and industry sources said February
27.
Seed companies detected the presence of the engineered
corn, known as StarLink, while testing their stocks to make sure the seed
was free of the biotech variety, which has been approved only for animal
consumption because of concerns about its safety for humans.
There is no immediate public health threat
because none of the seed has been planted.
But if the problem is found to be widespread, farmers and grain exporters
fear it could be devastating because major buyers of American corn in
Europe and Asia have said they will refuse to buy any corn suspected of
containing StarLink.
The United States earns
billion of dollars in corn exports every year.
The worried reaction to the discovery illustrates
how controversial and sensitive the issue of genetically engineered crops
has become. Although most scientific organizations have concluded the
crops are safe, there is widespread public concern in Europe and Japan
that genetically modified crops could cause unforeseen
environmental and human health problems, and there is some
evidence that concerns are growing in the United States as well.
StarLink contains a gene spliced in to produce a form
of a protein naturally made by a bacterium called Bacillus thuringienis,
or Bt. The protein kills the destructive European corn borer. Other genetically
engineered crops on the market contain forms of the Bt protein, but those
have been approved for human and animal use, avoiding the problem that
StarLink caused.
Industry sources said yesterday that it was unclear
how the seed corn came to contain the StarLink protein, called Cry9c.
Federal regulators have required farmers growing genetically modified
crops to plant buffer crops of non-modified plants because of concerns
that pollen would drift onto nearby fields and cross-breed with conventional
crops.
The creator of StarLink, Aventis CropScience, maintains
the corn is safe for human consumption and has asked the Environmental
Protection Agency to approve it retroactively for human use to avert future
disruptions of the corn supply. But the agency is under intense pressure
from critics of biotechnology to keep the ban on human use. The EPA has
declined to approve StarLink for humans because Cry9c breaks down more
slowly than similar biotech products, raising fears that
it could cause dangerous allergic reactions.
Industry sources said the level of Cry9c being found
in corn seed is very low. But because the protein is not allowed in food
at all, any found in this year's corn would be considered a contaminant.
Ships filled with American corn were turned back from
Japan last year after officials found StarLink in the shipments.
The Agriculture Department recently reported that
corn exports have declined this year, and analysts have pointed
to StarLink as the reason.
Last year Aventis officials initiated a massive and
expensive buyback of StarLink corn, and corn found to contain StarLink,
after they discovered that it had been inadvertently
mixed with corn destined for human consumption. A company official said
yesterday that 94 million bushels of corn have been purchased under the
program and that 99 percent of the 1999 and 2000 corn has been identified
and contained.
In all, the official said,
more than 28,000 truckloads, 15,000 rail cars and 285 barges of corn tested
positive for StarLink.
It was unclear yesterday how many seed companies have
found Cry9c in their products.
The discovery of StarLink in food ranging from taco
shells to beer last year underscored how difficult it is to segregate
genetically modified crops from conventional ones. The presence of the
StarLink protein in corn seed suggests segregation may be impossible.
Washington
Post March 1, 2001; Page A01
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