Contaminated Corn Scandal Expands Further: Regulators Caught Sleeping
Corn Contamination Case Grows as GM Crops Hurt U.S. Farms and Grain Prices
| Below are some excerpts from Associated Press and Reuters coverage of the growing biotech corn contamination scandal. |
by CAROL ANN RIHA (AP)
DES MOINES, Iowa -- Material from a genetically engineered type of corn found in taco shells earlier this year has been discovered in a different seed, officials said Tuesday.
Federal agencies, including the Agriculture Department, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Food and Drug Administration, did not discover the agricultural mixup.
``We don't yet know exactly what happened where and how,'' USDA spokesman Andy Solomon admitted. ``We are working with the companies involved and others in the industry to learn more about the nature and the extent of the situation.''
The mixup was discovered by an Iowa corn company testing StarLink corn, which is not approved for human consumption because of unresolved questions about its potential to cause allergic reactions.
The seed's developer, Aventis CropScience, said it could not explain the findings.
The company has said it wants the EPA to grant a temporary food-use permit for the corn.
Discovery of the corn in the food supply has forced nationwide recalls of taco shells and forced the shutdown of processing plants.
New StarLink corn scare worries Japan traders
by Jae Hur, Reuters
"The discovery has deepened our concerns about the U.S.'s ability to guarantee that our corn imports will be free of StarLink," said a senior trading house trader, adding it would slow moves towards resuming normal trade.
Japanese importers have only secured about 30 percent of their needs for first-quarter shipment, the trader said. By this time last year, they had completed nearly all their first-quarter term deals.
The USDA and Japan's Health Ministry had finalised details of an agreement for testing corn shipped to Japan as food to ensure it does not contain the genetically modified StarLink grain, a U.S. Embassy official said on Tuesday.
However, traders said the U.S. testing plan fell short of a full safety guarantee and complained that the cost of the tests may eventually be charged to Japanese importers.
Japanese end-users are reluctant to pay the extra cost for contaminated US grain because it will raise local prices for food and animal feed.
Japan, the biggest consumer of U.S. corn, imports about four million tonnes of corn per year for food and another 12 million tonnes for animal feed, mostly from the United States.
First, the GM companies claimed that they could keep the unapproved corn separate from the approved corn. But they failed. And eventually the EPA, FDA, and Dept. of Agriculture, which were not monitoring the situation carefully, found out. Then the GM companies started claiming, all of a sudden, that the two kinds of corn might be safe anyway. Uh huh. Why can't they learn? GM crops and GM foods become less and less popular as long as the GM companies insist on using corporate lobbyists and public relations spinners instead of scientific evidence. Share your opinions with others at The Progress Report:
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