|
Related: Pharm and Industrial Crops |
Administration kept mum about unapproved modified corn sold
"We call that Lying by ommission!"
03.25.05 - WASHINGTON - The federal government kept it secret for three months that genetically modified corn seed was sold accidentally to some U.S. farms for four years and may have gotten into the American food supply.
The accidental use of unapproved seed became public when the scientific journal Nature published a story about it Tuesday.
| Plant scientists, industry, the Food and Drug Administration
and numerous European science agencies say GM foods are safe.
"Nobody's been able to prove that anyone's even gotten the sniffles from biotechnology," said Stephanie Childs of the Grocery Manufacturers of America. But Margaret Mellon of the Union of Concerned Scientists, said there's no system to track health problems caused by GM foods. Her group, along with the Center for Science in the Public Interest, has long pushed for labeling - only required when GM products have properties different from ordinary foods, such as a higher nutrient content. They contend consumers deserve a choice if they want to avoid GM foods and they also want government regulation. Currently, companies developing GM foods voluntarily send their data to the FDA, but there's no official approval before products go on sale. "It's left up to the good nature of Monsanto or DuPont or other companies to do the right thing," said Gregory Jaffe, director of the biotechnology project at CSPI. Given the current "undercurrent" of reckless unconcern of the FDA and big businesses like the pharmeceutical companies for citizens, that is ill advised in todays climate. Consumers have the right to know. Is it real or is it lab created? Why do we let huge companies, who's motive is profit, decide what kind of food goes into our bodies? Will you trust "good nature" to tell the public should there be a problem? According to this report, big business kept it's little mouth shut for profits, that is, until it got caught. Of course, there was no harm done, right? Only that the company hid a very important fact from the public. What else might be withheld for the almighty dollar? |
The corn seed was probably safe. America's food supply and plant
and animal stocks weren't harmed and remain safe to eat, (see
Bt Corn and Monarch Butterflies) according to officials of the seed company
and the federal government.
But the government's secrecy about the mistake - one affecting the public food supply - raises serious concerns, according to independent experts.
Spokesmen for the Department of Agriculture and the Environmental Protection Agency said there was no need to notify the public because the government had determined that Bt 10 was safe. In addition, the USDA is investigating the whole incident involving the seed company, which faces up to $500,000 in fines, Agriculture Department spokesman Jim Rogers said.
"We're gathering evidence that we may need in front of a judge," Rogers said. "If there was a health risk, you would have heard about it and there would have been a recall."
Syngenta, a Swiss-based company, distributed the unapproved genetically altered corn seed, called Bt 10. It mixed the Bt 10 with a near-identical and approved corn seed called Bt 11, company officials said Tuesday afternoon in a hastily called news conference. The Bt 10 was modified with a gene from the pesticide-like bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis.
"Most of the corn is used for industrial and animal use," Syngenta spokeswoman Sarah Hull said. "It may have gotten into the food supply, but regardless, the proteins are deemed safe and there's no food concern."
Remaining seeds have been destroyed or isolated, Hull said.
The unapproved seeds grew into 37,000 U.S. acres of corn over four years. That involves one-one-hundredth of 1 percent of the corn acreage in America, Hull said.
Sygenta's U.S. headquarters is in Greensboro, N.C. It runs its seed operation out of Golden Valley, Minn.
"I personally don't see it would be a major issue," said Kendall Lamkey, the head of Iowa State University's plant-breeding center.
But the way the federal government kept the mistake secret is alarming, Lamkey said, and may undermine public confidence in the growing field of genetically modified crops.
"The whole GMO (genetically modified organism) controversy surrounds a lack of transparency on both (the part of) the companies and regulatory agencies," said Lamkey, who served on a National Academy of Sciences panel in 2002 on the environmental impact of genetically modified crops. "There's too much secrecy."
In mid-December, Syngenta told the EPA, the Agriculture Department and the Food and Drug Administration about the mistake, Hull said.
EPA scientists reviewed seven packets of information from Syngenta from Jan. 7 to March 10, and "as more data came in, the confidence of our scientific determination (of no risk) increased," EPA spokeswoman Cynthia Bergman said in an e-mail. "Had there been a human health concern, we would have alerted the public immediately."
That's not acceptable, said Sheldon Krimsky, a Tufts University environmental-policy professor who's a longtime foe of genetically modified crops.
"They have both a moral and legal obligation to reveal violations," Krimsky said. "This is a government that's operating in a stealth manner that wants to keep bad news from the public."
Stop the lying, the hiding of facts. The public wants and needs information to make decisions over life that should not be put above profit.