The U.S. government has announced two accidents in which
soybean crops in Iowa and Nebraska were contaminated by
corn from the previous year that was genetically-engineered
to contain medicine. "This is a failure at an elementary
level," says Jane Rissler of the Union of Concerned
Scientists. "They couldn't distinguish corn from soybeans
and remove them from a field. That's like failing nursery
school."
The GM corn germinated from seeds left over from 2001
plantings by the company ProdiGene, despite the fact that
the company was required to remove the plants and seeds
completely from the fields. The genes in the ProdiGene corn
can produce a variety of vaccines and industrial enzymes. To
prevent any spread of the altered corn, the U.S. has ordered
that 155 acres of surrounding corn be burned and that a half
million bushels of soybean be quarantined, at a cost of
nearly $3 million.
USDA spokesperson Ed Curlett says ??The system seems to
have worked. We caught this crop before it entered the
animal or human food chain."
But plant geneticist Norman Ellstrand thinks we were lucky
this time. "What if the GM corn had come up inside a corn
field, instead of a soybean field?" he says. "It could have
cross pollinated and you'd have no idea where it was."
Should we be nervous about what?s in the food we eat?
Kathleen Hart explains it all in ?Eating in the
Dark,?click
here.
For more information, click here.
