|
RETURN
TO THE WORLD SCIENCE HOME PAGE
Genetically modified corn was
sold for four years without approval: report
March 22, 2005
Special to World Science
A strain of genetically modified corn that lacks regulatory approval has been distributed accidentally over the past four years, the scientific journal
Nature reported in a news story today.
“Although the crop is believed to be safe, the fact that it was sold for years by accident will undoubtedly raise questions about how carefully biotechnology firms are controlling their activities,” the journal said in an announcement.
Several hundred tons of the wrong seed were sold between 2001 and 2004 by Basil,
Switzerland-based Syngenta International, one of the world’s largest agricultural biotechnology
companies, Nature said.
The company revealed its mistake to U.S. regulators at the end of last year, and agency officials have since launched an investigation into the
release, the report said.
Syngenta has approval to sell a variety of transgenic corn known as Bt11, which contains a gene from the bacterium
Bacillus thuringiensis that is inserted into the crop to act as a pesticide.
But it has emerged that the company inadvertently sold seeds of Bt10 corn, a variety that contains a slightly different genetic modification that has not been approved. In a statement released to
the journal on March 14, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency confirmed that
U.S. government agencies are investigating.
The journal’s announcement said that although there are no safety concerns, regulatory agencies are “conducting investigations to determine the circumstances surrounding and extent of any violations of relevant laws and regulations”.
Syngenta issued a statement saying it has “identified, destroyed or otherwise contained” all of the product mistakenly released.
“During advanced testing, Syngenta recently discovered an unintended event… in a small number of its corn breeding lines used primarily for pre-commercial development,” the company said in its statement.
“The Bt protein produced by these lines is identical to that produced by the commercialized, fully approved Bt11 varieties. Therefore, there is no change to the food, health and environmental profile of the corn.
“Upon this discovery, Syngenta immediately informed the EPA, FDA and USDA. These regulatory agencies have also confirmed the food, feed and environmental safety of Bt10. All current plantings and seed stock containing this material have been identified and destroyed or otherwise contained.”
Syngenta’s insect resistant product Bt11 was approved for cultivation and food use in 1996 in the United States and for food and feed use in Japan in 1996 and the
European Union in 1998, according to the company.
—EJL
* * *
Send us a comment
on this story, or send
it to a friend
|