SENTIENT TIMES Dec/Jan 2001
StarLink:
More Bad News for Biotech
by Ronnie Cummins
"Agricultural biotechnology will find a supporter occupying the White
House next year, regardless of which candidate wins the election in November
·" Monsanto Corporation's electronic newsletter at www.monsanto.com,
10/06/00
The Gene Giants suffered a serious setback last September when the Genetically
Engineered Food Alert coalition (GEFA) revealed that an illegal, likely
allergenic variety (Cry9C) of genetically engineered corn called StarLink
had been detected in a major US consumer food product, Kraft taco shells.
The GE Food Alert Coalition, which tested the taco shells and broke the
news about StarLink, is made up of seven US groups, Friends of the Earth,
Organic Consumers Association, Pesticide Action Network, Center for Food
Safety, Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, National Environmental
Trust, and the US Public Interest Research Group.
The StarLink scandal made headlines, generated thousands of news articles
and TV clips, and brought home the realization to American consumers that
the nation's supermarkets are filled with an extensive inventory of untested,
unlabeled, genetically engineered foods. In 1998 the US Environmental
Protection Agency had approved the commercial cultivation of StarLink-corn
spliced with a powerful Bt toxin (bacillus thuringiensis). Developed by
a subsidiary of the French-German biotech conglomerate Aventis, StarLink
was approved only for animal feed because of fears that this controversial
Cry9C variety (50 to100 times more potent than other Bt-spliced varieties)
could set off food allergies in humans.
Critics of Genetically Engineered food have warned for years that splicing
foreign proteins into common food products-proteins which in most cases
humans have never eaten before-can set off dangerous food allergies with
symptoms ranging from fever, rashes, and diarrhea to anaphylactic shock
and sudden death. The FDA admits that eight percent of all US children
are now plagued by food allergies, and that the situation is growing worse.
Nutritionists also warn of a suspected link between food allergies and
asthma. Even the staid New England Journal of Medicine warned in its March
14, 1996 issue that unlabeled genetically engineered foods are "uncertain,
unpredictable, and untestable."
In 1996,
a gene-altered soybean spliced with Brazil nut DNA patented by what is
now Dupont's seed subsidiary, Pioneer Hi-Bred, was pulled off the market
before commercialization after researchers learned that it could set off
a deadly allergy in humans. Even after this near-disaster, Plant Genetic
Systems, the developer of StarLink corn (PGS was later bought out by Aventis),
apparently continued gene-splicing Brazil Nut DNA into rapeseed, potatoes,
tobacco, beans, and peas in European field tests in the open environment.
The biotech industry, Kraft/Phillip Morris, and the EPA at first tried
to deny the validity of the GEFA lab tests, but within days public pressure
forced Kraft, the largest food corporation in America, to recall 2.5 million
boxes of the corn tacos. This action was followed by a halt of sales of
Cry9C seeds by Aventis, and a formal recall order issued by the USDA on
all 350,000 acres of StarLink corn planted across the US. GEFA then forced
further recalls (Safeway corn taco shells, Mission Foods corn products,
Western Family brand corn tacos) by announcing that StarLink corn had
been detected in other brand-name products being sold in thousands of
supermarkets. In the wake of the StarLink crisis, some of the largest
US food and animal feed processors-Kellogg, ConAgra, Archer Daniels Midland,
and Tyson-either temporarily closed their grain mills or announced mandatory
testing for Cry9C corn. Meanwhile, the White House sent emergency teams
to Japan and Europe, trying to reassure major US trading partners that
the StarLink controversy would be kept under control.
By the end
of October, consumer confidence in the safety of GE foods was severely
shaken. Thousands of farmers and grain elevator operators expressed anger
at Aventis and the biotech industry. The state Attorney General's office
in Iowa criticized Aventis and seed dealers for not telling farmers to
keep StarLink out of the human food chain. As one Iowa grain elevator
operator told the Washington Post, "I think we're just hitting the
tip of the iceberg here. We just don't know what's in those elevators,
and when we start letting this stuff go and it's tested, it's going to
get worse."
Aventis, Kraft, Safeway, Mission Foods, Western Family, Shaw's, Food Lion,
Randalls, Kroger, Albertson's, H.E.B., and scores of other food companies
and supermarket chains (not to mention grain elevators and farmers) have
begun totaling up several hundred million dollars in losses. Consumers
claiming to have been poisoned by StarLink corn products filed a multi-million
dollar class-action suit in Chicago. Kraft and a number of supermarket
chains have voiced dissatisfaction with the lack of oversight of GE crops
by US regulatory agencies.
The EPA is caught between a rock and a hard place: Fending off pressure
by the biotech industry to reverse itself and declare that Cry9C corn
is safe for humans, and resisting pressure from public interest groups
to take all of the nation's Bt crops-corn, cotton, potatoes, and soybeans-off
the market because of their evermore obvious hazards. Meanwhile, America's
overseas allies are trying to figure out what to do about the growing
demand on the part of consumers in their own countries to close the door
on billions of dollars of GE-tainted US agricultural imports.
The US announcement on Oct. 27 that they would let Archer Daniels Midland,
Cargill, ConAgra and other grain exporters ship StarLink-contaminated
corn to international markets only made matters worse. In effect the grain
cartel and the White House were telling America's best overseas customers:
Here, take this contaminated corn. Americans are refusing to eat this
stuff, Tyson Foods, the largest poultry producer in the US, won't even
feed it to their chickens, but you can eat it.
The fallout and collateral damage from the StarLink scandal will likely
continue. As the New York Times stated on Oct. 17, Aventis may be hit
with a barrage of lawsuits: "Just what farmers knew and when they
knew it could end up playing a role in lawsuits growing out of the affair,
according to lawyers who handle agriculture cases. Aventis and the seed
companies might have a hard time fending off liability for the expenses
of farmers, grain elevators, millers and food companies in sorting out
the mess if they did not do enough to head off foreseeable risks that
mixing would occur."
The appalling lack of US government regulation and the greed of so-called
Life Science corporations to rush untested, and in this case, likely dangerous
products to market have now become obvious, even in the heartland of agbiotech,
the United States. Polls taken before the StarLink scandal broke showed
that the majority of Americans and Canadians were already opposed to genetically
engineered foods, while an overwhelming majority support mandatory labeling,
mainly so that they can avoid buying these controversial foods. US farmers,
and even a number of large food corporations, have already begun cutting
back on their use of GE seeds or food ingredients. While 33% of US corn
acreage was GE last year, this year it fell to 19.5%. Whether or not the
StarLink debacle represents a mortal blow to the first generation of GE
foods and crops remains to be seen. Certainly a review of recent global
developments indicates that the crisis of credibility surrounding genetically
engineered foods is steadily increasing.
No Labeling and No Safety Testing
The US government's "no labeling" and "no safety testing"
policy has become a serious liability and a source of controversy. The
Center for Food Safety and other public interest groups filed a major
lawsuit in 1998 in US Federal Court to take GE foods and crops off the
market. Last October the lawsuit was headed off by the FDA, but only by
admitting in court that they actually have had no real policy in place
on genetically engineered foods and crops since 1992. In effect, all so-called
"regulation" up until now has been completely voluntary on the
part of Monsanto, Aventis, and the rest of the biotech industry. Commenting
on the October 2nd decision, Center for Food Safety attorney Andrew Kimbrell
stated, "This court decision means that for almost a decade these
novel foods have gone virtually unregulated in the United States. American
consumers have been used as unknowing guinea pigs ·"
Inside sources report that the FDA has postponed publishing new proposed
regulations on genetically engineered foods, at least until after the
November elections. In the aftermath of the StarLink controversy, the
FDA understands that its forthcoming proposed regulations (no mandatory
labeling, no mandatory safety testing, no required liability insurance)
will likely set off a huge public backlash during the legally required
public comment period. But federal officials and the Gene Giants are caught
in a terrible bind. If they do what most of the public wants and require
mandatory pre-market safety testing and labeling, leading food corporations
and supermarkets will do what they are already doing in Europe and Asia-remove
GE foods and ingredients from their brand-name products. Stores won't
sell products branded with the "skull and crossbones" of the
GE label, and farmers will be very reluctant to grow these crops. On the
other hand, if the FDA, USDA, and EPA continue to do the bidding of the
biotechnology industry, they risk losing billions of dollars in US export
sales, not to mention the political risks of provoking the ire of US consumers,
who are now apparently awakening to the GE food controversy with a vengeance.
On the international front, the leading producers of genetically engineered
crops-the US with 74% of all GE crops, Canada with 10% and Argentina with
15%-face a similar dilemma. If they try to use the hammer of economic
sanctions from the World Trade Organization to force Frankenfoods down
the throats of the WTO's other 131 nation-state members, they risk provoking
a trade war and possibly even a meltdown of the entire global "Free
Trade" system. If they don't use the police and enforcement power
of the WTO, however, more and more countries are going to make it harder
and harder for untested and unlabeled GE products to get into their countries.
For example:
- Europe,
which has not approved a new GE crop since April 1998, told the US on
Oct. 11 "· the only way the European Union's de facto moratorium
on new GM (genetically modified) seeds is likely to be lifted is for
US farmers to be required to segregate genetically modified crops from
those grown from traditional seeds ·"
Meanwhile new human health fears over antibiotic resistance genes in GE cattle feeds are prompting Europe's leading food producers and supermarket chains to ban GE animal feeds in their meat and dairy production. Recently a government advisory board in Britain, the Advisory Committee on Animal Feeding Stuffs, admitted that antibiotic resistant marker genes found in genetically engineered foods and animal feeds may be able to transfer antibiotic resistance to the bacteria in animals' guts, giving rise to dangerous pathogens in humans that can't be killed by traditional antibiotics. German scientists earlier this year-in a story widely reported across Europe-found that antibiotic resistant genes from GE rapeseed plants were combining with bacteria in the stomachs and intestines of bees. BBC reported on Oct. 6 that the UK's major grocery chains are all removing GE ingredients from animal feed. A recent UK poll commissioned by Friends of the Earth found 63% of British shoppers want supermarkets to drop GM ingredients from animal feeds. The European Commission and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations are now both calling for mandatory labeling of animal feeds, a move that analysts predict will all but kill non-segregated, GE-tainted US grain exports to Europe and Asia.
- Cargill,
the world's largest grain company, announced in September that they
are expanding their contract production and marketing of non-genetically
engineered corn, and will strictly segregate these varieties at their
processing plants in Paris, Illinois, Indianapolis, Indiana, and Liverpool,
England. As Cropchoice News reported in September, "Cargill's latest
parlay into non-GMO comes at time when it and other big grain processors
continue to downplay the demand for non-biotech grain. But like ADM
and ConAgra, Cargill is making moves into the non-GMO market even as
they suggest it is unimportant." Cargill's shift reaffirms the
conclusion of a recent study carried out by professor David Bullock
at the University of Illinois which found that US grain handlers can
efficiently and economically segregate GE and non-GE grain varieties
by simply designating specific grain elevators, grain processing plants,
and transportation facilities as either GE or non-GE.
- Government
officials in Taiwan announced in October that they will follow the lead
of other Asian and Pacific countries and require mandatory labeling
of food with genetically engineered ingredients. According to officials,
labeling requirements will come into force in 2001-with similar measures
being implemented in South Korea and Japan. Taiwan is a major importer
of US grains, importing over 4.5 million metric tons of corn last year.
According to Cropchoice News, "The government's decision is in
response to intense pressure and follows publication of a Gallup poll
in which 74% of Taiwanese said they expected the government to require
labels on GMO food." According to Reuters news agency, Uni-Food
Enterprises, Taiwan's largest food company, reacted to the news by promising
to comply with the labeling requirements and move toward using non-genetically
engineered ingredients. Uni-Food Enterprises, with $2.6 billion in annual
sales, produces animal feeds, dairy products, frozen foods, instant
noodles, and soft drinks.
- According to an Associated Press story in October Japanese authorities have warned the United States not to export StarLink corn to Japan. Government officials were embarrassed after a public interest group, the Consumers Union of Japan, announced in Tokyo that it had found traces of StarLink corn in snack foods sold in Japanese stores as well as in imported animal feed. StarLink corn is prohibited in both human and animal feed in Japan. An earlier AP story reported that an entire 55,000 ton shipload of US corn destined for Japan was rejected after testing positive for StarLink, "sending shock waves through importers in Japan as well as other Asian countries such as South Korea and Taiwan." According to the AP "Japan imports about 60 percent of its food, much of it from the United States. In 1999, Japan imported 15.9 million tons of corn from the United States, including 10.8 million tons for animal feed, the Foreign Ministry said. The remaining 5.1 million tons were for food, mostly for corn starch." Korea imports about eight million tons of corn per year from the US. The Consumers Union of Japan and allied consumer groups in South Korea are calling for a moratorium on the importation of all GE foods into their countries. In a recent poll 82% of Japanese consumers said they were opposed to genetically engineered food-the highest level of resistance in the world.
GE Threat
to Health Ignored
The StarLink controversy has shined the spotlight once again on the hazards
of Bt-spliced crops in general, not just the Cry9C variety. In dramatic
testimony presented to the EPA on October 20, a highly regarded international
expert, Dr. Michael Hansen of the Consumers Union, pointed out that:
1. The EPA has ignored an EPA-funded study that shows that Bt toxins have
induced signs of allergenicity in agricultural field workers, as well
as an additional study indicating allergenicity in lab rats.
2. The EPA has failed to require tests of all Bt crops for allergenicity
using the blood serum and chemical reagents from these earlier studies-even
though these tests could be done quickly with little expense.
3. The EPA have failed to carry out adequate safety tests for StarLink
or any of the other Bt crops which they have approved.
4. Government "acute toxicity" protocols are based on the erroneous
scientific assumption that Bt toxins generated by gene-spliced plants
in the field are identical to Bt toxins produced by bacteria in the laboratory
5. The government continues to downplay the potential hazards of antibiotic
resistant marker (ARM) genes-found in Bt crops and all genetically engineered
foods-even though recent studies underline that ARM genes have the ability
to transfer antibiotic resistance to soil bacteria, bees, mammals, and
other organisms, including humans. As Hansen reminded the EPA in May 1999,
the British Medical Association, which represents some 85% of the doctors
in Britain, released a report calling, in part, for a prohibition on the
use of antibiotic resistance marker genes in genetically engineered plants.
Researchers at the University of Minnesota have found that Bt corn does
indeed pose a major hazard to Monarch butterflies, since Monarchs are
found in concentrated numbers in and around milkweed plants in cornfields
throughout the corn growing season. According to an article in the Los
Angeles Times "just as many" Monarchs were breeding and feeding
within cornfields as in nonagricultural sites. In other words millions
of Monarch butterflies throughout the Midwest corn belt are feeding on
their only food source, milkweed plants, just at the same time that Bt
corn plants are shedding their toxic pollen, pollen which lab and field
tests have conclusively shown are poisonous to the butterflies. The biotech
industry has worked overtime in the past year trying to maintain that
Bt pollen poses insignificant risks to Monarch butterflies.
Critics have pointed out that not only is Bt killing Monarchs, but that
it is also killing beneficial soil microorganisms and thereby damaging
the entire soil food web, as well as killing beneficial insects such as
lacewings and ladybugs. Scientists also warn that bees and birds are likely
being harmed by eating insects that have ingested the Bt toxin. In addition,
organic farmers, 2/3 of whom in the United States use a non-genetically
engineered form of Bt spray as an emergency pest management tool, have
pointed out that crop pests (beetles, boll worms, corn borers) will inevitably
develop resistance to widely cultivated Bt-spliced crops, creating superpests
that will overwhelm organic farmers and make organic agriculture more
difficult, if not impossible. For all of these reasons, Greenpeace, the
Center for Food Safety, and a broad coalition of public interest groups-including
the Organic Consumers Association-are preparing litigation to have all
genetically engineered Bt crops taken off the market.
Even the pro-biotech New Scientist magazine (UK) pointed out what has
now become painfully obvious: If biotech companies and the FDA are unable
to keep an unapproved variety like StarLink out of the human food chain
and contained in restricted farm plots, what are they going to do once
the next generation of bio-pharm plants begin to be commercialized, plants
containing vaccines and pharmaceutical drugs, crops that could harm and
poison unsuspecting consumers? As the magazine concluded, "We can't
ignore the taco fiasco · Why was it left to Friends of the Earth to commission
the tests that found StarLink in taco shells? The food industry needs
to get its act together before the new generation of modified plants arrives.
Next time, the consequences could be serious."
For the moment the proponents of the Biotech Century seem to have survived
the latest storm. Unlike the FDA's last recall of a genetically engineered
product, the nutritional supplement l-Tryptophan, in 1989, which left
in its wake 37 deaths and 5,000 injuries, there are no dead bodies of
StarLink victims visible on the TV news, but the Frankenfoods controversy
continues to grow. The question seems to be no longer, if there will be
a biotech Chernobyl, but only when.
From the BioDemocracy News, a publication of the Organic Consumers
Association, www.purefood.org; Organic Consumers Association, 6101Cliff
Estate Road
Little Marais, MN 55614; (218) 226-4164; ronnie@organicconsumers.org
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