Fwd: Here they go again...

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Sat, 26 Apr 2003 01:19:03 -0700

News Update from The Campaign

Here they go again...

 

News Update From The Campaign to Label Genetically Engineered Foods

 

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Dear News Update Subscribers,

 

In yet another example of the weak oversight guidelines for genetically

engineered crops, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has fined

Pioneer Hi-Bred a second time for violating regulations.

 

Corn genetically engineered to contain a protein not approved for human

consumption contaminated other corn. Pioneer was required to notify the

EPA of this contamination and failed to do so.

 

Pioneer Hi-Bred, a subsidiary of DuPont, was fined $72,000. They were

previously fined $10,000 for a similar violation.

 

The Washington Post article below will provide more details.

 

While this incident of contamination was relatively minor, it does raise serious

questions about how genetically engineered products are being regulated.

 

This contamination incident was discovered. How many have not been

discovered?

 

Craig Winters

Executive Director

The Campaign to Label Genetically Engineered Foods

 

The Campaign

PO Box 55699

Seattle, WA 98155

Tel: 425-771-4049

Fax: 603-825-5841

E-mail: label

Web Site: http://www.thecampaign.org

 

Mission Statement: " To create a national grassroots consumer campaign

for the purpose of lobbying Congress and the President to pass

legislation that will require the labeling of genetically engineered

foods in the United States. "

 

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Firm Fined for Spread Of Altered Corn Genes

Government Wasn't Told Soon Enough

 

By Justin Gillis

Washington Post Staff Writer

Thursday, April 24, 2003

 

The nation's leading seed company was fined $72,000 yesterday for violating

government requirements in testing experimental corn in Hawaii, the latest

setback for a biotechnology industry struggling to comply with government rules.

 

The Environmental Protection Agency imposed the fines on Pioneer Hi-Bred

International Inc. of Des Moines after the company failed to promptly notify the

government of tests showing that genes from experimental corn had spread to

other corn grown nearby.

 

The incident, involving a minuscule amount of corn, occurred at a Pioneer test

center on the island of Kauai, well removed from any commercial food or seed

production.

 

The company and the government said no unapproved corn variety had entered

the nation's food system.

 

" Our primary goal is to make sure it doesn't get into the food supply, " said Amy

Miller, an enforcement officer overseeing the case at the EPA's regional office

in

San Francisco. " We feel that based on the testing, there is no risk that it

did. "

 

Still, the test results disturbed advocacy groups tracking the development of

agricultural biotechnology and the government's attempts to regulate it. It was

the

latest in a string of incidents in which genetically altered plants or their

pollen

wound up in unexpected places.

 

Most of the incidents have been quite small, and unapproved crops are known to

have wound up in the food supply in only one case. But some advocates say the

problems cast doubt on a fundamental premise of government policy: that

experimental varieties of corn or other crops can be planted in fields but kept

out

of food crops.

 

" What this shows is that there really needs to be much more serious oversight

of experimental trials, " said Gregory Jaffe, director of biotechnology issues at

the

Center for Science in the Public Interest, a Washington group that supports the

technology in principle but believes it has been poorly regulated. " We're

kidding

ourselves if we think these genes are being contained by current standards. "

 

Courtney Chabot Dreyer, a spokeswoman for Pioneer, a subsidiary of DuPont Co.,

said unexpected genes were found in only 12 corn plants out of more than 300,000

tested. " To put that into perspective, that's four-thousandths of a percent, "

she said.

She added that the company would seek to improve its practices.

 

The EPA reported the incident to the Agriculture Department, which also has

jurisdiction in such matters.

 

The EPA was disturbed by the company's failure to notify it promptly when the

experimental genes were found. That was a breach of an agreement made by EPA

and the company in December, after Pioneer acknowledged separate violations on

another nearby plot and was fined nearly $10,000.

 

" I won't make any excuses for the company, " Dreyer said. " We were fined $72,000

for missing a deadline. It was a regrettable oversight, and we take complete

responsibility for it. "

 

The 12 plants, which were growing on a test plot, unexpectedly contained genetic

alterations allowing them to produce a protein that is toxic to insects. The

experimental protein is not yet approved for human consumption. The altered

genes

might have spread when pollen moved from other experimental corn plots nearby,

a type of " gene flow " that government planting rules are supposed to prevent.

 

Jaffe noted that the problem wouldn't have been caught if Pioneer's violations

last year hadn't prompted the government to widen the testing program.

 

" It was pure luck that they caught it, a complete fluke, " Jaffe said. " The

government doesn't want to look. We sort of have a 'don't ask, don't tell'

policy. "

 

 

 

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