Bid to approve modified corn assailed

by Danielle Knight

Washington, 17 Jul 2001 (IPS) - Hundreds of food products have been withdrawn from US stores since StarLink genetically modified corn was discovered in them. Now, to the consternation of critics, the company that manufactured the corn for animal feed is asking the government to approve it for human consumption.

At consultations organised by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Tuesday, public health and environmental advocates said government regulators simply do not have enough information to act on the company’s request.

“The government investigation has been rushed and is incomplete,” said Bill Freese, senior policy analyst with Friends of the Earth. “And the studies that have been done are flawed.”

The EPA had asked that medical facilities be monitored for reports of allergic reactions to StarLink but these have not been completed. But the company, Aventis BioCrop, “and the government have dragged their feet,” added Jane Rissler, senior staff scientist with the Union of Concerned Scientists.  Consequently, “neither has provided the data.”

EPA officials said last year that they were unconvinced of StarLink’s safety. On Tuesday, they declined to comment on the corn’s chances of winning approval pending the actual decision, which is expected next week.

With roughly a week remaining before the government is expected to rule on the petition for approval, critics said, the dearth of hard facts means that Aventis cannot prove that StarLink is safe for human consumption. The company, however, said its critics, likewise, couldn’t prove that its bio-engineered product is unsafe.

The US Food and Drug Administration had not cleared StarLink as fit for humans to consume, citing potential allergic reactions. Instead, the modified yellow corn was supposed to be fed only to animals. But it has been detected in some 300 products and more than 200 people have reported adverse reactions ranging from rashes to nausea, to diarrhoea.

StarLink is genetically altered to contain the plant pesticide Bacillus thuringienis, or Bt, making it highly resistant to pests. The corn’s discovery in human foodstuffs - including white corn products previously considered effectively quarantined from the yellow StarLink, prompted Aventis to take it off the market and to put on hold export plans pending a full assessment of the corn.

That assessment was to have included a thorough study of risks to children and others particularly vulnerable to food allergies, but, said critics, this also has not been done.

Aventis has argued that there is no need to apply a ‘special safety factor’ for infants and children, because they eat less and therefore would have limited exposure to StarLink.

Rebecca Goldburg, a senior scientist at the non-governmental organization Environmental Defense, said that argument falls short of standards mandated by law.

“In the case of food allergy, an extra margin of safety is clearly warranted since infants and children are clearly far more susceptible to developing food allergies than are adults,” she told officials.

StarLink is grown only in the US but because it has found its way into human foodstuffs, critics said, tens of millions of people here and overseas may have been exposed to it without their knowledge.

Traces of StarLink were recently discovered in white corn by federal regulators after officials received a complaint from Keith Finger, a doctor living in Florida.

Last year, Finger had reported suffering an allergic reaction to yellow corn products tainted with StarLink. In February, he reported a milder reaction after eating white corn chips.

Finger was one of more than 200 people who reported that they had suffered allergic reactions to yellow corn products possibly tainted with StarLink last year.

Last month, the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said that its tests of Finger and others had failed to uncover antibodies that would have confirmed that StarLink had caused their allergic reactions.

In response, Finger sought to find out once and for all if StarLink was really causing the allergic reactions. On Tuesday, he told of how he obtained StarLink corn and ingested it in the presence of doctors.

“Three to four hours later I was itching and developed hives,” Finger recalled.  “Then doctors insisted on injecting me with Benadryl to stop the reaction,” he added, referring to a common anti-histamine.

A video of Finger’s experiment was shown Tuesday to the EPA panel.

“I’m not against bio-engineering but we have to have government accountability if we think something is going to be harmful,” Finger said.

According to Goldburg at Environmental Defence, the results of the CDC investigation do not prove that the modified corn variety will not cause allergies.

“The CDC study involved a very small group of people and, very importantly, was not designed to identify people who are most likely to suffer allergies” to StarLink, she said.

“Until all the data is in, the government should not approve StarLink,” added Freese, from Friends of the Earth. – SUNS4939

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