Biotech Corn Probably in Foods
Millions of bushels of genetically engineered corn approved only for animal use have made their way into the human food- supply chain, officials said Wednesday, raising the possibility that the corn will be found in a wide array of foods.
Industry and federal officials are working to find the corn and buy it back before it’s made into more taco shells and chips, corn flakes and other products.
“A lot has gone downstream,” said John Wichtrich, vice president and general manager of Aventis FoodSciences of Research Triangle Park, N.C., developer of the corn. “We’re working with the grain elevators, the flour mills and processors to identify the commingled corn, and we’re getting it out of the food chain.”
Although the corn was not approved for humans because of fears it might trigger allergic reactions, officials do not think its presence in food poses an imminent threat. But the incident raises questions about whether genetically engineered products can be kept segregated from conventional ones in the nation’s food system.
Investigators thought the corn had made its way into only a few food products through a single Texas corn miller that had inadvertently used the corn from last year’s crop to make taco shells. That prompted the recall of all taco shells made from that miller’s flour, including Taco Bell grocery store and Safeway brand taco shells.
Those recalls triggered a series of investigations by federal regulators and Aventis to determine how the corn had gotten to the Texas miller. Aventis says the corn apparently was sold by farmers to dozens--and perhaps hundreds--of grain elevators around the country, which unknowingly distributed it to millers and processors for use in making food.
Aventis officials said Wednesday that about 260 grain elevators have received the corn this year. Based on completed surveys of 107 of them, the company said about half were forwarding the corn on for unapproved human uses.
Wichtrich estimated that about 88% of its corn, called StarLink, was being stored on farms and used for animal feed. But 9 million bushels has already left farms this year, and that is the corn that company officials are tracking down.
An official with the Department of Agriculture, said Wednesday it’s possible that some of this year’s crop has made it into food products. But, he said, “There is an enormous effort underway to pull back as much of the corn as possible.”
The Food and Drug Administration is testing a variety of products for the presence of the corn.
StarLink is the only genetically modified corn that was approved by the Environmental Protection Agency for animal use but not for humans. Aventis officials now echo the opinion of others in the food and biotech industries that the decision to accept only the animal approval was a serious mistake.
Aventis agreed this month to buy the entire crop at a 25-cent premium and is selling much of it to feedlots and ethanol producers. The company is also paying to test commingled corn in many grain elevators, and will buy any corn in storage that has even a small amount of StarLink in it. Analysts estimate the cost at $100 million.
Wichtrich said Wednesday that in conversations with growers of StarLink corn, the company learned that some did not know the corn was approved only for animal or industrial use, and that some had known but forgotten.
“A lot of this corn was grown on a small section of larger farms, and sometimes farmers just harvested it all together,” he said. “Sometimes they didn’t advise the grain elevators of the restrictions, and sometimes they were too busy to remember. It just didn’t work out.”
