Report of StarLink Corn in Japan Heats Up Debate
The U.S. effort to convince the rest of the world that genetically modified foods are safe hit a huge roadblock Wednesday when a Japanese consumer group charged that some altered corn products from the U.S. that are banned for human consumption had found their way onto Japan’s supermarket shelves.
The news is expected to fuel the already charged global debate over the safety of these foods, heighten consumer concerns in Asia and Europe and spur accusations that the U.S. is not in full control of its distribution system.
U.S. grain industry officials high-tailed it to Japan to try and mollify their customers as Japanese health officials and U.S. Embassy experts huddled in separate meetings Thursday to assess the crisis, spread their side of the story and reassure skittish Japanese consumers, among the most particular in the world.
“I’m just married and planning to have a baby, so it’s really scary to think about eating this sort of . . . food without knowing it,” said Michiyo Sawada, 27, an office worker at a computer company in Tokyo.
The stakes are huge. Japan imports about 16 million tons of U.S. feed corn annually worth around $2 billion. While California is a relatively small player and accounts for only about 0.4% of the U.S. crop, it is home to many processed food companies that use and export corn products.
On Wednesday, a 500-member Japanese consumer group called No G.M.O. Campaign, which opposes genetically modified organisms, said it conducted tests on several Japanese food products, including corn-based snack foods and corn starch. The tests reportedly found traces of StarLink, a genetically modified corn made by Aventis CropScience of Research Triangle Park, N.C., a unit of Aventis of France.
If confirmed, the development will add to Aventis’ many headaches. The company has recalled its entire production--so far it says it’s recovered 88%--and its seeds have been banned.
The consumer group blames the U.S. for failing to keep what Europeans have dubbed “Frankenfood” within its borders and blames Japanese inspectors for not stopping the food at the dock. “The EU bans all GMO food, but Japan is so dependent on America for feed corn that it can’t make such a blanket rejection,” said Setsuko Yasuda, a group member.
The Japanese government has come under pressure to step up its import inspections after a disclosure earlier this year that GMO traces were showing up in animal feed. But the GMO regulations don’t go into effect until next April.
“In the meantime, we’ve asked the other foreign countries, mainly in Canada and the U.S., not to export these unexamined foods,” said Yasuhisa Nakamura, a deputy director with the Ministry of Health and Welfare.
Japan’s health ministry said Thursday it plans to duplicate the tests done by the citizens group, a process that will take at least two weeks. It also has asked the distributor, Kyoritsu Shokuhin, to recall the product and asked the U.S. Embassy to stop all shipments of StarLink products.
Bernice Slutsky, chief scientist for the U.S. Foreign Agriculture Service, and David Shipman, a government grain inspector, have arrived in Japan to deal with the expected outcry. And top officials at the U.S. Grains Council and North American Export Grain Assn. are also in Tokyo meeting with key customers.
In Japan one problem is the relative lack of alternate suppliers for U.S. corn. There’s a small amount available from China, but quality is inferior.
In the U.S., a coalition of environmental groups, Genetically Altered Food Alert, said Wednesday its own private testing discovered StarLink contamination in Western Family taco shells purchased from a grocery store in Oregon.
The company, based in Portland, said it quietly withdrew its Western Family brand taco shells and Shur Fine brand tortilla chips on Oct. 12 and 13.
Aventis submitted data to the Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday in an effort to show that flour made from the corn is safe for human consumption.
StarLink is engineered to contain a built-in pesticide to repel a destructive bug that feeds on young corn plants.
