Even
before the contaminated rice fiasco, federal regulators were getting
a pounding for their shortcomings in editorials in America's mainstream
media: The judge called USDA's regulatory heedlessness "arbitrary
and capricious" and "an unequivocal violation of a clear
congressional mandate." Those findings recall similar conclusions
reached by the USDA's own auditors last year.
Biotech
Firm, Government Hid Rice Contamination From Public
by Megan Tady on 24 August 2006 in The
NewStandard
The recently revealed spread of genetically modified rice has critics
alarmed on two levels: the problem itself and the fact that authorities
suppressed the news.
Last week, the US Department of Agriculture announced that US commercial
long-grain rice supplies are contaminated with "trace amounts"
of genetically engineered rice unapproved for human consumption.
The genetically engineered (GE) rice is known as Liberty Link (LL)
601. Its genetic code has been modified to provide resistance to herbicides
and is illegal for marketing to humans because it has not undergone
environmental and health impact reviews by the USDA and the Food and
Drug Administration (FDA). LL601 was field-tested from 1998 to 2001
under permits granted by the USDA, but Bayer Corp Science, the developer
of the experimental rice, did not seek commercial approval for it.
The contamination was only disclosed after Bayer notified the USDA
itself. Currently, the government relies on self-reporting from food
companies to determine genetically engineered (GE) contamination,
rather than a federal testing system. The USDA dismissed concerns
that companies may not always "self-report" or even be aware
of their mistakes, which would lead to further undetected contamination
of unapproved GE food.
It appears a separate company first detected the contamination in
January of this year and that Bayer may have known about the contamination
since May. But the government was not notified until July 31. It took
another 18 days for the USDA to tell the public.
At a press conference, Secretary of Agriculture Mike Johanns would
not divulge how the contamination had happened, or how far it had
spread. It was unclear whether he even knew. Jim Rogers, a USDA spokesperson,
told The NewStandard the contaminated rice was detected in barrels
sent to Missouri and Arizona.
"But the rice could have come from anywhere [in the US],"
Rogers said.
Riceland, a farmer-owned cooperative that markets rice produced by
Southern farmers, issued a press release on August 18, saying it first
discovered the contamination in January. Riceland conducted its own
tests from several grain-storage locations and found: "A significant
number tested positive for the Bayer trait. The positive results were
geographically dispersed and random throughout the rice-growing area."
Riceland notified Bayer of the contamination in May, but did not notify
the public or the government.
Johanns indicated that an economic motive was behind the government's
delay of nearly three weeks before informing the public about the
contamination, as the government anticipated foreign rice importers
might reject the product. The Secretary said the USDA spent the time
preparing tests for rice importers to check the product for contamination.
The US constitutes about 12 percent of the world's rice trade.
There are currently no plans to destroy or recall the rice, and Rogers
is unsure if Bayer will be fined. While the government "validates"
its tests for the rice, Johanns directed people to Bayer's website,
saying the company "has made arrangements with private laboratories
to run tests" on the rice.
Although the field tests for LL601 ended in 2001, the contamination
appeared in a 2005 harvest, leaving some food-safety advocates to
worry that the contamination has been present for several years and
suggesting that genetically modified strains can persist in the environment
well after they have been discontinued in experiments.
Two other varieties of rice with the same gene and from the same company
have already been approved for human consumption, though never marketed.
There is currently no known, intentional commercial US production
of genetically engineered rice.
Johanns said that based on "available scientific data" provided
by Bayer, the USDA and the FDA have concluded "that there are
no human-health, food-safety or environmental concerns associated
with this GE rice."
When pressed about the health implications of the contaminated rice,
Rogers noted that foods from pesticide- and herbicide-resistant crops
are already on the market. In fact, according to the USDA, 70 percent
of processed foods on grocery store shelves contain genetically engineered
ingredients.
Rogers dismissed concern that, because the government relies on companies'
self-reporting, there could be widespread contamination of unapproved
GE ingredients in the US food supply. He said the government did not
have plans to begin testing food itself.
But this is not the first time unapproved genetic material has escaped
detection in the food supply. In 2004, the company Syngenta admitted
that for four years, it had sold unapproved GE maize in the US.
In response to the Bayer revelation, Greenpeace has called for a worldwide
ban on imports of US rice. Already, Japan has suspended US rice imports.
The Center for Food Safety, a public-interest organization, is also
calling for a moratorium on all new permits for open-air field testing
of GE crops. The Center is concerned that open-air testing allows
GE crops to cross pollinate with neighboring non-GE crops.
"We see this as an opportunity to get out the message that this
is a radically new technology," said Bill Freese, science policy
analyst for the Center. "These foods have not been tested, and
we don't know if they're safe."
Unless the
USDA can prove capable of doing a far better job of regulating crops,
the courts and Congress should consider imposing a moratorium on new
permits. Mother Nature shouldn't be used as a laboratory for some
uncontrolled genetic experiment.
Mother Nature Is No Lab
published
on 20 August 2006 in The Hartford Courant
Given the latest criticisms of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's
inept handling of genetically modified crops, comparisons to Pandora's
box are inevitable.
Pandora, as a version of the Greek legend goes, was the first mortal
woman. And what a stunner: Epimetheus (a titan, no less) fell in love
with her. Zeus gave her a box as a dowry. Suspecting Zeus was up to
something, however, Epimetheus warned her not to open it. But Pandora's
curiosity got the better of her. She raised the lid, releasing all
misfortunes onto the world including disease, sorrow, poverty, crime,
despair and greed.
Genetically modified crops may not fall into the category of "misfortunes."
But the USDA's oversight of these crops leaves a lot to be desired.
Once these crops are released into the world, there is no going back.
On Aug. 10, a U.S. District Court judge in Hawaii had harsh words
for the USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, which grants
permits for genetically engineered crops. The judge concluded that
the agency allowed such crops to be planted on four islands without
first determining whether they posed a threat to the 329 endangered
or threatened species that call Hawaii home. The modified crops consisted
of corn and sugar cane that were genetically tweaked to produce human
hormones, drugs and ingredients for vaccines against
AIDS and hepatitis B.
The judge called USDA's regulatory heedlessness "arbitrary and
capricious" and "an unequivocal violation of a clear congressional
mandate."
Those findings recall similar conclusions reached by the USDA's own
auditors last year. After reviewing two years of records, the auditors
concluded that the agency's biotechnology regulators overlooked violations
of their own rules, failed to inspect sites and did not assure that
genetically engineered crops were destroyed after field trials. In
some cases, regulators did not even know the locations of trials.
Spokesmen for the USDA say all these mistakes are in the past. They
say the agency has made changes that will address long-standing concerns
about oversight. Advocates of biotechnology, meanwhile, paint a picture
of a better world where there is less disease and where foods are
cheaper and more plentiful.
It's a noble vision, of course. But getting there is the tricky part.
Genetically modified crops may contaminate ordinary plants, creating
such mutants as a tougher, more herbicide-resistant weed. Crops modified
for industrial or pharmaceutical uses can also get into the food chain,
unleashing strains that put public health and the environment at risk.
Unless the USDA can prove capable of doing a far better job of regulating
crops, the courts and Congress should consider imposing a moratorium
on new permits. Mother Nature shouldn't be used as a laboratory for
some uncontrolled genetic experiment.
This is a nightmare
scenario for Oregon's seed producers. If the resistance gene shows up
in their grasses, it could kill exports to the many countries that ban
genetically modified plants. If it shows up in noxious grasses, their
weed-control problems will multiply.
Escaped bentgrass sounds a warning
published on 21 August 2006 in The
Minneapolis Star Tribune
"It's a cautionary tale of what could happen with other [transgenic]
plants that could be of greater concern. I suspect that more examples
of this will show up." Jay Reichman, U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency, who led the search for escaped plants.
You don't have to be a grass-seed producer in central Oregon to be alarmed
by last week's news that genetically modified bentgrass has escaped
its test area and taken root among wild plants miles away.
Once again, companies controlling the transgenic revolution have proved
themselves unable to safely sequester their creations while the risks
are under study. Those risks remain murky, though certainly real, and
even if this first documented escape of engineered plants from a U.S.
test plot falls short of catastrophe, rest assured there will be others.
Industry practices and lagging government oversight virtually guarantee
it.
In some ways, the downwind migration of creeping bentgrass into an
area including the Crooked River National Grassland, northeast of
Eugene, is more alarming than the earlier case of transgenic canola
popping up in Canada. The issue is the same: accidental transfer,
especially to wild and weedy plants, of a gene specially inserted
to make the engineered variety resistant to the herbicide glyphosate
(Roundup). But unlike canola, which has few wild cousins to pollinate
and must be replanted each year, bentgrass is a perennial with at
least a dozen close relatives susceptible to cross-pollination.
While the goal in both cases was also the same -- lowering herbicide
use -- it's not irrelevant to consider that canola contributes lots
of vegetable oil to the world's food supply, while the high-tech bentgrass
was destined for golf courses (and perhaps, down the road, some
lawns in affluent suburbs).
Because old-fangled grass seed is a $370-million-a-year industry in
Oregon, officials of Scotts Miracle-Gro and Monsanto offered safety
guarantees against seed or pollen escaping from their experimental
bentgrass plantings, including a wide buffer zone around the test
plots. But by the time the test crop's seed was harvested two years
ago and the modified plants destroyed, scientists had found its pollen
well beyond the buffer.
Now bentgrass sampling in wild fields has turned up nine plants with
the gene that provides Roundup resistance, as far as three miles outside
the zone.
It's unclear how many of these grew from escaped seed or are essentially
wild plants that picked up the resistance gene from drifting pollen.
Either way, it's a nightmare scenario for Oregon's seed producers.
If the resistance gene shows up in their grasses, it could kill exports
to the many countries that ban genetically modified plants. If it
shows up in noxious grasses, their weed-control problems will multiply
-- while the usefulness of glyphosate, rather earth-friendly as herbicides
go, will correspondingly contract.
Scotts and Monsanto are pressing for federal approval to bring their
talented new bentgrass to market. But you've no need to worry that
its Roundup resistance will drift into your manicured grass, or your
neighbor's weedy yard, or that vacant lot down the street. The Scotts
people say the golf courses will surely keep the bentgrass stuff cut
so short it won't have a chance to produce pollen or go to seed. Rest
assured.
Given the recent revelations of blunders, we think federal regulators
ought to re-evaluate the regulatory process and monitoring safeguards.
While tomatoes run amok might be the stuff of Hollywood, the risks
from sloppy handling of gene-altered crops is all too real.
Biopharming gone awry
published on 21 August 2006 in The
Denver Post
It's not exactly the Attack of the Killer Tomatoes, but the genetically
engineered grass that recently escaped from an Oregon test plot has
the potential to wreak serious environmental havoc.
The creeping bentgrass, genetically modified to be resistant to common
herbicides such as Roundup, was found to have crossed with wild grasses,
the first known transgenic crop escape in the U.S. Yikes!
Grass farmers and environmentalists fear the creation of a superweed
that would contaminate grass seed production, a $373.5 million industry
in Oregon.
The revelation underscores the caution that is necessary - and apparently
wasn't exercised - in handling genetically engineered crops.
A federal judge recently came to a similar conclusion in a case out
of Hawaii. The judge ruled that U.S. Department of Agriculture officials
displayed "utter disregard" for Hawaii's many endangered
plant species by not investigating potential impacts on them before
issuing permits for cultivation of genetically modified crops.
In a scathing 52-page order, U.S. District Judge J. Michael Seabright
took the agency to task, saying the Animal and Plant Health Inspection
Service violated the law by granting permits for modified corn and
sugar cane plants.
Companies modified
their genetic structure so that when harvested, the plants would contain
hormones or proteins that could be used to treat human illnesses.
Seabright this week will be considering remedies, and the plaintiffs
are asking the judge to prohibit the issuance of biopharming permits
for open air crops anywhere in the country until agency reviews its
permitting process.
It is a prudent course of action. While Oregon and Hawaii are far
from Colorado, biopharming interests have eyed our state before. Two
years ago, we urged extreme caution as the federal government planned
to move ahead with permits allowing "pharmaceutical" corn
to be cultivated in Colorado.
Luckily, it would seem, no commercial biopharm crops were actually
planted here. An Iowa State University researcher sowed a tiny plot
of seed corn, but that was a far cry from original plans.
Given the recent revelations of blunders, we think federal regulators
ought to re-evaluate the regulatory process and monitoring safeguards.
While tomatoes run amok might be the stuff of Hollywood, the risks
from sloppy handling of gene-altered crops is all too real.
see also:
www.gmwatch.org
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