Safe Food: The Politics of Food Safety (4 page)
Read Safe Food: The Politics of Food Safety Online
Authors: Marion Nestle
Tags: #Cooking & Food, #food, #Nonfiction, #Politics
As a reporter from
Fortune
explained, corporate life at that time must have been difficult for the scientists who were developing StarLink. International joint ventures, mergers, and acquisitions put control of the technology successively in the hands of Belgian, German, and French companies, as illustrated in
figure 1
(
page 7
). As StarLink corn was wending its way into the human food supply, the German company AgrEvo, itself formed by a joint venture of Hoechst and Schering, acquired Plant Genetic Systems. By September 2001, when the StarLink gene turned up in taco shells, that company had merged into Aventis CropScience, an agricultural division of the French drug company Aventis, which in turn had been formed by the merger of Hoechst with Rhône-Poulenc.
3
This dizzyingly complex ownership history was typical of corporate dynamics at the turn of the twenty-first century.
TABLE 1. Key events in the political history of StarLink corn,
*
1995 to 2002
Year | Month | Selected Events |
1995 | | Plant Genetic Systems (Belgium) develops StarLink (Cry9C) variety of |
1996 | | Companies plant non-StarLink |
1997 | | Plant Genetic Systems applies for EPA registration of StarLink. EPA grants permit for experimental plantings on 3,000 acres in 28 states. |
1998 | | EPA limits registration for StarLink as a plant pesticide, permits use only for animal feed. Farmers plant StarLink on 10,000 acres in United States; registration transferred to AgrEvo. |
1999 | | StarLink planted on 250,000 acres in United States. AgrEvo petitions for extension of registration to human food. EPA seeks comment on StarLink allergenicity. |
2000 | January to August | EPA panel reviews AgrEvo petition. StarLink is available from 15 seed companies in 33 varieties and is planted by 2,500 farmers on 300,000 acres; registration transferred to Aventis CropScience. Consumer group, Genetically Engineered Food Alert, announces campaign to require testing and labeling of genetically modified ingredients in food products. FDA receives reports of allergic reactions to StarLink corn products. |
| September | Genetically Engineered Food Alert reports evidence of StarLink gene (not protein) in Taco Bell taco shells, owned by Kraft Foods. Kraft confirms tests, recalls 2.5 million boxes. Aventis blocks further sales of seeds, announces agreement with government to buy remaining seeds to use for animal feed. Consumers file lawsuit claiming allergic reactions. |
| October | FDA confirms presence of StarLink in taco shells and announces plans to test food samples. Consumer groups identify StarLink in Safeway taco shells; Safeway issues recall. Aventis “voluntarily” withdraws EPA registration of StarLink. Mission Foods recalls 298 products distributed in the United States, Canada, and Korea; other companies also issue recalls. Kellogg closes U.S. factory because its supplier mills have no corn. Aventis petitions EPA to permit StarLink in existing foods on basis that amounts are too low to cause allergies; EPA asks for comments. USDA says it has traced all but 1.2 million bushels (1.5%) of StarLink produced in 2000. Japan finds StarLink in imported U.S. corn. |
| November | Aventis says it will sell its CropScience division, reports “traces” of StarLink protein in conventional corn produced in 1998. American Seed Trade Association says it cannot guarantee that corn is free of genetic modification, asks USDA to approve a tolerance level of 1%. USDA tells EPA advisory committee that it cannot locate 7 million bushels (11%) of StarLink corn. More than 40 people report allergic reactions to StarLink corn products. EPA committee says StarLink protein has “medium likelihood” of being allergenic but “low probability” of causing problems from food. |
2000 | December | EPA is reported to know since 1997 that StarLink is in the human food supply. Farmers file class action suit against Aventis for not warning them that StarLink was restricted to animal feed. Japan finds 28,000 tons of StarLink corn in food supply. |
2001 | February | Aventis fires president, vice-president, and chief counsel of CropScience division; company says the StarLink recall cost nearly $100 million. |
| March | Aventis reports that 430 million bushels of stored corn from 1999 contain traces of StarLink. USDA reports traces of StarLink in non-StarLink seeds intended for planting in 2001. EPA says it will never issue another split registration. Green-peace finds StarLink in Kellogg products, demands recall; Kellogg complies. |
| April | Aventis asks EPA to set tolerance limit on the amount of StarLink permitted in the human food supply. |
| June | CDC and FDA find no evidence of antibodies to StarLink protein in stored blood samples from people who reported allergic reactions. FDA finds no evidence of StarLink gene in yellow corn products but does find the gene in one sample of white corn tortilla chips. |
| July | EPA advisory panel confirms December 2000 judgment that StarLink could be allergenic. Corn growers reduce acres planted in genetically modified seeds. |
| September | Bayer said to be buying Aventis CropScience for $5 billion and to assume $1.7 billion in debt. U.S. consumer group, Center for Food Safety, obtains Freedom of Information Act information that Aventis knew in 1999—and told EPA in January 2000—that farmers were selling StarLink for use in human food. |
| December | Canada reports that keeping StarLink out of its food supply cost its government nearly $1 million. |
2002 | March | Federal judge approves $9 million settlement of farmers’ class-action suit against companies involved in StarLink production and distribution. |
| June | Bayer completes purchase of Aventis CropScience; forms Bayer CropScience; divests interests in Starlink. |
| October | GeneScan Australia reports traces of StarLink in one-third of test food samples. |
SOURCES
:
Food Traceability Report. StarLink: Lessons Learned
. Washington, DC: FCN Publishing, 2001. Taylor MR, Tick JS.
The StarLink Case: Issues for the Future
. Washington, DC: Pew Initiative on Food and Biotechnology, October 2001. Online:
www.pewagbiotech.org
. Also: various reports from the
New York Times
, the
Washington Post, Food Chemical News
, and the Environmental Protection Agency (
www.epa.gov/scipoly/sap
).
*
StarLink
™
is corn genetically engineered to contain a protein called Cry9C from a species of bacteria,
Bacillus thuringiensis
(
Bt
), toxic to corn borers and other insect pests.
To return to our story: in 1997, Plant Genetic Systems (soon to be AgrEvo) applied to the EPA for a “registration”—a planting license—for StarLink corn. Because company data indicated that the StarLink Cry9C
Bt
protein toxin appeared similar in structure to proteins known to cause human allergies, the EPA did something unprecedented: it issued a limited registration. The agency licensed AgrEvo to grow StarLink corn, but
only
for animal feed or industrial purposes.
Following approval, plantings of StarLink increased rapidly. Farmers grew the corn on about 10,000 acres in 1998, 250,000 acres in 1999, and 300,000 acres in 2000—still just a small fraction of the 80 million U.S. acres planted with corn in any given year.
4
Once harvested, StarLink corn soon worked its way into the food production and distribution system.
Figure 2
, which illustrates the principal components of the StarLink food chain, immediately reveals why the question, “how did StarLink get into the human food supply?” is not the one to ask. The real question is how it could possibly have been kept out.
The chain of production begins with Aventis CropScience, the owner of the StarLink technology at the time the gene appeared in taco shells. Aventis does not sell seeds; it licenses the technology to seed companies to grow the plants. In this case, Garst Seeds was the principal (but not the only) licensed company. Garst, in turn, sold StarLink seeds to about 2,500 farmers who grew the corn throughout the Midwest, mainly (40%) in Iowa. The farmers harvested the corn and transported it to about 350 grain elevators. From the elevators, corn seeds traveled to Azteca Milling in Plainview, Texas, to be converted into corn flour. In turn, the flour traveled to Mexico (and other places) to be made into taco shells and corn products distributed throughout the world. Corn plants look alike, and corn seeds are either yellow or white. StarLink is yellow corn and looks no different from any other yellow corn. Unless StarLink is carefully segregated from other varieties, it can easily become mixed with conventional corn at any stage of production—in the fields or in trucks, grain elevators, or processing plants.
During the summer of 2000, Larry Bohlen of Friends of the Earth, one of the groups participating in Genetically Engineered Food Alert, learned that neither the growers of StarLink nor the owners of grain elevators were making any special effort to segregate the genetically modified corn from conventional varieties. He knew of a test developed by GeneticID, a company in Iowa, that could identify “foreign” genes in genetically modified foods. Using that test, Friends of the Earth examined corn products on supermarket shelves and hit the jackpot with the shells made by Taco Bell (owned by Kraft Foods, then a division of Philip Morris). Further testing revealed signs of the StarLink gene in other foods: vegetarian corn dogs, seed corn from conventionally grown plants, seeds from other types of genetically modified corn, corn shipped to Japan, and white as well as yellow corn. Because StarLink was not permitted in these products, it would have to be removed—a challenging and costly process involving product recalls, purchases of stored corn, closures of manufacturing plants, testing of samples, legal fees, bail-out funds, loss of sales, lost jobs, lost exports, and, eventually, judgments in class-action lawsuits. Not least, the StarLink affair contributed to further loss of confidence in the food biotechnology industry and in the ability of government agencies to protect the public by regulating genetically modified foods.
FIGURE 1. The multinational origins of Aventis CropScience, owner of the genetic engineering technology for StarLink corn in 2000, when its gene “illegally” appeared in supermarket taco shells. Bayer (
Germany
) bought Aventis CropScience in 2002.
FIGURE 2. The chain of production, distribution, and marketing of StarLink corn through the food system in 2000. Square boxes contain the principal elements in this chain. Ovals indicate corporate ownership. The diagram reveals the difficulties of keeping StarLink corn separated from conventional corn during growth, harvest, storage, and processing.
*Tricon Global changed its name to Yum! Brands, Inc. in 2002.
The driving force behind these events was the idea that some people might be allergic to the StarLink protein. Food allergies, although rare, can be extremely dangerous and sometimes fatal to susceptible individuals. In the months following the taco shell disclosure, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) collected accounts from people who said they experienced allergic reactions to products made with StarLink corn, and the EPA asked its Scientific Advisory Panel to advise the agency about scientific issues related to the allergenicity of the StarLink protein.
