Aventis says needs 4 years to clear out StarLink corn 
Reuters 25oct00

WASHINGTON - Aventis SA (AVEP.PA), whose bioengineered StarLInk corn has been banned for human consumption in this country, told U.S. regulators on Wednesday it needs four years to flush out all the corn that has accidentally made its way into the human food supply.

In a 75-page submission to the Environmental Protection Agency, the French pharmaceutical giant also estimated that at most, about 12 percent of this year's StarLink crop -- or 9.6 million bushels -- had been commingled into human food products.

Aventis submitted the documents to the EPA in a bid to win a temporary ``tolerance'' for StarLink in human food, which would lift a ban on the gene-spliced corn being used in taco shells, snack chips, cereals and other foods.

The EPA has not allowed StarLink to be used as human food because of concerns about whether it might cause allergic reactions in some consumers. The biotech corn sparked a series of recent recalls of taco shells, and has become a costly headache for American food companies, grain merchants and biotech advocates.

Aventis said it needed a four-year approval period to clear away any remaining StarLink from the 1999 harvest, plus time to complete this year's harvest and the typical lag between the manufacturing of foods containing corn flour and when a consumer actually eats them.

To bolster its case that StarLink is safe for human consumption, the company also submitted data from a 30-day study of mice fed StarLink. None of the animals showed any allergic reactions, AVentis said.