ProdiGene Biotech Firm Under Fire has Link to Iowa

PHILIP BRASHER / Des Moines Register 14nov02

The company accused in a Nebraska case paid to burn Iowa corn that may have been contaminated.

Washington, D.C. - The biotechnology company accused of letting experimental corn contaminate a crop of soybeans in Nebraska was cited for a similar infraction in Iowa earlier this fall, government officials said Wednesday.

The food industry said the incidents raised concerns about the adequacy of controls on the biotech crops.

The government has quarantined 500,000 bushels of soybeans in Nebraska that may have been contaminated with bits of material from corn plants that were genetically engineered to make pharmaceutical products.

In Iowa, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has forced the biotech company, ProdiGene Inc. of College Station, Texas, to pay for burning 155 acres of conventional corn that may have cross-pollinated with some of the firm's biotech plants, officials said. The USDA did not disclose the location except to say it was in north-central Iowa.

USDA officials said ProdiGene failed to properly monitor both the Iowa and Nebraska sites, two of about 24 test sites it has used over the past two years.

"We're going to take every step we need to so we are fully confident they will follow the rules. We do have civil and criminal penalties available as well as the ability to potentially revoke or not issue permits," said Cindy Smith, deputy administrator of the USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service.

The soybeans impounded in Nebraska will have to be destroyed or diverted to industrial use, according to the Food and Drug Administration.

The Grocery Manufacturers of America, which represents companies such as General Mills, Campbell Soup and ConAgra Foods, said Wednesday that the biotechnology industry should give "very serious consideration" to using plants other than food crops like corn to develop pharmaceutical compounds.

The North American Millers Association said the special-use plants should be restricted to areas such as Arizona, far from food crops.

"We want every assurance, underscore every assurance, that the safety of the food supply will remain intact," said Karil Kochenderfer, biotechnology coordinator for the food manufacturers group.

Tim Willard, a spokesman for the National Food Processors Association, said the incidents showed that government regulation of pharmaceutical crops is inadequate.

The food industry was rocked two years ago when a variety of biotech corn known as StarLink was discovered in taco shells and other products without being approved for human consumption. That led to nationwide food recalls and forced corn processors to begin regular testing of their grain supplies to prevent any further StarLink contamination.

StarLink, which was one of several varieties of corn engineered to produce its own insecticide, was only supposed to be used for animal feed until federal regulators determined if it was safe for humans.

With that scare in mind, the Biotechnology Industry Organization last month announced that it was putting geographic restrictions on where biotech corn intended for pharmaceutical or industrial uses could be grown. The move was intended to alleviate concerns about cross-pollination between those plants and crops intended for human food or animal feed.

If followed by that organization's member companies, the restriction would keep the special-use crops from being grown in a region stretching from eastern Nebraska to Ohio.

Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack and the state's two U.S. senators, Republican Charles Grassley and Democrat Tom Harkin, protested the restriction as unnecessary.

"We need to develop stringent, scientifically based regulations that are tough and equitable for the entire nation, not knee-jerk policy that treats specific regions of the nation unfairly while doing little to remedy the problems that currently exist," Grassley said.

Vilsack said "we should not overreact and hamstring this industry or limit Iowa's ability to participate in this emerging industry. The industry bears a heavy burden to ensure that food is safe and that farmers" crops are not put at financial risk."

Both the Iowa and Nebraska cases involved fields where the biotech corn had been grown experimentally in 2001 and soybeans were being cultivated this year.

In both cases, corn plants had sprouted, possibly from biotech seed, and ProdiGene had failed to properly destroy them or prevent them from cross-pollinating with conventional corn, the USDA's Smith said.