U.S. consumer groups to sue USDA over GMO medicine crops

Thursday, March 06, 2003
By Randy Fabi, Reuters

WASHINGTON — A coalition of U.S. environmental and consumer groups
Wednesday threatened to sue the U.S. Agriculture Department unless it
temporarily halts planting of biotech crops engineered to produce
medicinal and industrial products.

At issue is the worry that some new kinds of bioengineered crops could
inadvertently contaminate corn, soybeans, and other nearby crops grown
for human and livestock food.

A coalition of 11 groups, including Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace,
and Center for Food Safety, accused the USDA of allowing the
experimental crops to be planted without conducting required
environmental risk assessments.

Without such analyses, the USDA "is risking permanent contamination of
the environment and our food supply with numerous drugs and
chemicals," said Peter Jenkins, attorney for the Center for Food
Safety.

USDA officials were not immediately available for comment.

The coalition of activist groups has long criticized biotech crops,
even those approved for food and livestock feed, saying they may harm
the environment and could cause an increase in allergic reactions in
consumers.

American farm groups and foodmakers are strong supporters of biotech
foods but are split on the future of so-called "bio-pharm" crops.

Biotech companies like Dow Chemical Co. and Monsanto Co. are
engineering corn, soybeans, tobacco, and sugar crops as a cheaper way
to mass produce medicines to treat a range of human ailments.

The USDA and the Food and Drug Administration are expected to propose
new rules for growing medicinal crops this week.

Industry sources said on Tuesday that the new proposed rules will
require U.S. farmers to plant experimental pharmaceutical crops
further away from nearby fields with food crops. They will also urge
growers to use completely separate farm equipment when planting,
cultivating, and harvesting the pharmaceutical plants, the sources
said.

No pharmaceutical crops have yet been approved by U.S. regulators for
commercial use.

Last year, about 300 acres of American farmland in Hawaii, Iowa, and
other states were planted with experimental pharmaceutical crops.

The crops have attracted new attention since late last year, when
ProdiGene, a small Texas biotech company, paid about $3 million in
fines and costs to settle USDA allegations that the firm accidentally
contaminated food crops with its pharmaceutical corn.

The activist coalition said that incident showed the new crops pose a
danger to the nation's food supply. The groups said they will file a
lawsuit against USDA unless the government imposed a temporary ban by
early May.

Source: Reuters