MolecularFarming.com will be there, doing business for the Global Database.
If you are a Biotech representative, come up and introduce yourself to us.

MolecularFarming.com will be there, doing business for the Global Database.
If you are a Biotech representative, come up and introduce yourself to us.

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