Conscious Choice: StarLink: More Bad News for Biotech

December 2000

StarLink: More Bad News for Biotech

by Ronnie Cummins

The biotech industry suffered a serious setback on September 18, when the Genetically Engineered Food Alert (GEFA) coalition revealed that an illegal, likely allergenic variety of genetically engineered (GE) corn called StarLink had been detected in Kraft taco shells, a major U.S. consumer food product.

The StarLink scandal made headlines, generated thousands of news articles and TV clips, and brought home the realization to American consumers that the nation’s supermarkets include an extensive inventory of untested, unlabeled, genetically engineered foods. In 1998 the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency had approved the commercial cultivation of StarLink — corn spliced with a powerful Bt (bacillus thuringiensis) toxin. Developed by a subsidiary of the French-German biotech conglomerate Aventis, StarLink (also known as Cry9C) was approved only for animal feed because of fears that this variety of GE corn (fifty to one hundred times more potent than other Bt-spliced varieties) could set off food allergies in humans.

Critics of GE food have warned for years that splicing foreign proteins into common food products can set off food allergies — with symptoms ranging from fever, rashes, and diarrhea to anaphylactic shock and sudden death. The FDA estimates that 8 percent of all U.S. children are now plagued by food allergies, and that the situation is growing worse. Nutritionists warn of a suspected link between food allergies and asthma. Even the staid New England Journal of Medicine warned in its March 14, 1996 issue that unlabeled genetically engineered foods are "uncertain, unpredictable, and untestable."

In 1996, a gene-altered soybean spliced with Brazil nut DNA patented by what is now DuPont’s seed subsidiary, Pioneer Hi-Bred, was pulled off the market before commercialization after researchers learned that it could trigger deadly allergic reactions in humans. Even after this near-disaster, Plant Genetic Systems, the developer of StarLink corn (PGS was later bought out by Aventis), apparently continued gene-splicing Brazil Nut DNA into rapeseed, potatoes, tobacco, beans, and peas in European field tests in the open environment.

The biotech industry, Kraft/Phillip Morris, and the EPA at first tried to deny the validity of the GEFA lab tests, but within days public pressure forced Kraft, the largest food corporation in America, to recall 2.5 million boxes of the corn tacos. This action was followed by a halt in seed sales and a formal recall order issued by the USDA on October 9 for all 350,000 acres of StarLink corn planted across the U.S.

Then on October 11, and again on October 25, GEFA announced that StarLink corn had been detected in Safeway corn taco shells, Mission Foods corn products, and Western Family brand corn tacos. This forced further recalls. In the wake of the StarLink crisis, some of the largest U.S. food and animal feed processors — Kellogg, ConAgra, Archer Daniels Midland, and Tyson — either temporarily closed their grain mills or announced mandatory testing for Cry9C corn. Meanwhile, the White House sent emergency teams to Japan and Europe, trying to reassure major U.S. trading partners that the StarLink controversy would be kept under control.

StarLink Hits the Fan

Aventis, Kraft, Safeway, Mission Foods, Western Family, Shaw’s, Food Lion, Randalls, Kroger, Albertson’s, H.E.B., and scores of other food companies and supermarket chains (not to mention grain elevators and farmers) have begun totaling up several hundred million dollars in losses. Consumers claiming to have been poisoned by StarLink corn products filed a multi-million dollar class-action suit in Chicago. Kraft and a number of supermarket chains have voiced dissatisfaction with the lack of oversight of GE crops by U.S. regulatory agencies.

Fallout from the StarLink scandal will likely continue. Polls taken before the StarLink scandal broke showed that the majority (51 percent in a poll by Angus Reid) of Americans and Canadians (60 percent in a poll by Unilever) were already opposed to genetically engineered foods, while an overwhelming majority (80-94 percent) support mandatory labeling, mainly so that they can avoid buying these controversial foods. As reported previously in BioDemocracy News #29 (www.purefood.org), U.S. farmers, and even a number of large food corporations, have already begun cutting back on their use of genetically modified seeds or food ingredients. While 33 percent of U.S. corn acreage was planted with GE corn last year, this year only 19.5 percent of acreage was genetically engineered.

International Consequences

When the StarLink scandal broke, America’s overseas allies already were facing consumer demands to reject GE-tainted U.S. agricultural imports. The U.S. announcement on October 27 that they would let grain exporters ship StarLink-contaminated corn to international markets only made matters worse. It was as if the White House were saying, "Here: take this grain. Americans refuse to eat the stuff, Tyson Foods, the largest poultry producer in the U.S., won’t even feed it to their chickens, but it’s fine for you."

Japanese authorities have warned the United States not to export StarLink corn to Japan. The variety is prohibited in Japan, and government officials were embarrassed after a public interest group, the Consumers Union of Japan, announced that it had found traces of StarLink corn in snack foods as well as imported animal feed. An A.P. story on October 24 reported that an entire 55,000 ton shipload of U.S. corn destined for Japan was rejected after testing positive for StarLink, "sending shock waves through importers in Japan as well as other Asian countries such as South Korea and Taiwan."

According to the A.P. "Japan imports about 60 percent of its food, much of it from the United States. In 1999, Japan imported 15.9 million tons of corn from the United States, including 10.8 million tons for animal feed, the Foreign Ministry said. The remaining 5.1 million tons were for food, mostly for corn starch." Korea imports about 8 million tons of corn per year from the U.S. In a recent poll 82 percent of Japanese consumers said they were opposed to genetically engineered food — the highest level of resistance in the world. The Consumers Union of Japan and allied consumer groups in South Korea are calling for a moratorium on the importation of all GE foods into their countries.

The StarLink scandal also has spread into Mexico and Latin America. Mexico is the world center of biodiversity for corn, with 25,000 varieties found in the country. In fact, corn flour, the main ingredient in tortillas, is Mexico’s most important food product. Mexico is also the winter home for Monarch butterflies, who migrate south from Canada and the United States. An important study at Cornell University in 1999 found that the pollen from Bt corn kills Monarch butterflies. Mexico Greenpeace announced in October that 450 tortilla factories across Mexico will use only locally produced (non-GE) corn in their products.

Meanwhile new human health fears have arisen over antibiotic resistant genes in GE cattle feed. Recently a government advisory board in Britain, the Advisory Committee on Animal Feeding Stuffs, revealed that antibiotic resistant marker genes found in genetically engineered foods and animal feeds may be able to transfer antibiotic resistance to the bacteria in animals’ guts, giving rise to dangerous pathogens in humans that can’t be killed by traditional antibiotics. German scientists earlier this year — in a story widely reported across Europe — found that antibiotic resistant genes from GE rapeseed plants were combining with bacteria in the stomachs and intestines of bees. As a result, Europe’s leading food producers and supermarket chains have banned GE animal feeds in their meat and dairy production. The BBC reported on October 6 that the UK’s major grocery chains, Iceland, Sainsbury, Waitrose, Marks & Spencer’s, and Asda are removing all animal feed with GE ingredients. The European Commission and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations are now both calling for mandatory labeling of animal feeds, a move that analysts predict will all but kill nonsegregated, GE-tainted U.S. grain exports to Europe and Asia.

As a result of this pressure, Cargill, the world’s largest grain company, announced in September that they are expanding their contract production and marketing of non-genetically engineered corn, and will strictly segregate these varieties at their processing plants in Paris, Illinois; Indianapolis, Indiana; and Liverpool, England. As Cropchoice News (www.cropchoice.com) reported September 29, "Cargill’s latest parlay into non-GMO [(genetically modified organisms)] comes at a time when it and other big grain processors continue to downplay the demand for non-biotech grain. Like ADM and ConAgra, Cargill is making moves into the non-GMO market even as they suggest it is unimportant." Cargill’s shift reaffirms the conclusion of a recent study carried out by professor David Bullock at the University of Illinois which found that U.S. grain handlers can efficiently and economically segregate GE and non-GE grain varieties by simply designating specific grain elevators, grain processing plants, and transportation facilities as either GE or non-GE.

In the wake of recent discoveries, UK geneticist Mae-Wan Ho reported that Argentina, the second largest producer of genetically engineered crops in the world after the United States, "is having second thoughts as the world market [for GE soybeans and corn] collapses."

Science vs. Industry

Starlink isn’t the only problem facing biotech spin doctors. The biotech industry has worked overtime in the past year trying to maintain that Bt pollen poses insignificant risks to Monarch butterflies, but researchers at the University of Minnesota have found that Bt corn does indeed pose a major hazard to Monarch butterflies. Monarchs, they discovered, are found in concentrated numbers in and around milkweed plants in cornfields throughout the corn growing season. Researchers were surprised to find, according to an October 25 article in the Los Angeles Times, "just as many" Monarchs were breeding and feeding within cornfields as in nonagricultural sites. In other words millions of Monarch butterflies throughout the Midwest corn belt are feeding on their only food source, milkweed plants, just at the same time that Bt corn plants are shedding their toxic pollen, pollen which lab and field tests have conclusively shown are poisonous to the butterflies. Besides the Bt threat, scientists have warned that Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide, sprayed on GE soybeans and other crops engineered to survive it ("Roundup Ready"), kills off the harmless milkweed plant.

Critics have pointed out that not only is Bt killing Monarchs, but it is also killing lacewings, ladybugs, and beneficial soil microorganisms, thereby damaging the entire soil food web. Scientists also warn that bees and birds are likely being harmed by eating insects that have ingested the Bt toxin. In addition, organic farmers in the United States, two-thirds of whom use a non-genetically engineered form of Bt spray as an emergency pest management tool, have pointed out that crop pests (beetles, boll worms, corn borers) will inevitably develop resistance to widely cultivated Bt-spliced crops, creating superpests that will overwhelm organic farmers and make organic agriculture more difficult, if not impossible. For all of these reasons, Greenpeace, the Center for Food Safety, and a broad coalition of public interest groups are preparing litigation to have all genetically engineered Bt crops taken off the market.

Even the pro-biotech New Scientist magazine pointed out in its October 7 UK edition that if biotech companies and the FDA are unable to keep an unapproved variety like StarLink contained in restricted farm plots and out of the human food chain, they are heading for trouble when the next generation of bio-pharm plants — plants containing vaccines and pharmaceutical drugs — begin to be commercialized. As the magazine concluded, "The food industry needs to get its act together before the new generation of modified plants arrives. Next time, the consequences could be serious."

For the moment the proponents of the Biotech Century seem to have survived the latest storm. Unlike the FDA’s last recall of a genetically engineered product, the nutritional supplement l-Tryptophan, in 1989, which left in its wake 37 deaths and 5,000 injuries, this recall is free of dead bodies and photogenic StarLink victims. But the Frankenfoods controversy continues to grow. The question no longer is whether there will be a biotech Chernobyl, but when.

Reprinted with permission of the Organic Consumers Association. To subscribe to their newsletter, send an email to info@organicconsumers.org and write subscribe in the body of the message, or go to www.purefood.org.

The GE Food Alert Coalition, which tested the taco shells and broke the news about StarLink, is made up of seven U.S. groups, Friends of the Earth, Organic Consumers Association, Pesticide Action Network, Center for Food Safety, Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, National Environmental Trust, and the U.S. Public Interest Research Group. For more information, see www.gefoodalert.org.

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