Food Supply Vulnerable to Contamination by Drugs and Plastics from Gene-Altered CropsUnion of Concerned Scientists
WASHINGTON -- For more than a decade, corn, soybeans, and other food crops genetically engineered to produce drugs, vaccines, and industrial chemicals have been grown on American farms. But a new report by six agricultural experts now warns that the food supply is vulnerable to contamination by these "pharmaceutical crops" unless substantial changes are made in the ways and places such crops are grown and managed.
Based on the experts' findings, the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) [this week] called on the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) to immediately ban the field production of corn, soybeans, and other food crops engineered to produce pharmaceutical and industrial chemicals. UCS recommends that the USDA spearhead a major campaign to encourage and fund safer alternatives like non- food crops or growing pharmaceutical food crops indoors....
UCS convened the panel of experts to determine whether it is possible to produce pharmaceuticals in familiar food crops like corn or soybean (the two plants most often used for pharmaceutical production) without contaminating human food or animal feed. The panel -- acting independently of UCS -- analyzed the current system for growing food- and feed-grade corn and soybeans and identified many points where drugs and plastics could pass to the food supply if pharmaceutical crops were grown under the same system. After evaluating various approaches to blocking contamination at those points, the panel concluded that the current corn and soybean production system cannot be used for pharmaceutical corn and soybean in the United States while ensuring virtually no contamination of the food and feed system.
"It is sobering that drugs and industrial chemicals could have so many routes to the food supply," said Dr. David Andow, editor of the technical report and a professor in the Department of Entomology at the University of Minnesota. "Pollen can be carried to fields with food crops by the wind or insects, seeds lodged in the crevices of harvesting equipment could come loose while harvesting food, and plants can come up as volunteers in the middle of a food crop. To protect the food supply, each potential route has to be blocked."
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