Safe Food_ Bacteria, Biotechnology, and Bioterrorism - Marion Nestle [13]
With these results in hand, the EPA Scientific Advisory Panel met again in July 2001 to continue debating issues related to StarLink allergenicity. By this time, the EPA had canceled the StarLink registration, thereby prohibiting further plantings. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) joined with Aventis to buy the remaining mixtures of conventional and StarLink corn to use for animal feed or industrial uses. Corn handlers, millers, and food processors began testing to see whether their stocks contained the StarLink Cry9C protein, and began selling off the commingled corn.
In the meantime, EPA panel members continued to raise questions about the reliability of the FDA and CDC testing methods and said that they still could not exclude the possibility that StarLink might be allergenic. They saw no reason to change their previous conclusion that the Cry9C protein had a medium chance of being allergenic but a low chance of actually causing allergic reactions in the population. Instead, they said it was time to ask political questions: “What went right? What went wrong? What have we learned? How did Cry9C penetrate the human food supply? Why was the adulteration detected by a public interest group rather than through a more formal surveillance program (e.g., Federal agencies or regulated industry)?”7
Implications for Stakeholders
The answers to such political questions depend on the point of view—and, therefore, the interests—of the various stakeholders in food safety: the food industry, the government, consumer advocacy groups, and the general public. The StarLink affair revealed how these interests affect opinions and actions related to safety matters.
We can begin by looking at the reactions of the food industry—in this instance, the companies that produce, process, and sell StarLink corn or its products. As indicated in figures 1 and 2, large national and international corporations own many of the companies involved in the StarLink chain of production and distribution. These companies are businesses that must respond to the demands of directors and stockholders, and it seems likely that their managers had more immediate matters to worry about than whether corn intended for animal feed was commingling with conventional corn.
Aventis officials behaved as if they had no doubt that the EPA would approve StarLink for human consumption and would allow it to remain in the food supply. They began with denials and finger-pointing, starting with an attempt to discredit the accuracy of the GeneticID test. When subsequent testing confirmed the presence of the Cry9C gene in supermarket foods, Aventis “volunteered” to give up its right to plant StarLink, reportedly because the EPA threatened to revoke its registration.8 The company also tried another tack; it petitioned the EPA to allow StarLink to remain in supermarket foods for four more years until virtually all commingled products would be sold. Aventis officials argued that the amounts in food were too small to harm consumers and that having to remove foods containing StarLink from corn supplies and supermarket shelves would greatly disrupt the food system. Indeed, disruptions were likely to be considerable, since the commingled corn for the 2000 crop amounted to 124 million bushels, and Japan and South Korea had rules forbidding any genetically modified corn from entering their countries. For all of these reasons, the Grocery Manufacturers of America and other food industry trade associations strongly supported the Aventis petitions.
Using yet another tactic, Aventis asked the EPA to set a “tolerance” limit for StarLink—a level below which regulatory agencies would ignore traces of the Cry9C gene or protein in food. Aventis warned corn processors that StarLink was so thoroughly commingled in the corn supply that the only way to deal with that situation was to accept it: “Will there ever be an end to this? Unfortunately, as of right now, the answer is ‘no’—there will never be