Judge Orders Disclosure of Genetically Modified Crop Locations

Pacific Business News



A
federal judge [Thursday] issued a landmark ruling ordering the U.S.
Department of Agriculture to disclose locations of open-air field tests
in Hawaii of genetically modified biopharmaceutical crops….



The USDA
and biotech industry had fiercely resisted disclosing the locations of
the test plots to anyone, citing fears of espionage, vandalism and
civil unrest. However, District Court Judge David A. Ezra ordered the
USDA to provide the plaintiffs with the location information and
ordered the information to be public in 90 days unless the USDA came up
with better evidence of specific harm.



“Biopharming
could have disastrous effects on human health and the environment and
should not be shielded from public scrutiny,” said Paul Achitoff, an
Earthjustice attorney. “At least now plaintiffs can find out if these
crops are being grown near conventional crops that can be
cross-pollinated, in ecologically sensitive areas or near schools or
homes.”



…Genetically
engineered crops have contaminated conventional food crops, as in the
StarLink fiasco, where genetically engineered corn not approved for
human consumption ended up in dozens of products on supermarket shelves
and had to be recalled. There have been potentially disastrous slip-ups
in biopharm field tests. In 2002, the USDA had to quarantine and
destroy 500,000 bushels of Nebraska soybeans meant for human
consumption because the crop had been contaminated with corn engineered
to produce a pig vaccine. That same year, potential contamination led to the destruction of 155 acres of conventional corn in Iowa. The grower in both instances, Prodigene, is currently conducting open-air tests in Hawaii.



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