Food Supply Vulnerable to Contamination by Drugs and Plastics from Gene-Altered Crops
Union 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.”
(Click here to read the complete article.)
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I think the Union of Concerned Scientists might be a little too concerned on this issue. I've read the argument, and I don't see there being a great threat here. If anyone was to try and contaminate a crop, they would have no way of figuring out which were being grown to produce drugs, vaccines, and industrial chemicals. But I assure you that if these crops are all grown indoors in a higher security area, they'd know exactly which crops to attack.
Comment posted by http://www.contactinfodesk.com
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The danger is not that someone is going to try to sabotage the pharmaceutical crops, it's that the pharmaceutical crops, planted out in the open, are contaminating food and feed crops by natural methods such as normal pollination from field to field.
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