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News
Release
WASHINGTON, October 24, 2000 - A coalition of
the nation's leading environmental, consumer and family farm
organizations, including Greenpeace, the Sierra Club, the Union of
Concerned Scientists, National Family Farm Coalition,
Consumers
Union, Environmental Defense, Friends
of the Earth National Environmental Trust and others sent a
joint
letter to President Clinton today
expressing concerns about the widespread contamination of the food
supply by an unapproved variety of genetically engineered corn.
StarLink, a gene al-tered corn approved only for animal feed, has
been found to have widely contaminated the human food supply. The
letter urges the President to intercede to insure that federal
regu-lators do not bow to industry pressure by now approving the
product retroactively.
"The biotech industry promised keep this corn
out of our food, and yet it's now been found in supermarkets across
the country," said Charles Margulis, Greenpeace Genetic Engi-neering
Specialist. "We call on President Clinton to insure that biotech
companies are held responsible for failing to protect consumers from
a potentially dangerous food."
StarLink, which produces an insecticidal
protein called Cry9C, is not approved for human consumption over
concerns that it could cause dangerous allergic responses in some
peo-ple. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA's) review of
StarLink found that many of the allergenicity data submitted on
StarLink were "either inconclusive or indicate that Cry9C exhibits
some characteristics of known allergens." On Friday, an EPA advisory
panel heard from scientists who warned that there is no known safe
level of allergens in food.
But on Saturday, the Washington Post reported
that government officials had suggested that a "solution" to the
widespread StarLink contamination of the food supply is to approve
some level of StarLink in food. Yesterday Reuters quoted anonymous
government officials who denied that a "temporary" exemption for
StarLink was in the works. But Legal Times reported yesterday that
food and biotech industry lobbyists are pushing federal officials to
declare StarLink to be safe for people, a ruling that could save
companies hundreds of mil-lions of dollars in potential recalls, lost
sales and legal liability.
The joint letter to Clinton states that,
"Approving this genetically engineered product in the human food supply simply for the convenience of industry would be outrageous. Any such action would show a troubling disregard for consumer protection that could only further erode consum-ers' confidence in our regulatory system for biotechnology products…. The industry must not now be rewarded for violating the law by an after-the-fact approval of a potentially dangerous product."
The letter to President Clinton can be found at www.greenpeaceusa.org/ge or by clicking here.
CONTACT: Charles Margulis, (202) 258-3029
(mobile), 410-327-3770 (voicemail); Aaron Bannon, Greenpeace Media,
(202) 319-2432, (202) 251-4041 (mobile).
Greenpeace is an
international, non-profit
organization using
peaceful, direct action
to expose global
environmental problems
and create solutions. It
accepts no funding from
industry or government.
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Global Warming
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