USA: March 2, 2001

StarLink is not approved for human consumption because of concerns about potential allergic reactions. It was found in taco shells in September, leading to an eventual recall of more than 300 food products.

The Post said the newly discovered contamination does not pose any immediate public health threat because none of the seed has been planted.

But if the contamination is found to be widespread, farmers and grain exporters fear it could be devastating because major buyers of American corn in Europe and Asia have said they will refuse to buy any corn suspected of being tainted by StarLink, the Post said.

Representatives of the seed industry and other corn and food industry officials were scheduled to meet Thursday with officials from the three federal agencies that oversee agricultural biotechnology, the Post reported.

"There may be low levels of in some non-StarLink hybrid corn seed," an Agriculture Department official told the Post. Those attending Thursday's meeting will "look into the issue and further evaluate what steps may be necessary to address it," the newspaper said.

Industry sources told the Post that it was unclear how the seed corn came to contain the StarLink protein, called Cry9c. The sources were also quoted as saying the level of Cry9c being found in corn seed is very low.

StarLink's developer, Aventis CropScience, a unit of Franco-German life science firm Aventis SA, maintains the corn is safe for human consumption. The pharmaceutical giant has asked the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to approve StarLink retroactively for human use to avert future disruptions of the corn supply, but the agency is under intense pressure from critics of biotechnology to keep the ban on human use, the Post said.

REUTERS NEWS SERVICE