A soybean crop intended for human consumption was contaminated by a GM pharmaceutical maize crop (maize genetically modified to produce medicine) being grown by the biotech company, ProdiGene, to produce an experimental vaccine against a pig disease (Transmissible Gastroenteritis Virus or TGEV).  On November 12th 2002 the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced that it had quarantined half a million bushels of soybeans (worth over 42.7 million dollars) at a grain elevator in Nebraska after it was discovered that stalks from a GM Pharm maize crop were mixed with soybeans meant for human consumption. The GM Pharm maize had been grown in a field one year but had appeared again the following year as a ‘volunteer’ crop, which was then harvested with the new season’s soybean food crop. The USDA ordered the soya to be destroyed and fined the biotech company, ProdiGene $2.8 million dollars. The crisis caused the US government to tighten regulations on GM medicine crops, and prompted many scientists to call for medicine crops to be grown indoors, and in non-food crops.

4.

The American biotech company, Monsanto produced a GM Bt-maize (Dekalb 818 YG) which has been cited as the possible cause of an illness crisis in the Philippines.  In the summer of 2003 an entire village of 39 people living adjacent to a large field of Bt-maize on the island of Mindanao (in the Philippines) were stricken by a disease whose symptoms included fever, vomiting, nose bleeding, skin reactions and intestinal disorders. The symptoms occurred during the period when the GM Bt maize was producing airborne pollen. (Four families left the village to stay with relatives during which time their symptoms subsided – only to reappear when the families returned home to their village.)  The maize was genetically engineered to produce the insecticide Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) a toxin which kills insects which attack maize crops. Terje Traavik Ph.D., Scientific Director of The Norwegian Institute of Gene Ecology investigated the crisis, taking blood samples from the victims in October 2003 and found that the IgA and IgM reactions in the blood serum indicated an exposure to Bt within the previous 6-9 months. Dr. Traavik´s findings were consistent with the interpretation that the disease might have been caused by inhalation of the Bt-pollen from the GM maize field, but were  denounced by the biotech industry. Dr Traavik has convincingly defended his findings in a paper on the subject. (“The Cartagena protocol, the Precautionary principle, ‘sound science’ and ‘early warnings’”; e-mail address: Terjet@genok.org.)