Aventis requests temporary permit for StarLink

Aventis CropScience said Wednesday that it has asked the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to provide short-term approval for minimal amounts of its StarLink corn to be present in human food. The company said it supported the request with new safety information about the Cry9C protein, which is expressed in StarLink corn. StarLink was approved in 1998 only for animal consumption because unlike proteins expressed by other Bt-corn varieties, Cry9C does not breakdown rapidly in the stomach and therefore EPA said it could not rule out the possibility that it could cause allergic reactions. ...