Aventis pulls Bt crop, BIO calls for new rules

Aventis CropScience on Tuesday said that it "has instructed its seed distributors to stop sales of StarLink corn hybrids for the 2001 growing season." The announcement is a reaction to Kraft Food's announcement last week that it was recalling taco shells from grocery stores because Aventis' StarLink Bt corn, which has been approved for use in animal feed but not for human consumption, was detected in the products. The halt in StarLink sales is "aimed at restoring public confidence in our company's efforts to assure that StarLink corn grain does not enter food channels," Aventis said. However, Aventis spokesperson Rick Rountree said that the sales halt is temporary.

Although it supports Kraft's decision to recall Taco Bell brand taco shells, Rountree said Aventis thinks it is likely that the products in fact do not contain StarLink corn. The contamination of Kraft's taco shells with StarLink "hasn't been verified to our satisfaction," Rountree said. He added that another company that sells genetically modified crops recently approached Aventis and reported that the tests that seem to detect StarLink may be inaccurate. "We believe there is a strong chance there could be another GMO ingredient in the taco shells that has a similar genetic footprint that created false positives. This is processed food and DNA strands are damaged by processing, making it extremely difficult to determine" with confidence if trace quantities of StarLink are present, Rountree said. ...