COMPANIES eager to genetically engineer food plants to contain vaccines, drugs and industrial chemicals have been shaken to their roots by last week’s disclosure that “pharmed” crops have twice contaminated fields of soybeans.
The revelation has prompted a wave of criticism from both friends and foes of the agricultural biotech industry, and calls for more safeguards to prevent drug-laced crops landing on the dinner table.
The US Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration announced that they had found GM corn containing a pharmaceutical protein growing in two soybean plots in Iowa and Nebraska this autumn. The GM…
