| June 26, 2008 |  |
New Feature Highlights Safer Alternatives to Producing Pharmaceuticals in Food Crops Outdoors
UCS urges USDA to ban outdoor "pharma" crop production in new rules
http://www.ucsusa.org/food_and_environment/genetic_engineering/sensible-pharma/
The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) today unveiled a new Web feature highlighting biotechnology companies that are developing drugs in safer ways than growing genetically engineered drug-producing food crops outdoors. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) currently allows outdoor production of these so-called "pharma crops," but the agency is expected to announce new regulations this summer that may include a ban on the practice. (For the Web feature, go to www.ucsusa.org/sensiblepharma.)
"The federal government should ban outdoor pharma crop production using food crops because it can contaminate the nation's food supply," said Karen Perry Stillerman, a senior analyst with UCS's Food and Environment Program. "There are safer alternatives, and a number of forward-thinking companies are already using them."
The innovative companies and researchers featured in UCS's "Sensible Pharmaceutical Production" include an Arizona State University researcher who is growing tobacco in a greenhouse to produce new vaccines; companies in Israel and North Carolina that are using carrot cells and duckweed plants, respectively, to produce a variety of medical proteins; and a Houston company growing engineered fungal cells in an enclosed fermentation facility to make the same protein drug that a pharma crop competitor is producing in rice grown outdoors. These and other methods can provide needed drugs and keep them out of the food supply.
Since the 1990s, the USDA has allowed biotech companies to grow genetically engineered food crops, including corn, rice and safflower, to produce a variety of pharmaceutical drugs and industrial chemicals. When grown outside, pharma food crops can mix with crops intended for the food supply when the wind spreads seeds or pollen into neighboring fields, or when workers do not adequately clean farm or transportation equipment.
Such accidental contamination can threaten farmers, food processing companies, and the public. In 2002, half a million bushels of soybeans intended for human and animal consumption had to be destroyed in Nebraska after the USDA discovered they were contaminated with a variety of pharma corn containing a pig vaccine.
Two years later, a UCS report, "A Growing Concern," warned that outdoor production of pharma food crops likely will contaminate the U.S. food supply unless the USDA bans the practice. (For the report, go to: www.ucsusa.org/food_and_environment/genetic_engineering/pharmaceutical-and-industrial-crops-a-growing-concern.html.)
A 2005 report by the USDA inspector general reinforced UCS's apprehension about lax government oversight. It found that the department failed to inspect pharma crop fields as often as promised and in some cases did not know where pharma crop harvests were stored.
The USDA's own records show that it failed to adequately monitor pharma rice fields in North Carolina, even after a hurricane passed near a site in 2005. Despite the potential for the hurricane-force winds and flooding to carry pharma rice seeds or plants into neighboring fields, agency records contained no evidence that USDA officials contacted the pharma rice growers in the aftermath of the storm. Nor did the department inspect the site to determine whether the hurricane had blown pharma rice plants or seeds off the site.
In 2006, the USDA announced that unapproved genetically engineered, non-pharma varieties of long-grain rice had contaminated rice intended for the food supply, closing export markets to U.S. rice farmers. A subsequent 14-month USDA investigation of the incident failed to determine how the contamination occurred or how to prevent similar incidents in the future. Such incidents prompted leading members of the Senate Agriculture Committee to request a Government Accountability Office investigation of USDA biotech industry oversight, which is underway.
Last summer the USDA issued a draft environmental impact statement that included a ban on growing pharma food crops outdoors as an option for its revised biotechnology regulations. The department received nearly 18,000 comments from consumer and environmental organizations, farmers, scientists, the food industry, and members of the public. More than 17,500 of those comments supported a ban.
The USDA will propose new regulations this summer, and it intends to finalize them by the end of 2008. With these new rules, the department has an opportunity to secure the nation's food supply by banning the outdoor production of pharma food crops and encouraging smarter, safer alternatives like those featured in UCS's "Sensible Pharmaceutical Production."
The Union of Concerned Scientists puts rigorous, independent science to work to solve our planet's most pressing problems. Joining with citizens across the country, we combine technical analysis and effective advocacy to create innovative, practical solutions for a healthy, safe, and sustainable future.
