|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Food and Drug Administration will soon begin blood-testing people who say they may have been sickened by eating a variety of genetically engineered corn.
The test, which FDA recently developed, is designed to indicate whether someone is allergic to a special protein in the corn, known as StarLink, said Monica Revelle.
``It's a very new process so we're approaching it very cautiously,'' she said.
The government has been investigating about a dozen complaints of people who said they became ill last fall after eating corn products.
StarLink corn, which has been withdrawn from the market, was never approved for human consumption because of unresolved questions about its potential to cause allergic reactions.
The corn was supposed to be used only for animal feed or industrial purposes but was discovered in the food supply last fall, prompting nationwide recalls of taco shells and other products.
Aventis CropScience, the corn's developer, says that more than 400 million bushels of corn nationwide have been contaminated with StarLink.
Some 94 million bushels of tainted corn have been routed from grain elevators to approved uses, and another 343 bushels are in storage, said John Wichtrich, general manager for Aventis CropScience.
Most of the contaminated corn came from the 1999 crop, Wichtrich said in a speech to the North American Millers Association on Sunday.
On the Net:
FDA: http://www.fda.gov
Aventis: http://www.starlinkcorn.com
| Health Topics | Drug Information | Dictionaries | Directories | Other Resources |
|
U.S. National Library of Medicine, 8600 Rockville Pike, Bethesda, MD 20894
Copyright and Privacy Policy, We welcome your comments. Last updated: 20 March 2001 |