Study Calls Biofood Safeguards Inadequate

The government’s system for regulating genetically engineered crops is inadequate to prevent environmental damage from new types of vaccine- and chemical-producing crops coming to market in the next few years, according to a study released Thursday.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture should more rigorously review genetically modified crops before approving them for commercial use and monitor them more closely after approval, said the report by the National Academy of Sciences.

The agency has said consistently there is no evidence the genetically modified corn and soybeans so widely planted in recent years have harmed the environment.

However, the report said, without “systematic monitoring, the lack of evidence of damage is not necessarily lack of damage.”

Among examples of such plants, some corn is being tested that will produce a protein that will serve as a vaccine against hepatitis B. Another protein derived by moving chicken genes to corn could be used as a chemical in labs.

As plants with stacked genes and other multiple genetic modifications hit the market in the years ahead, the USDA must more carefully weigh the environmental risk and make more information about these plants readily available to the public, the report said.

The USDA needs to seek outside scientific peer review of crop applications and advice on changes in regulatory policy, the report said.

And it said the agency needs to more actively solicit public comment.

Biotechnology companies now submit about 1,000 applications to the USDA each year for review.

They keep much of that information secret from the public by classifying the material as business secrets, the report said--even as the same data is made public in Europe and Canada.

The USDA, which requested the study after critics accused it of lax regulation, is supposed to ensure that hardier, gene-altered crops don’t develop into super-weeds or harm insects and other animals.

However, companies can field-test crops just by “notifying” the USDA that the plant meets its guidelines on environmental effects.

And once these crops are approved, they generally can be grown anywhere in any amount farmers choose.

Crops that produce their own pesticides are regulated more stringently, because they are handled by the Environmental Protection Agency under a different law.

Fred Gould, a North Carolina State University scientist who led the study, said the problems it cited amounted to “small loopholes.”

“We are offering suggestions for a system that is functioning. We’re not condemning the system,” Gould said.

Officials from the USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Administration, which oversees the crops, said they have begun working to address some of the weaknesses highlighted in the report.

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Times wire services contributed to this report.