Biotech companies change self-imposed moratorium

Source - Associated Press (Eng)
Wednesday, December 04, 2002  09:44
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By EMILY GERSEMA, The Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) - Biotechnology companies are softening a self-imposed
moratorium on growing pharmaceutical crops in major corn-growing states
after Iowa lawmakers complained that the policy unfairly discriminated
against their state.

Lisa Dry, a spokeswoman for the Biotechnology Industry Organization,
said Tuesday the companies changed the policy "because we did not want
to appear to encourage discrimination against certain parts of the country."

Companies are producing enzymes and proteins used in pharmaceuticals by
growing them in genetically modified corn. A dozen companies that are
members of the biotech group agreed in October to stop growing such
crops in corn-belt states in 2003, saying they wanted to build the
public's trust that they could grow them without contaminating crops
grown for food.

But the new policy said: "Detailed scientific and regulatory analyses
confirm that plants that produce pharmaceutical and industrial products
can be safely planted, grown and harvested in an agricultural region
where all of the appropriate production, confinement, and handling
practices are implemented."

Dry declined to elaborate on the change. But Andrew Baum, president of
SemBioSys, a Canada-based biotech company that is a member of the group,
said the revised policy is really a clarification of the moratorium.

"It's not a fundamental change in what any of the companies are going to
do," Baum said. "I don't think any companies have backed away from their
commitment to ensure that we don't create a problem for the food supply."

Environmental groups such as Friends of the Earth say pharmaceutical
crops should not be grown at all.

"Not only is this brand of science for profit wildly ill-advised, it's
sure to lead to a plate full of food rife with chemicals that ought to
be on a druggist's shelf or in a chemical plant - not in a grocery
store," said Mark Helm, a spokesman for Friends of the Earth.