NEWS
Publisher of Consumer Reports
Media Advisory
April 9, 2003

Bill on genetic engineering would make Texas first state to ban drug
producing food crops

WHAT: Hearing by House Agriculture and Livestock Committee on HB 3387,
by Rep. Lon Burnam, D-Fort Worth. Bill would make Texas the first state
in the U.S. to ban the genetic engineering of drugs, industrial
chemicals or other non-food materials into crops or livestock normally
used as food or animal feed.

WHEN: Thursday, April 10, 2003, upon House adjournment.

WHERE: Capitol Extension, Room E2.016

WHO: Rep. Lon Burnam
Dr. Robert Drotman, representing Frito-Lay North America
Reggie James, director, Consumers Union / Southwest Regional Office

BACKGROUND: Two separate crop contamination incidents in Iowa and
Nebraska last fall illustrate the potential danger of a promising
technology lacking proper safeguards. In Nebraska, a silo of soybean
seeds was quarantined after being contaminated with corn engineered with
a vaccine meant for hogs. In Iowa, 155 acres of corn were destroyed when
pollen from pharmaceutical corn may have contaminated non-pharmaceutical
corn growing nearby. The repercussions of these incidents are reaching
the Texas Capitol.

For more information, contact Rafael Ayuso or Reggie James, 
(512) 477-4431, ext. 114 or 118.