http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/03/23/business/bio.html

Japan tests for modified corn from U.S.  

Reuters
Thursday, March 24,  2005

TOKYO Japan said Wednesday that it would start monitoring U.S. corn  cargoes
to verify whether they contained an unapproved strain of  genetically
modified corn developed by the Swiss agrochemicals group  Syngenta.

Syngenta has said some of its corn seeds were mistakenly  contaminated
between 2001 and 2004 with Bt10, an insect-resistant corn strain  that has
not been approved for distribution.

Syngenta said the problem  was found in plantings in four U.S. states but
declined to identify those  states.

The company said it was very unlikely that any of the  contaminated harvested
grain entered U.S. export channels as Bt11, an  approved genetically modified
corn strain the company also sells. Bt11 and  Bt10 have nearly identical
characteristics.

An official from the  Japanese Health Ministry said inspection offices at
Japanese ports would  start testing samples of corn cargoes from the United
States after the  ministry obtained the necessary data from Syngenta to
detect Bt10.

"We  don't know when we will receive data from Syngenta," the ministry
official  said, "but we don't think it will take a long time as they  are
cooperative."

If the inspections discover contaminated cargoes,  the ministry will order
importers to destroy them or ship them back to the  United States. Bt10 is
not approved either for human consumption or animal  feed in Japan, although
Bt11 is approved for both purposes.

Japan  imports about 16 million tons of corn annually. Of this, about 90
percent  comes from the United States.

Syngenta said seed produced from 2001  through 2004 from the contaminated
lines represented "one-one hundredth of 1  percent of the U.S. corn acres
planted during that time."

Syngenta  also said all of the problematic plantings and seed stock had been
identified  and either destroyed or isolated for future destruction.

Syngenta's  mistake has bolstered critics' claims that the industry needs
tighter  government scrutiny, despite assurances from U.S. investigators
there are no  health or environmental risks because of the seed's similarity
to another  Syngenta product already approved for sale.

"While there are no safety  concerns," said Cynthia Bergman, a spokeswoman
for the Environmental  Protection Agency, "the regulatory agencies are
conducting investigations to  determine the circumstances surrounding and
extent of any violations of  relevant laws.

"The U.S. government is also communicating with our major  trading partners
to ensure they understand there are no food safety or  environmental
concerns."

The U.S. Department of Agriculture and the  Food and Drug Administration are
also investigating, and the company faces a  fine of up to $500,000, Jim
Rogers, a spokesman for the agriculture  department, said.