FC: Greenpeace protests Starlink GM corn; free-marketeers eat it

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

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Photos from protest:
http://www.mccullagh.org/theme/greenpeace-starlink-corn-protest.html

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http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,40394,00.html

   EPA to Cream GM Corn?
   by Declan McCullagh (declan () wired com)

   2:00 a.m. Nov. 29, 2000 PST
   ARLINGTON, Virginia -- Keith Lynch doesn't merely believe genetically
   modified corn is safe for people to eat.

   The 43-year-old computer programmer is perfectly willing to swallow a
   handful of Aventis CropScience's StarLink kernels to make his point.

   "It's perfectly safe," Lynch said between mouthfuls on Tuesday
   afternoon outside a meeting of a federal advisory panel that was
   debating whether to approve the controversial StarLink corn for human
   consumption.

   Lynch and a lonely handful of free-market activists who handed out
   flyers titled "Stop the anti-GM madness" were easily outnumbered,
   however, by some two dozen Greenpeace protesters who shared the same
   sidewalk outside the Holiday Inn Rosslyn.

   Wearing cow, chicken, and pig masks, the Greenpeace protesters posed
   for photographers next to a makeshift feed trough filled with corn --
   not Starlink's corn, a representative said, but the traditional
   variant.

   "We're here to tell the Environmental Protection Agency not to approve
   Starlink corn," said Charles Margulis, a Greenpeace anti-genetic
   engineering campaigner. "This is genetically altered corn that's not
   fit for human consumption."

   StarLink was approved for use as animal feed in 1998 because of
   concerns that its special protein might cause allergic reactions in
   humans. Traces of the corn turned up in taco shells in September,
   triggering a recall of more than 300 kinds of foods and widespread
   genetic testing by food manufacturers.

   The Environmental Protection Agency asked its panel of 15 physicians,
   toxicologists and other scientists to figure out whether StarLink,
   which has been engineered to repel destructive pests, presents a
   health risk to humans. The committee's recommendations are due by
   Friday, and the EPA is expected to act soon after that.

   [...]




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