U.S. Rice Found Contaminated by GM Variety

Read the full article by Rick Weiss in The Washington Post of August 19, 2006.

U.S. commercial supplies of long-grain rice were apparently inadvertently contaminated with a genetically engineered variety not approved for human consumption. The variety, produced by Bayer CropScience and known as LLRICE 601, is endowed with bacterial DNA that makes rice plants resistant to a weedkiller made by Aventis. The company reported that it had discovered "trace amounts" during testing of commercial supplies. "Bayer had not finished the process of getting LLRICE 601 approved for marketing before dropping the project years ago. But the company did complete the process for two other varieties of rice with the same gene. And although neither of those were marketed, he said, their approval offers reassurance that 601 is probably safe, too."

I am glad that I just posted "Lets Keep Risks in Perspective". The health risk of trace amounts of a probably safe gene found while testing stored rice, and immediately reported, are probably vanishingly small. There is. however, a financial risk to Bayer, U.S. rice farmers, food exporters, and consumers in developing nations if there is an overblown response to this discovery. The might even be a health risk people in need of food aid are denied food because it might be "contaminated" with trace amounts of a GM variety.