| Alert contaminated corn |
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Fragments of genes from genetically modified corn were found in the Mexican varieties normally protected.
 David Quist The case is sensitive. In 2001, David Quist and Ignacio Chapela of the University of California at Berkeley, had detected evidence of DNA characteristics of genetically modified organisms in fields where crops are prohibited. The plants studied were maize plants grown in the region of Oaxaca, Mexico, where since 1998 a moratorium banning GM crops. This work published in Nature had been disowned by the magazine ... but today, the team of Elena Alvarez-Buylla of the University of Mexico, confirms the work of two Americans. Criticism of D. Quist and I. Chapela involved analysis procedures. This time, biologists have taken precautions (eg, by confirming their results by an independent lab) and have analyzed thousands of samples of grains and leaves. They highlighted the transgenes in one percent of samples, corresponding to three of the 23 sites studied in the region of Oaxaca. Where do the transgenes? According to a study whose results have not yet been published, the resulting contamination of seeds sold in Mexico as a non-transgenic seeds or offered by the government in programs to encourage farmers not to use their own seeds. Other assumptions, the less plausible incriminate seeds imported from the United States by the farmers themselves. In all cases, seeds from the northern neighbor and evil "labeled" are involved. Also, to avoid further contamination, the U.S. government must improve the management of its stocks of seeds, while that of Mexico should encourage the production of maize from local varieties and stop imports. |
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| Last Updated ( Sunday, 15 February 2009 ) |
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