Activists Protest Testing Biotech Crops in Iowa

A federal report finds StarLink corn does NOT cause allergic reactions inpeople. Food items were pulled from grocery store shelves because StarLinkwas found in ’em, as the biotech corn had only been approved for animal feed.The new report means StarLink may get F-D-A approval for use in food forhumans. The Iowa Public Interest Research Group, though, is complainingabout the plots where crops like StarLink are tested. Jessica Tritsch of theIowa Public Interest Research Group says there’s little research about theecological effects of genetically-modified seeds. Tritsch says there are toomany questions about StarLink and other seeds of that sort, and Iowans COULDbe endangered. Tritsch’s group says there have been nearly 29-THOUSAND fieldtests of genetically-modified organisms in the past 13 years. There wereabout 28-hundred field tests in Iowa during that period. Backers ofbio-tech say such crops are leading to substantially-higher yields and lessuse of fertilizers and herbicides.