Despite this week’s report that StarLink corn has passed tests for safety,you may never be able to buy a food item made with the controversialgenetic-engineered hybrid. Starlink was cleared only for certain uses sinceresearchers hadn’t ruled out the possibility it might cause allergicreaction. After foreign manufacturers did use StarLink in some products,some people said they’d gotten sick. The Centers for Disease Controlexamined them and found no reaction to the protein unique in Starlink. TheIowa Corn Growners’ Paula Chizek says today’s report may help clear Starlinkfor human food use, but all the corn was pulled from the market, and nonehas been planted this year in Iowa, or any other state. Iowa Corn Growersspokeswoman Paula Chizek (CHEESE’-ick) despite the pulling of hundreds offood items from grocery shelves last year after the hybrid was found insome food, there had never been danger shown from the corn. There was neverany sign or data showing the seed caused food allergies. There was suspicionthat it might be able to, so Starlink wasn’t approved for human foods.Chizek explains after last year’s recall, people came forward to say theymay have gotten sick from the trace amounts of Starlink found in some fooditems. The C-D-C examined every case. The vindication of this strain ofcorn doesn’t mean farmers will be harvesting fields of Starlink thisfall…in fact, there’s not a single kernel planted. Starlink was only onekind of corn engineered to fight the corn borer. Other products areavailable for farmers to plant. Chizek says corn growers are glad to findthe C-D-C was so thorough in checking out the possibility of the corn’sallergic potential, and also glad to learn it apparently causes no healthproblem.
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