Genetically altered to resist certain crop-destroying pests, StarLink started grabbing headlines last year when it turned up in food items leading to a recall of some 300 products, from taco shells to corn meal. That wasn't good news for the food industry or StarLink's maker, the agricultural unit of European drug giant Aventis Corp.

U.S.regulators, fearing that StarLink's key Cry9C protein might elicit an allergic reaction in humans, approved the product only for animal consumption or industrial uses. To the surprise of no one with even a minimal knowledge about the logistics of farm commodities, StarLink turned up in the food supply. With the recalls ongoing, scientists said the potential for a human to suffer an actual reaction was infinitesimally small. Repeated exposure, they said, was necessary to elicit a reaction.

Then, people started reporting they had, in fact, experienced signs they interpreted as a reaction to eating products made with the altered corn. It created some nervous moments for the industry. Last week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention sounded something of an all-clear, saying the blood tests showed the StarLink protein was not to blame.

And then the CDC went a step further, delivering a slight jab at the regulatory absurdity that led to the mess. "The difficulties of this investigation highlight the importance of evaluating the allergic potential of GM foods before they become available for human consumption," the report said. "Evaluating the public health limitations from the inadvertent introduction of StarLink corn into the human food supply posed a challenging retrospective task."

Late last Fall, with StarLink erupting all around it, Aventis said it was getting out of the seed businesses, but it said little beyond the announcement. Early this week, a few days after the CDC announcement, the European company revealed it has three or four potential suitors eyeing the business -- eyes that likely started to gaze a bit more intently after the CDC findings became public.

In another bit of news, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said this week it has spent nearly $13 million to buy up seed corn contaminated with the Cry9C protein from 63 seed companies. The agency currently is reviewing applications from eight additional companies and could end up spending nearly $18 million in an effort to block further contamination of the food chain. Although it's not necessarily good news for U.S. taxpayers, getting the culprit off the market is a relief to both the food industry and Aventis. So, it's happy ending time, right?