Scientists cringe when the slur "Frankenfood" is applied to biotech crops, but even a clumsy metaphor occasionally carries some truth. Consider the moment when Frankenstein's monster escapes from the laboratory and has to be recaptured by his creator. It's not a bad allegory for the recent fiasco over StarLink corn, and it shows why the public deserves a better accounting from StarLink's inventor.

StarLink, a corn variety that produces its own internal pesticide, was marketed to farmers starting in 1998 even though federal regulators had not approved it for export or human consumption. In theory, farmers would grow it only for livestock feed. But in September, traces of StarLink corn turned up in taco shells, triggering a huge product recall. In October, StarLink was detected in Japanese baking mixes.

Now 16 attorneys general and Minnesota Agriculture Commissioner Gene Hugoson want blood. They're asking StarLink's creator, a North Carolina biotech firm called Aventis CropScience, to reimburse farmers and grain elevators for financial losses resulting from chaos that has ensued in the corn marketplace.

Recognizing the potential damage, Aventis has teamed up with the U.S. Department of Agriculture in an ambitious program to find and contain StarLink corn. Aventis is asking farmers who planted StarLink to feed it to their livestock or deliver it to designated depots, and the company is paying a bonus of 25 cents per bushel to farmers who cooperate.

That's not enough. It appears that some quantities of StarLink, probably from previous crop years, found their way into millions of bushels of other corn held in grain elevators across the Midwest. StarLink may also have cross-pollinated with other varieties in neighboring fields.

Now major corn processors such as Archer Daniels Midland are starting to reject Iowa corn shipments. Farmers and grain elevators find themselves required to conduct costly tests of their corn stockpiles. Japanese food companies are canceling orders of American corn, which could depress prices for the entire 2000 corn crop.

No one knows yet what the financial loss will be, or what share of the liability Aventis should bear. But it's plain that Aventis should have marketed StarLink more patiently and more carefully.

It's important to note that the danger to consumers is probably very small. Regulators don't know that StarLink is unfit for human consumption, only that it shares some characteristics with other foods that trigger human allergies. And it represented less than 1 percent of the U.S. corn crop last year.

But the damage to the U.S. food system could be substantial. If consumers are to reap the benefits of biotechnology -- and those benefits could be immense -- they must have confidence in government testing of new foods and in industry protocols that honor government testing.

Farmers need to know that they can plant new products without nasty market surprises. The public needs to know that biotech companies won't bring products to market before the market is ready. StarLink has challenged all of these premises, and Aventis needs to explain how it happened.

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