Hostilities are still running high in Mexico's year-old maize wars. Last month, the president of the Mexican National Institute of Ecology (INE) attacked the journal Nature for rejecting an institute study that he said confirmed the presence of illicit transgenic maize in southern Mexico.

"Our data suggest that the transgenics are here," INE president Exequiel Ezcurra told the daily La Jornada on 22 October. He charged that Nature's rejection was on "ideological" grounds--a reference to pressure allegedly exerted on the journal by the biotech industry.

Last November, two Berkeley researchers ignited a worldwide furor by claiming, in a paper in Nature, that transgenic maize was common in the southern state of Oaxaca, the crop's "center of origin"--and a possible threat to its genetic foundation (Science, 1 March, p. 1617). The presumed source is U.S. transgenic maize, which is allowed to be sold but not grown in Mexico. Scientists harshly criticized the methodology of the Berkeley paper, and 5 months later, Nature took the near-unprecedented step of saying the evidence was "not sufficient to justify" publication.

Meanwhile, two Mexican groups --one at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, the other at a government research agency-- investigated the matter. They sent their report, which they said confirmed the presence of transgenic maize, to Nature.

According to Ezcurra, Nature's reviewers issued contradictory explanations for the rejection, one calling the findings "obvious" and the other calling them "incredible." In a highly unusual public response, Nature editor Philip Campbell told La Jornada that its account was "mistaken," and that there were three referees, all of whom "agreed that the conclusions of the paper could not be justified on the grounds of the reported evidence."

The explanation has done little to quell the dispute. Peter Rosset, co-director of the U.S.-based Food First/The Institute for Food and Development Policy, charged that the rejection of these "crystal clear" results could "give the impression of a cover-up.

** NOTICE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed for research and educational purposes only. **