The activist coalition that discovered Aventis' StarLink genetic material in Taco Bell taco shells a month ago has announced that Safeway stores also have store-brand taco shells containing the same genetically modified material.

Safeway has already issued a statement saying they are recalling all those shells, along with any other products that contain corn originating from the same Texas and Mexico-based companies that also provided Taco Bell with corn.

As a result, the Genetically Engineered Food Alert wants the names and locations of all StarLink growers to be made public so that producers near them can be on the alert that their crop could be contaminated. Producers who didn't even grow StarLink corn may have a problem with their corn cross-pollinating StarLink corn, coalition officials claim.

That's why this problem doesn't end just because Aventis is pulling StarLink products for the 2001 season, according to Larry Bohlen of Friends of the Earth, which is a member of the Food Alert coalition. "No one has said there isn't a problem of genetic drift-of pollen drifting onto adjacent fields and creating new hybrids of corn that have StarLink properties," he says. Aventis officials were not available to comment on this most recent report.

The coalition also wants the FDA to begin testing all food products that contain No. 2 yellow corn to check for StarLink. Members of the group said at a press conference Thursday that they and FDA have already received reports of people who have had allergic reactions and may have also eaten the taco shells in question. A class action lawsuit by some of these people has already been filed in the Chicago area, according to coaltion representatives.

Despite those assertions, the Biotechnology Industry Organization says this occurrence doesn't pose a health risk. "It's an incident of regulatory compliance," says BIO's Lisa Dry. "There doesn't appear to be an issue of human health here."

StarLink uses a Bt bacterium containing a unique protein known as Cry9C. It is the only genetically modified crop in the U.S. that isn't approved for direct human consumption. Researchers have harbored worries that Cry9C could cause allergic reactions in humans because it breaks down more slowly than other proteins in digestion. StarLink was grown o approximately 350,000 acres this year under 11 different corn hybrid labels.

Approximately 3,000 farmers grew StarLink hybrids in 2000, according to Aventis. The company has been in contact with nearly all of them in the past two weeks to inform them that they will buy all of their StarLink corn that hasn't already been sold. Aventis is paying growers a 25-cent-per-bushel premium for what may turn out to be more than 40 million bushels of corn.

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