"Just a few bushels of 'pharmcorn' producing a swine vaccine could, if strategically planted by terrorists, contaminate virtually the entire US corn supply and close international markets to us for years." - EPA scientist, item 2

The first item is from The Rice Advocate, a publication of US Rice Producers Association. The vote approving legislative efforts to ban the production of (genetically modified) pharmaceutical or industrial rice in Arkansas was in response to Ventria Bioscience leaving California and relocating to Missouri, where they hope to plant their GM drug-producing rice this year.

Missouri and Arkansas farmers are now faced with the same imminent threat previoulsy faced by rice farmers in California prior to Ventria's relocation - a relocation triggered by the opposition they were facing.

1.Arkansas Rice Growers Annual Meeting Votes to Reject "Pharma Rice"
2.EPA scientist warns of pharma contamination threat
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1.Arkansas Rice Growers Annual Meeting Votes to Reject "Pharma Rice"
The Rice Advocate
http://www.usriceproducers.com/

The annual meeting of the Arkansas Rice Growers Association, held Tuesday evening in Brinkley, passed two resolutions dealing with issues of concern to rice farmers. First, the membership agreed to promote stronger enforcement of food safety laws, specifically pesticide, herbicide and fungicide residual levels in imported rice...

Secondly, the membership approved legislative efforts to ban the production of pharmaceutical or industrial rice in Arkansas. Because of the imminent threat that "pharma" rice will be planted in the Missouri Bootheel this spring, the potential for domestic and export market disruption from even a small acreage of rice containing human genes is extremely serious, according to Greg Yielding, Executive Director of ARGA.
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2.Pharmacrops and bioterror
Correspondence
Nature Biotechnology 23, 170 (2005) doi:10.1038/nbt0205-170
http://info.nature.com/cgi-bin24/DM/y/eR3x0BhdwI0Cr0ZrE0Au

Suzanne Wuerthele
Regional Toxicologist, US EPA Region 8, Denver Place, Suite 300, 999 18th Street, Denver, Colorado 80202, USA.
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
To the editor:

Richard Gilmore's article in the December issue entitled 'US food safety under siege?' (Nat. Biotechnol. 22, 1503-1505, 2004) rightly points out
the vulnerability of US agriculture to terrorist attack. The production, through genetic modification, of pathogen-resistant crops and animals is one of Gilmore's recommended counterattacks to the diseases and pathogens that might be used against us.

It might be productive for the biotech industry to first consider how genetically modified crops themselves could contribute to terrorist attacks. Just a few bushels of 'pharmcorn' producing a swine vaccine could, if strategically planted by terrorists, contaminate virtually the entire US corn supply and close international markets to us for years.

Such crops are being planted in open fields throughout the United States, without fences or guards of any kind. The USDA's policy of not publicly revealing pharmaceutical crop locations other than by county is supposed to keep such crops out of the wrong hands. However, it is hard to imagine that relatively small fields requiring specialized equipment and multiple USDA inspections would not be readily recognizable to someone looking for them.

It would seem that before genetically modifying all of our crops and animals, there are simpler and more obvious steps that should be taken to protect the food supply.