Breaking news: corn cross-pollinates with other corn.

The U.S. government and Dow AgroSciences have publicly acknowledged that an unapproved genetically engineered (GE) corn variety has been contaminating U.S. corn since 2006.

Most of the contaminated seed, called "Event 32" (a Bt variety), was planted in Iowa in 2006 and 2007. Dow is recalling contaminated seed already sold for this year's crop but reports that about 53,000 acres of contaminated corn was planted in 2007 alone.

Some of this corn probably made its way into a variety of products, everything from chips to soda. It may even be responsible for that line of marble in your beefsteak.

Dow said the contamination happened because Event 32 corn (transgenic traits are referred to as "events" during the experimental stage of production) was grown in the same field as a commercial variety of corn. An interesting decision given that corn is an open-pollinated crop – its pollen can travel miles. In fact, a clear pattern of corn contamination events exists: Terra Prima in 1998, the StarLink fiasco in 2001, native Mexican corn in 2002, and Bt 10 in 2004 (to name a few that actually made headlines).

The government is deeming the variety safe for both human health and the environment, similar to its announcement last year after an unapproved rice variety was found in the U.S. rice seed and food supply.

Bayer CropScience stopped field trials of the Liberty Link 601 rice variety in 2001, yet tests showed that it pervasively contaminated the long-grain rice supply between 2005 and 2007. The rice industry has lost nearly $2 billion thus far due to losing export markets and contaminated seed – half of the long-grain rice supply is exported to nearly 30 countries. And lawsuits involving more than 400 farmers have been filed against Bayer CropScience.

Before a new GE crop enters the marketplace, companies conduct open-air experiments of the new variety. USDA has approved about 50,000 field trials in the last 20 years, meaning thousands of field trials currently span all 50 states. There are no legally binding requirements for manufacturers of GE crops to follow so that unapproved traits don't enter the food supply and surrounding crops.

Without mandatory testing to catch contamination events, it's unknown how much of our food is cross-pollinating with experimental varieties of GE crops, including pharmaceutical crops (engineered to produce drugs and industrial chemicals). And farmers don't have access to this information, so experiments could be happening in their own fields, and then on our plates, while regulators turn a blind eye.

Sources: USDA News Release and The Des Moines Register

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