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Outdoors "Pharming" of Drugs Risks Contamination
Open field trials of genetically engineered (GE) rice containing human genes are being carried out in the heart of the California's traditional rice growing region, according to Greenpeace..."There is just no excuse to allow drug producing crops to be grown out in the fields where they can contaminate the environment and food chain by spreading their genes to wild relative and to conventional crops growing nearby..." said Kimberly Wilson, Genetic Engineering Campaigner for Greenpeace USA. According to the information submitted by the company Applied Phytologics Incorporated (API) to the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), eight of the nine compounds produced in its field trial come from humans, in other words from rice engineered with human genes. The USDA imposes virtually no safety requirements specific to pharmaceutical crops.