The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is ordering the destruction of hundreds of thousands of bushels of soybeans in Nebraska after discovering that they were contaminated with genetically modified (GM) corn. The Texas-based company ProdiGene is attempting to grow GM corn impregnated with medications such as the hepatitis B vaccine. It plowed over a failed field of the crop in the Midwest and later used the field for a regular crop of soybeans. Federal officials say that they caught the problem before the soybeans ever made it to market, and that the nab is proof that an effective regulatory structure is in place to prevent safety problems with GM crops. But critics had a darker view: “This technology is moving so much faster than the government is,” said Jane Rissler of the Union of Concerned Scientists. “So much of this regulatory scheme depends on the industry’s actions, and we cannot trust them.”
