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Kraft Recalls Taco Shells With Bioengineered Corn

Kraft Foods announced a nationwide recall of taco shells yesterday after confirming that they contained a genetically engineered corn not approved for human consumption.

Kraft Foods announced a nationwide recall of taco shells yesterday after confirming that they contained a genetically engineered corn not approved for human consumption.

The recall is the first in this country of a food made from a genetically engineered crop, and it is likely to increase the pressure on the biotechnology industry and the government for tougher regulations on agricultural biotechnology. Stung by its experience, Kraft itself yesterday issued some recommendations for new guidelines.

The corn in question, known as StarLink, is approved for animal feed but not for human consumption because it has a protein with certain characteristics of a food allergen. The protein has not been proved an allergen, however, and there is no evidence that anyone has been harmed by eating the taco shells, sold under the Taco Bell brand.

The presence of the unapproved corn in the taco shells was first reported on Monday by Genetically Engineered Food Alert, a coalition of environmental and consumer groups critical of bioengineered food. While the biotechnology industry's trade organization challenged the reliability of the test, Kraft said yesterday that it had independently confirmed the presence of the StarLink corn in multiple samples and production lots.

The recall covers Taco Bell Home Originals packages containing 12 shells and 18 shells as well as the Taco Bell Home Originals Taco Dinner, which contains 12 shells plus sauce and seasoning. Kraft, a subsidiary of Philip Morris, said consumers should return the product to where it was purchased for a full refund.

Michael Mudd, vice president for corporate affairs at Kraft, said the Taco Bell product line, sold under license from the Taco Bell restaurant chain, a unit of Tricon Global Restaurants, accounts for more than $100 million in annual sales, but the shells themselves are about half of that. The company estimates there are about 2.5 million boxes in stores and homes. Kraft bought the shells from a factory in Mexicali, Mexico, owned by Sabritas, a subsidiary of PepsiCo. The corn flour came from a mill in Plainview, Tex., owned by Azteca Milling.

The Taco Bell restaurants chain, which gets some of its shells from the same factory, said yesterday that it had told its suppliers to start buying flour from sources other than the two Texas mills operated by Azteca. Although it said it had not confirmed that its shells also had the bioengineered corn, it said all the shells in its 7,000 restaurants would be replaced by next week.

The episode has given new ammunition to those calling for stricter safety testing and labeling of bioengineered foods.

"I view it as a very poignant cautionary tale that our regulatory system is not up to the task of preventing potential problems with genetically engineered food," said Joseph Mendelson III, legal director of the Center for Food Safety, a Washington advocacy group that is part of Genetically Engineered Food Alert.

But officials of the Food and Drug Administration and in the biotechnology industry said this was a case of food contamination, not a problem with regulations, and noted that StarLink was the only biotechnology crop approved for use in animals but not people.

In any case, the incident shows how difficult it can be to contain genes once they get into the field and how hard it can be to keep different varieties of crops from commingling. Europe has been shaken this year by several incidents in which crops were found to contain small amounts of genetically modified material that they were not supposed to.

It is not known how the contamination occurred in this case. But pollen from genetically modified plants can pollinate nonmodified crops in nearby fields. Also, some genetically modified seed can be left in barges or trucks that are later used to carry nonmodified crops.

The F.D.A. and the Environmental Protection Agency continue to investigate the contamination and could take actions including revoking the market approval of StarLink.

Incidents like this could help drive a wedge between the agricultural biotechnology companies and the food companies, which have generally supported biotechnology. Some food companies like McDonald's and Frito-Lay — though not Kraft — have already cut back on some use of bioengineered crops, not for safety reasons but out of fear that consumers would reject them.

Kraft recommended yesterday that products should not be approved for animal use if they are not approved for human use as well. It also called for a fully validated test procedure to be available to detect the presence of a genetically modified crop in food before that crop is approved. It also called for a stronger system to control the distribution in the food supply chain of such crops and that all crops undergo a mandatory review by the government before they enter the market.

StarLink, developed by Aventis CropScience, is a type of B.T. corn, meaning it has a gene from the bacillus thuringiensis bacterium that allows it to produce a protein toxic to a pest, the European corn borer. The question that confronted regulators was whether this protein could cause allergies.

Since the StarLink bacterial protein, known as Cry9C, has not been in the human diet before, there are no people with known allergies from whom to obtain blood for an allergy test. So scientists were left to use indirect methods that usually cannot provide a clear answer.

Proteins that are broken down by stomach acids are considered unlikely to cause allergic reactions. But unlike other varieties of B.T. corn that have been approved for human consumption, tests showed that the Cry9C protein does not break down quickly in an acid bath that simulates the stomach, raising a red flag. A scientific advisory panel to the government concluded there was "no evidence to indicate that Cry9C is or is not a potential food allergen."

The F.D.A. yesterday called Kraft's action "prudent" but officials at the agency rejected statements by biotechnology critics that the government had been slow to act, saying it had to first confirm the accusations.

"This is not a case where we have illnesses or health problems," said James Maryanski, the agency's biotechnology food coordinator.

Aventis CropScience, a division of the big European drug company Aventis, said the StarLink corn was grown on only 315,000 acres, or less than 0.5 percent of American corn acreage. The company said it required farmers to make sure that the corn was used or sold only for animal feed.

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