(Boris Grdanoski / AP)
Monsanto
claimed Wednesday that the Oregon field
found last week
to be contaminated with Monsanto's unapproved GM wheat was an
"isolated" incident, and that it was likely either the result of an
accident or "sabotage." However, scientists
warned Thursday that the biotech giant's denial has many holes.
Monsanto
claims that it has since tested 31,200 seed samples in Oregon and
Washington and found no evidence of contamination—insisting there is no
cause for concern in the world market.
However, researchers this week
said that Monsanto's tests are misleading and that the genetically modified gene, not yet approved for use in the U.S., will likely continue to be found in wheat seeds.
"We don’t know where in the whole chain it is,”
said
Carol Mallory-Smith, the weed science professor at Oregon State
University who tested the initial wheat plants and determined they were
the unapproved Monsanto seed.
“I don’t know how Monsanto can declare anything. We obviously had these plants in the field."
“You introduce something into the environment, and genes move around in the environment, whether transgenic or not," she added.
The
U.S. Department of Agriculture is currently investigating how the wheat
gene, which was taken out of test fields eight years ago, is now
showing up.
Monsanto claims that all of the tested seeds had been
either destroyed or recovered and sent to a USDA facility in Colorado
for storage.
However, David Andow, a professor of entomology at the University of Minnesota,
said in an interview with
Bloomberg
that these claims are misleading and that the tests cited by Monsanto
this week, which displayed clean wheat in the state of Washington, are
shortsighted.
“Sure they tested it, but that doesn’t mean it’s all
clean,” Andow said. “It just means it’s not so widespread that it could
be detected easily.”
And Doug Gurian-Sherman, senior scientist at
the Union of Concerned Scientists in Washington, said that this is not
the first time Monsanto has been less than forthcoming on the extent of
its seed contamination: "In previous cases, such as during the outbreak
of herbicide-resistant weeds in recent years, Monsanto has initially
played down the risks."
“The reality is that nobody knows what happened until extensive testing is done."
Additionally,
Bloomberg reported recently
that even if Monsanto's claims about this specific wheat strain were
proven true, Monsanto has resumed trials of other and very similar GM
wheat seeds, according to information posted in a U.S. Department of
Agriculture (USDA) database.
Monsanto planted 150 acres of GM
wheat in Hawaii last year and 300 acres of GM wheat in North Dakota this
year—meaning the risk of
genetic pollution from unapproved Monsanto wheat is even greater than most people are aware.
Meanwhile, the discovery of the GM wheat in Oregon
caused fast moving international backlash,
with Japan suspending some imports of US wheat, South Korea testing all
of its US wheat imports, and the EU urging its members to test some of
its US wheat imports.
The extent of contamination from Monsanto's GM wheat seeds in Oregon, let alone Hawaii and North Dakota, remain unknown.
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