GM Food On Senate Menu

A Senate panel Tuesday grilled federal regulators on how food made with unapproved, bioengineered ingredients made it onto supermarket shelves, CBS News Correspondent Wyatt Andrews reports.

The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee's hearings concerned Taco Bell taco shells made by Kraft foods and sold in supermarkets. They were made with a genetically modified (GM) type of corn called "StarLink," which contains a bacterium gene that makes it toxic to an insect pest.

Unable to verify its safety or danger to humans, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 1998 approved StarLink only for animals. It is the only genetically engineered crop not approved for food use.

Genetically Engineered Food Alert, a coalition of groups opposed to GM food, found the ingredient in the taco shells last week.

Kraft later recalled the shells and Taco Bell said it is similarly replacing all of the shells in their restaurants later this week.

StarLink's maker, Aventis Corp., suspended sales of the corn Tuesday, saying it wanted to reassure the public that the corn was being kept out of food.

With bioengineered crops now in about two-thirds of America's processed foods, there are growing questions about what the government does to regulate them.

Tuesday was the Senate's first chance to ask the Food and Drug Administration why private groups and a food manufacturer were the first to act on the StarLink scare.

The most critical on the panel was Iowa Democrat Tom Harkin, whose state grows millions of acres of biotech crops and badly needs consumer confidence.

"I mean what does that do to our consumers, to have to say the FDA's not there and the EPA's not there and Agriculture's not there, but Friends of the Earth is there?" Harkin asked, referring to one of the environmental groups that found the ingredient. "What kind of regulatory scheme is that?"

The FDA's food safety chief told the panel that while StarLink was in the taco shells, there was no cause for general alarm.

"We don't believe there are any reasons consumers should run and see their doctors simply because they ate the products," said Joseph Levitt, head of the FDA's food safety division.

The EPA thinks it might cause allergies. But the FDA and the biotech industry do not think it poses that kind of risk.

Asked if the taco shells could harm a human, Val Giddings, vice president of the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO) answered, "Not unless one gets stuck cross-wise in your throat."

In a statement posted on Kraft's Web site, University of Nebraska scientist Steve Taylor wrote that since the protein used in StarLink has never been introduced into the human diet, it's almost impossible for anyone to have an allergy to it.

While confident of StarLink's safety, Kraft and the biotech industry are calling on the FDA for clearer guidelines and more thorough inspections of GM food.

In a letter Monday to federal regulators, the BIO agreed that farmers shouldn't be allowed to grow a crop that isn't approved for food use. That was one of four recommendations that Kraft made to the FDA in announcing the recall on Friday.

The group also backed Kraft's other recommendations, including one calling for mandatory review of all new biotech crops, something the FDA itself proposed in May, and another urging the government not to approve new crops unless there is a proven method of testing for their genetic material.

The FDA is considering Kraft's recommendations.

The Senate hearing also focused on the possible labeling of foods as containing gene modifications, or, as some labels already state, "gene-modified free."

"Americans have consistently demanded the right to know what's in their food," said Sen. Barbara Boxer, D.-Calif.

The industry argues for voluntary labeling.