'Worst GM pollution incident' vanishes [View All]

[T_i_B]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/08/09/wmaize09.xml&sSheet=/portal/2005/08/09/ixportal.html

What was billed by the media as the world's worst incident of pollution by genetically-engineered crops, one that provoked a row among scientists, has vanished, says a study published today.

Four years ago, researchers reported finding cobs of genetically modified maize in Oaxaca, Mexico, suggesting that GM maize (corn) from the US had invaded a traditional maize variety. In a country whose culture and identity are linked to maize - the crop was developed there thousands of years ago - the thought of GM varieties that could contaminate native plants was abhorrent.

Then the leading journal Nature disowned the paper that described the discovery by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley.

The paper had sparked a protest to Nature by 100 biologists and was disowned by the Mexican government after its scientists could not repeat the experiment. The anti-GM lobby portrayed the row as an attempt to discredit the research and as part of a biotech industry vendetta.