Another round in the debate over genetically modified (GM) foods began last week after reports that the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) had fined the nation's largest seed company $72,000 in a second crop contamination case. Meanwhile, a new report warns of "serious questions" about the government's ability to monitor regulatory compliance of GM crops after they have been approved for planting.

The EPA announced last week that Pioneer Hi-Bred International, Inc. (Des Moines, Iowa), had paid a $72,000 fine in March. The penalty was imposed after the company had failed to promptly report test data showing that a gene engineered to protect against corn rootworm had contaminated other experimental plants in an adjacent field at the company's isolated research facility in Kauai, Hawaii.

The penalty follows a separate $9,900 EPA fine imposed in December 2002 after Pioneer allegedly failed to comply with two conditions of an experimental use permit for GM corn seed. The EPA reports that Pioneer now has satisfied all testing requirements, and the agency is confident that corn intended for human consumption was not affected.

"We're really pleased with the findings," said Courtney Chabot Dreyer, spokeswoman for Pioneer. "This is the most comprehensive testing process of its kind. And the data prove the containment practices employed by Pioneer are effective."

In December 2002, Pioneer was cited for growing rootworm-resistant corn outside a 1,260-foot buffer zone. The company paid the fine, destroyed the corn in the buffer strip, and agreed to conduct additional genetic tests. When those tests resulted in a number of positive findings, the company retested the plants using more sensitive DNA tests that uncovered 12 positive results, but all for a variant of the corn rootworm trait.

"We conducted tests on more than 300,000 plants or seeds that were within 1,260 feet, and none of them tested positive for the trait," Dreyer said. "However, 12 of them, or four-thousandths of a percent, tested positive for a different version of a corn rootworm trait." Pioneer believes the plants inherited the gene from a different crop grown in an isolated 1-acre plot nearby. That smaller plot is regulated by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), whereas plots larger than 10 acres are subject to EPA oversight.

According to a December 2002 agreement with the EPA, Pioneer was to notify the agency of any positive findings within 1 day and provide crop location maps within 5 days, said Dean Higuchi, EPA spokesman in Honolulu. "They missed the notification requirements stipulated in the December 2002 agreement," he told The Scientist.

Jim Rogers, spokesman for the USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) in Washington, D.C., confirmed that the agency is also investigating the incident under the Plant Protection Act but declined to elaborate. Dreyer said Pioneer is cooperating with the APHIS investigation. The Hawaii incident illustrates that the regulatory structure is effective, she added.

But a new report issued by the Pew Initiative on Food and Biotechnology says the current regulatory oversight system for GM crops is focused on pre-market approval and warns of "potential vulnerabilities in the system due to the relatively low priority and limited resources for post-market oversight."

Noting recent mishaps with ProdiGene and StarLink, the report identifies gaps in an inconsistent regulatory framework involving APHIS, EPA, and the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). "The time is ripe to address these issues — before a crisis occurs," author Michael Taylor said.