Word: usda
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Though the USDA website strives to be user-friendly, it receives very little traffic...
...part of this effort, Blackburn was one of 400 people who gathered at the Harvard School of Public Health earlier this month to discuss proposed changes to the Food Guide Pyramid, a symbol used by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to represent a balanced diet...
...more than two-thirds of plant-based medicines are being tested in corn--a plant whose genetics is well understood. But the perils of using food crops became clear last December when the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) ordered the incineration of 500,000 bushels of soybeans in Aurora, Neb. The soybeans, from a plant used in everything from baby food and margarine to ice cream, were inadvertently mixed in a silo with corn that was genetically engineered by a Texas firm, ProdiGene Inc., to produce a vaccine against pig diarrhea. "Drugs have side effects," says Jean Halloran...
...diarrhea incident rattled the industry. Some major players, among them Dow and Monsanto, are steering clear of the Farm Belt, preferring to grow their pharmacorn in isolated areas of Arizona, California and Washington State. Even so, the USDA--under pressure from Midwestern politicians who dream of biopharm Silicon Valleys in Iowa--has stopped short of restricting biopharming in major corn-growing states. Its new rules would step up inspections of biopharms and expand the buffer zone between genetically modified corn and food crops to a mile. But opponents say that's not wide enough to prevent cross-pollination...
Officials of the N.F.P.A. reached by TIME refused to elaborate on the group's lobbying efforts. The White House, through a spokeswoman, denied it had any role in the final directive. usda Under Secretary Elsa Murano acknowledged consulting both the White House and industry before the final directive was issued but insisted it was "fine-tuned" solely to advance public health. --By Michael Weisskopf