Snap, crackle, poison? G.M. rice scare.

• Author: Bailey, Ronald
• Position: United States Department of Agriculture announces genetically modified rice safe to use - Brief article

IN AUGUST THE U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced that some of the American long-grain rice crop had been commingled with a strain of genetically modified (G.M.) rice. Activists at Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth began talking about "contaminated" rice, and bureaucrats in the European Union ordered that every shipment of American rice be tested for contamination. Japan banned U.S. imports altogether.

The G.M. rice, known as LL601 resists an herbicide manufactured by the chemical and pharmaceutical company Bayer. Rejected as commercially unviable years ago, the strain was found in long-grain rice stores at a rate of six per 10,000 grains of conventional rice.

How dangerous is the gene? Not very. It's also found in varieties of corn, soybeans, and canola approved by the USDA and the Food and Drug Administration --food that millions of people have been eating safely for years. And in November, the USDA finally approved the rice...