US launches probe into sales of unapproved transgenic corn

Syngenta admits 150 square kilometres accidentally sown with wrong seeds.
A strain of genetically modified corn that does not have regulatory approval has been distributed by accident over the past four years, Nature has learned.
Syngenta, one of the world's largest agricultural biotechnology companies, revealed the mistake to US regulators at the end of last year. Although the crop is believed to be safe, the fact that it was sold for years by accident raises serious questions about how carefully biotechnology firms are controlling their activities, critics say.
The corn (maize) was modified with a gene from the soil bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt), which is inserted into the crop to act as a pesticide. Syngenta has approval to sell a variety of the transgenic crop called Bt11, which has been used successfully for many years in the United States and elsewhere. The strain has been approved for consumption in the European Union, for example, and may be one of the first food crops approved for cultivation there.
But between 2001 and 2004, Syngenta inadvertently produced and distributed several hundred tonnes of Bt10 corn - a different genetic modification that has not been approved.