Following eight months of interviews and testing, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported that they found no evidence that any of the people who reported a possible reaction actually had allergic reactions to Cry9C, the protein found in StarLink corn. Last Fall, many corn-based foods were recalled due to the belief that they contained traces of StarLink corn-an agricultural biotechnology product which had been approved for animal feed, but was still in the approval process for human consumption due to concern that the new protein may be an allergen.
After the foods were recalled, 51 people contacted the Food and Drug Administration and CDC, stating that they believed they had had an allergic reaction to Cry9C. The CDC interviewed all of the people and found that 28 were considered to have had some sort of allergic reaction, of which 17 agreed to provide a blood sample. Next, tests were conducted to see if antibodies to Cry9C existed in the blood samples.
"We do not have any positive results whatsoever," stated Carol S. Rubin, a research scientist for the National Center for Environmental Health at the CDC. Rubin also noted that the people "may have had allergic reactions to some food, but not the protein that was tested."
