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Though the policy is voluntary, a dozen companies in the US and Canada that are trying to produce pharmaceuticals and industrial chemicals in plants have endorsed it, and newcomers would probably face strong industry pressure to go along.
"If you are in the Midwest corn belt with a test plot today, you will not be there as a BIO member company in 2003," Mr Phillips said.
The policy, he added, was designed to prevent a recurrence of the debacle that struck the food and biotechnology industries two years ago.
Genetically engineered StarLink corn, approved only as animal feed, appeared in taco shells and other food products. No illness was convincingly attributed to the contamination, but recalling the tainted products cost companies hundreds of millions of dollars.
The altered genes in StarLink corn merely made the plant more resistant to insects.
Biotech companies have far more ambitious plans - they say plants hold enormous promise as factories for producing drugs.
Tests have already shown that human genes inserted into the plants can prompt them to make large quantities of medically useful proteins, which can then be refined and bottled like any other drug.
Companies are preparing to test treatments made this way for herpes virus, respiratory disease and a host of other ailments. Useful industrial compounds could be made cheaply by the same techniques.
But there is growing fear among environmentalists, food producers and even many biotechnology companies, that the exotic genes in these plants could spread to food crops on nearby farms as wind or insects transfer pollens.
The industry fears that the ensuing public relations disaster - "your heart medicine in my corn flakes", in a common catchphrase - would kill the technology.
"I think we can all agree that this industry cannot afford StarLink II," said Michael Pauly, executive director of biotechnology for Epicyte Pharmaceutical of San Diego, which is a year away from testing a herpes drug grown in corn. "It's going to require a certain standard of behavior from the entire industry."
At the other end of the spectrum, many environmental groups are likely to find the voluntary action insufficient. A coalition of these groups, while acknowledging that the technology holds potential for human health, has called for producing gene-altered food plants only inside strictly segregated buildings, or making drugs only in plants never used as food.
"I'm sure the industry is feeling great about this policy, but I still think it's pretty weak," said Matt Rand, biotechnology campaign manager at the National Environmental Trust, in Washington.
He said the public should be specially concerned about a new technology when "even the industry lobby group recognizes that there's a problem".
- Washington Post
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