These findings go back in 2001, when scientists published an article saying they had found the genes but the method of discovery was questioned. Efforts to duplicate it failed and the paper was eventually discredited.

 

Elena Alvarez-Buylla of the National Autonomous University in Mexico City and Paul Gepts of the University of California, Davis said the original study was accurate and about one percent of genes of the nearly 2,000 samples taken between 2001 and 2004 was found in non-GM corn. Gepts says the contamination is very sporadic as the "escaped transgenes are common in a few fields and absent in others so gene-monitoring efforts must sample as broadly as possible". Gepts say that not every detection method or laboratory "identified every sample containing transgenes."

 

Alvarez-Buylla, meanwhile, thinks genetically modified seed from the United States is getting mixed in with local seed by farmers.

 

Mexico put a moratorium on the planting of transgenic corn in 1998.