Franken Foods: Public In the Dark as Illegal GM Corn Enters Food

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GMW: Public In the Dark as Illegal GM Corn Enters Food

" GM WATCH " <info

Sat, 30 Apr 2005 17:01:28 +0100

 

 

 

 

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Another useful summary of the Bt10 scandal. This one from PANUPS.

 

Includes: " EU Commissioner Markos Kyprianou also announced that the

EU's Joint Research Centre was

building a database of detection methods for all genetically modified

organisms, " be they authorized in the EU or not " in order to prevent

future release of unlicensed GE strains. He also urged the U.S. to

follow the lead of the EU and establish labeling and tracing systems

for GE crops and food. "

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P A N U P S

Pesticide Action Network Updates Service

 

Public In the Dark as Illegal GE Corn Enters Food Supply April 29, 2005

 

On March 22, 2005 the science magazine, Nature, revealed that Syngenta

had inadvertently sold an unlicensed strain of genetically engineered

(GE) Bt corn to U.S. farmers for a period of four years. During that

period approximately 146,000 tons (133 million kilograms) of the corn,

containing an antibiotic resistant gene, was marketed in the U.S., Europe

and Asia as animal feed and corn flour. Nature also reported that the

biotech giant had informed the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

(EPA), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the US Department of

Agriculture (USDA) of their four-year error in December of 2004, and the

agencies had consulted with the White House about the situation, but no

one informed the public.

 

Syngenta sells genetically modified corn in which the soil bacterium

Bacillus thruingiensis (Bt) has been inserted as an insecticide. The

company has won approvals to sell corn containing the gene Bt11 for food,

animal feed and cultivation in the U.S., Canada, Argentina, Japan, South

Africa and Uruguay. However, from 2001 through 2004, Syngenta says it

unintentionally sold corn seeds with the Bt10 gene, which has not been

approved.

 

When Nature published its story, Syngenta declared there was

essentially no difference between the non-approved Bt10 and Bt11. The

company

insisted that they had tested both strains, and decided to move ahead

with

petitions for approval of Bt11 simply because it performed better.

According to Syngenta, the only difference between the two strains was

the

placement of the Bt gene in the plant's genetic structure, likening

this to " two compact discs that have identical songs but with one song

appearing in a different order. "

 

What Syngenta did not reveal, but came out in a second Nature story on

March 29, was that Bt10 also contains a gene for resistance to the

commonly used antibiotic, ampicillin. Antibiotic-resistant genes are used

as 'tags' during production of genetically engineered or modified seeds,

and are usually removed before the seeds enter the food chain.

 

The Nature story appraised the risks of antibiotic-resistant genes,

" The release of such genes into the environment is sometimes considered

inadvisable, as there is a small chance that they could flow from crops

to microorganisms and spread problems of antibiotic resistance. "

 

Meanwhile, the USDA announced in early April that Syngenta would pay a

fine of $375,000 and sponsor a conference on compliance training.

According to USDA officials, the maximum allowable fine for the

violations involved was $500,000.

 

Two weeks after the antibiotic resistance became public, the European

Food Safety Authority issued a caution concerning ampicillin resistant

genes in the food supply. On April 12, 2005 EU member states voted to

block all U.S. imports of corn gluten feed and brewers grain until they

could be tested for GE strains. EU Health and Consumer Commissioner

Markos Kyprianou said the ban was necessary to uphold consumer confidence

in the food supply. The European Commission (the executive arm of the

EU) estimates that 1,000 tons of the unlicensed corn products entered the

EU, with some seed also imported for test fields in Spain and France.

 

Shortly after the EU ban, the Japanese government announced that it

would also monitor U.S. corn imports for the presence of Bt10. However,

both Japanese and EU officials were stymied because Syngenta balked at

providing the proprietary data necessary to detect the unlicensed strain.

The European Commission said that Syngenta should reveal the corn's

molecular structure to European scientists, stating " Syngenta has a

responsibility to give all the information we need to test for Bt10. "

 

A standoff ensued as EU officials continued to demand data from

Syngenta. On April 17, Greenpeace International called attention to the

unloading of corn gluten from the U.S. then underway in the Rotterdam

harbor, boarded the ship to collect samples, and called on the Dutch

government to halt the offloading.

 

Finally on April 25, the EU announced it had approved a testing method

for Bt10 to be performed in U.S. ports with additional testing by the

EU for monitoring purposes, thereby lifting the ban. EU Commissioner

Markos Kyprianou also announced that the EU's Joint Research Centre was

building a database of detection methods for all genetically modified

organisms, " be they authorized in the EU or not " in order to prevent

future release of unlicensed GE strains. He also urged the U.S. to

follow the lead of the EU and establish labeling and tracing systems

for GE crops and food.

 

Last year, U.S. shipments of corn gluten grain to the EU totaled US

$347 million.

 

Sources: Nature, 434, 423 News, March 22, 2005, Nature 434, 548 March

29, 2005, http://www.nature.com;

 

International Herald Tribune, April 5, 2005

 

Interpress News Service, April 14 2005, http://ipsnews.net;

 

European Food Safety Authority Statement, April 12, 2005,

http://www.efsa.eu.int/press_room/press_statements/884_en.html;

 

Des Moines Register, March 23, 2005; Associated Press, April 25, 2005;

 

Europe Information Service, April 27, 2005.

 

Contact: PANNA.

 

PANUPS is a weekly email news service providing resource guides and

reporting on pesticide issues that don't always get coverage by the

mainstream media. It's produced by Pesticide Action Network North

America, a

non-profit and non-governmental organization working to advance

sustainable alternatives to pesticides worldwide.

 

You can join our efforts! We gladly accept donations for our work and

all contributions are tax deductible in the United States. Visit

http://www.panna.org/donate.

PANUPS [panups]

 

 

 

 

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