From the article below “Monsanto said the corn had been given full approval by authorities in the U.S., Canada and Japan..”.
I did not know that Canada had given approval to GM corn?
/Sandra
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Thanks to Elaine:
http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/s1201452.htm
NEWS ANALYSIS
GM corn safety study overlooked, critics Anna Salleh ABC Science Online
Friday, 17 September 2004
French scientists were concerned about a type of GM corn based on the findings of a rat study (Image: iStockphoto) Genetically modified (GM) corn has been approved as a food ingredient without Australia and New Zealand’s safety regulator considering a study showing adverse effects in rats, critics say.
The Public Health Association of Australia (PHAA) and environmental organisations are now calling for imports of Monsanto’s GM corn, known as MON863, to be suspended pending independent review.
Last October, Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ) found the GM corn safe for human consumption.
But critics are concerned that the assessment did not consider Monsanto’s 90-day rat study. This had been submitted earlier to European authorities and had led to France’s genetic engineering commission, the CGB, to advise against the corn.
“In its report, CGB concluded it was not able to show the absence of health risks to animals with regard to MON863 corn,” Dr Judy Carman of the PHAA told ABC Science Online, citing an article in French newspaper La Monde.
Although the European Food Safety Authority had subsequently given the corn the all clear in April this year, the Le Monde reported the CGB remained concerned about the Monsanto study, which found blood and kidney irregularities in rats fed the corn.
“The feeding study was made available to CGB in June 2003,” said Carman. “Therefore the document existed and was circulating before FSANZ made its decision on this corn four months later in October 2003.
“So FSANZ should have been aware of this study. FSANZ should have made sure it got a copy of the raw data in the document and it should have made sure that it took the results of those studies into account in its assessment,” she said.
Carman said the PHAA wanted imports of the GM corn suspended pending review by an independent body such as the National Health and Medical Research Council or the PHAA. The Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand and Greenpeace have made similar calls.
FSANZ said a Monsanto study found chickens fed the corn grew just as rapidly as if they had been fed conventional corn (Image: iStockphoto) Rat study not necessary, says FSANZ
FSANZ said while Monsanto had supplied it with a chicken feeding study, no studies on rats were provided while the agency was assessing the corn’s safety. And that at the time no further data was thought necessary or requested.
FSANZ said the New Zealand Greens had informed it earlier this month of the rat study. The agency said it contacted Monsanto the same day for further information, which it would evaluate once it had received the full package of raw data.
But on the data it had received so far, FSANZ believed there were no concerns for human health.
FSANZ said that it was aware that CGB had raised some concerns about the rat study but noted that the European Food Safety Authority had examined the study, along with other data Monsanto had provided, and concluded that the corn was “unlikely to have an adverse effect on human and animal health or the environment”.
The corn, which may appear unlabelled in processed foods in Australia and New Zealand, has been engineered to produce an insecticidal protein normally produced by the bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt).
FSANZ said for such foods, studies where the GM plant food as a whole is fed to the animal added little to safety information.
Toxicity studies
Instead, the agency said it relied more on toxicity studies, in which high levels of the purified protein, in this case Bt toxin, were produced by a bacterium and given directly to the animal.
“FSANZ does not require feeding studies in animals, such as this 90-day feeding study in rats, to be submitted as part of an application to FSANZ for a GM food,” it said in the statement.
Carman, from the PHAA, criticised this approach, arguing it assumed that the GM plant would only produce the new proteins it was designed to produce, nothing else.
“That’s a huge assumption,” she said. “Because one of the question marks is whether the GM crop, because of the way it’s made, is going to throw up novel substances.”
She said toxicity studies also assumed the protein bacteria produced had the same structure and function as the protein as it appeared in the plant.
“The protein as it appears in the plant is not tested,” she said. “And plants can do things to proteins once they’re made, to change their structure and their function, that bacteria can’t. So it’s a big assumption it’s going to be exactly the same.”
She also criticised the short-term nature of toxicity studies.
Corn cleared by other agencies
Monsanto said that given the European Food Safety Authority concluded there were no concerns over the corn’s safety, claims that the rat study showed adverse effects were misleading.
A spokesman said the study, which was first forwarded to European authorities in August 2002, was not given to FSANZ because the agency did not require it.
“Different countries ask for different studies to be done. So this study was one that was requested in Europe,” he said. “It’s not something the Australian regulators asked for. Hence it wasn’t provided to them.”
Monsanto said the corn had been given full approval by authorities in the U.S., Canada and Japan. It also said that no expert committee in Europe or in France, apart from the CGB, expressed concerns relating to the study. While it had received the “final scientific sign-off” in Europe, politicians had yet to approve it, Monsanto said.
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© 2004 Australian Broadcasting Corporation