Clearance of GE Corn Plays Health Russian Roulette

GE Free New Zealand PRESS RELEASE –29.7.07

FSANZ Clearance of GE Corn Plays Russian Roulette with Our Health.

FSANZ has reviewed independent scientific warnings re. MON 863 and rejected them, instead concluding the corn is safe for entry into the food chain.

GE Free NZ (in food and environment) believes this potentially disastrous decision signals that it is time for New Zealand to establish its own laboratories and set protocols for testing novel foods.

Investment in such a system is long overdue. It is increasingly urgent as more GM foods like MON 863 and high-lysine corn (designed for animal-feed) are authorised to enter the human food-chain. The current system is also unable to test the risks of novel foods or "nutraceuticals" which are the focus of millions of dollars of investment announced this week, including joint ventures with global food giant Nestle and Crown Research Institutes.

In the absence of New Zealand having any independent testing system there are serious doubts around the decision by FSANZ to give MON 863 a clean bill of health.

FSANZ initially approved the GM corn without the requisite feeding trials and instead relied on Monsanto's assurance of safety. Monsanto had applied for approval for MON 863 despite an independent analysis of a 13 week rat feeding study showing statistical differences in the endocrine system, livers and kidneys of the rats after eating the GE corn.

Following public outcry FSANZ asked Monsanto for a copy of the feeding trial data. The data was sent with a full claim for commercial confidentiality (CCI), and the FSANZ website states that since Monsanto did not agree to the CCI claim, the raw data was immediately returned to Monsanto in line with the conditions on which it was supplied.

What does this mean?

“We are concerned as it appears that FSANZ did not even assess the data properly before returning it to Monsanto,” says Claire Bleakley, from GE Free NZ (in food and environment)."Instead FSANZ seem to have again trusted Monsanto's claims that an analysis by independent scientists was statistically flawed. “

“In correspondence from Monsanto, released under Australia's Freedom of Information Act, Monsanto say that if other statistical methods are used, no significant differences are found in animals eating the GE corn."

The original raw data from the feeding trials were released after Greenpeace took high court action in Europe. Crii-Gen, an independent scientific laboratory re-evaluated the data. The finding were published this March and found that there were 40 significant differences between MON 863 and the control corn. Most significantly the high doses (33%) caused renal and hepatic changes. FSANZ’s own evaluation also noted “the incidence of liver necrosis and stomach glandular dilation in MON 863-fed male rats, which was higher than that observed in both the parental and historical control groups”. Dr Seralini and his scientists recommended that further dietary studies be conducted after evaluating this data.

No such research has been done, neither is there significant prospect of the required testing being undertaken.

The approval of MON 863 GE corn into the New Zealand food chain has left our Government, manufacturers and retailers open to massive court action if these adverse effects prove to be more than a statistical error and are dangerous to humans.

"What is FSANZ thinking?” says Claire Bleakley. “Our food is the most basic of needs and the safety of the food supply is of paramount importance, not to be compromised to suit trade agendas or the interests of companies like Monsanto. Yet FSANZ appear to have deliberately sided with Monsanto and hidden their heads in the sand.”

"By doing this FSANZ are leaving the people they are meant to serve exposed to potentially chronic disease. It is criminal to repeatedly ignore the need to set up proper testing. FSANZ are even now ignoring leading New Zealand scientists and refusing to test yet another GM product, the latest high-lysine corn.

"We cannot allow consumers of food to meet the same fate as residents who suffered dioxin poisoning or soldiers exposed to nuclear tests, and let FSANZ simply wait to see who gets sick before they take notice," says Claire Bleakley.

It is time that a New Zealand laboratory is set up to independently trial these foods and end our reliance on industry-supplied data open to manipulation by vested interests.
Investing in such research infrastructure now would be the best way to spend government money and ensure public health safety in the future as our food is further subjected to meddling by the biotechnology industry.

ENDS

References:
New Analysis of a Rat Feeding Study with a Genetically Modified Maize Reveals Signs of Hepatorenal Toxicity by G.E. Séralini, D. Cellier & J. Spiroux de Vendômois, Arch. Environ. Contam. Toxicol. 52, 596–602 (2007).
http://www.springerlink.com/content/02648wu132m07804/fulltext.html

CRIIGEN answers to European Food Safety Authority critique of MON 863 study, 2007.
FSANZ reaffirms its risk assessment of genetically modified corn MON 863 http://www.foodstandards.gov.au:80/newsroom/factsheets/factsheets2007/updatefsanzreaffirms3622.cfm

Review of 13-Week Rat Feeding Study with MON863 Corn
http://www.foodstandards.gov.au/_srcfiles/Assessment%20MON863%20feeding%20study.pdf

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