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26
Approval of Bt11 Maize Endangers
Humans and Livestock
Dr. Mae-Wan Ho explains why the European Commission's decision
to approve Syngenta's GM maize is illegal and criminal based on
existing scientific evidence.
The European Commission ended
6 years of de facto moratorium on
GM authorization by approving
Syngenta's Bt11 sweet corn for
food use in Europe on 19 May
2004 (see Box 1). That, despite
the fact that voting by experts last
December in the EU's Standing
Committee on Food Chain and
Animal Health was an even 6-6
country split with three abstentions.
Finland, Sweden, Ireland,
UK, Netherlands, and Spain voted
in favour; Greece, Denmark,
France, Austria, Luxembourg,
Portugal voted against; and
Belgium, Italy and Germany
abstained. The same split happened
at the Council of Ministers
on 27 April, but this time Italy
voted in favour, while Spain
abstained.
Belgium's scientists first
expressed concerns over the
safety of Bt11 when they subjected
Bt11 to molecular characteri-
Box 1
History of Bt11 maize approval
An official dossier was submitted to the European Union in 1996 and
approved under the old Directive for deliberate release into the environment
(90/220/EEC) for import and processing since 22 April 1998.
Two notifications for cultivation were submitted in 1996 (to France)
and 1998 (to Spain). The Scientific Committee on Plants (SCP) gave a
favourable opinion for these two notifications, although Syngenta has
since withdrawn the latter. The 1996 notification was updated in 1998
and 2002, and finally in 2003, additional information was supplied as
required by the new Directive for deliberate release 2001/18/EC. The
French competent authority concluded that, in this respect, Bt11 "does
not present a greater risk to human health or the environment than any
other variety of maize". Approval of the application, which includes
import, cultivation and all other uses, is still pending.
In February 1999, a request was submitted under Regulation (EC)
258/97 for placing sweet corn from GM maize line Bt11 on the market
for food use (fresh or processed). On 17 April 2002, the Scientific
Committee on Food gave its opinion that Bt11 sweet corn is as safe for
human food use as its conventional counterparts.
The vote in the Standing Committee on Food Chain and Animal
Health, December 2003, resulted in an even 6-6 country split with
three abstentions. A similar split ratio in the Council of Ministers 27
April 2004 led to a stalemate. The European Commission broke the
deadlock by deciding in favour of approval.
sation, as required by Europe's
current Directive for deliberate
release. These concerns were
strongly reinforced by French and
Austrian scientists.
According to an article in Le
Monde published 24 April, two
scientific evaluation committees,
in France and Belgium, had
refused to give their approval for
food use of Bt11 sweet corn. On
22 April, AFSSA (French Agency
of Food Sanitary Security)
opposed the authorization of Bt11
sweet corn for the third time, after
having refused it twice before, in
2000 and 2003, on grounds that
the scientific results were insufficient.
In a brief note published 22
April, implicitly replying to the
European Commission statement
on 5 February that "the results
supplied by Syngenta…are in
accordance with the criteria and
rules defined in the recommendation
618/97/EC", AFSSA said it
"maintains its previous opinion
which concluded that to rigorously
evaluate the impact of regular
consumption of a maize carrying
the Bt11 event, toxicity/tolerance
experiments on rats must be carried
out… Such toxicity/tolerance
experiments are not required by
the actual regulation, though they
might be advisable … because
the sweet corn is the only one to
be consumed by humans."
The Belgian Council for
Biosafety had already refused to
give its approval for the Bt11
maize on 1 April 2004.
Dr. Mae-Wan Ho and Prof. Joe
Cummins from ISIS and the ISP
(Independent Science Panel)
have objected strongly to the
approval of a range of GM crops;
and called for the withdrawal of
approval already granted, most
probably for the same reasons as
the Belgian and French scientists:
the GM inserts in all these crops
were found to have rearranged
since characterised by the company.
That is a sign that the GM
varieties are unstable, and hence
contrary to requirement laid down
by the current European Directive
for deliberate release
(2001/18/EC). Furthermore, there
is evidence that some GM varieties
are non-uniform, also contrary
to the requirement of the
current European Directive. Thus,
the European Commission is contravening
its own laws in approving
Bt11.
Ho and Cummins have referred
to this as both "illegal and criminal";
criminal because transgenic
instability is a key safety issue,
and there is already evidence
suggesting that GM food and feed
are far from safe, even though
very few feeding trials have been
carried out, and toxicological
tests on natural Bt toxins are thoroughly
inadequate to predict the
much altered GM toxins incorpo-
GM sweet corn anyone?
SCIENCE IN SOCIETY 23, AUTUMN 2004