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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, 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.
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