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THIRD WORLD NETWORK BIOSAFETY INFORMATION SERVICE

19 April 2005


Dear friends and colleagues,

RE: EUROPE ADOPTS EMERGENCY MEASURES FOR UNAPPROVED BT10 FROM THE U.S. [2]

Please find below further information on the European Union's decision to restrict US shipments of suspect corn imports unless they are certified as free of the experimental and unauthorized genetically engineered (GE) corn, Bt10.

With best wishes,

Lim Li Ching
Third World Network
121-S Jalan Utama
10450 Penang
Malaysia
Email: twnet@po.jaring.my
Website: www.twnside.org.sg



REF: Doc.TWN/Biosafety/2005/J

Item 1
E.U. Votes Ban on U.S. Corn Gluten
By Raf Casert
Washington Post, April 16, 2005 [page 1] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A57657-2005Apr15.html

BRUSSELS, April 15 -- European Union nations voted Friday to ban U.S. shipments of suspect corn gluten animal feed unless they are assured that the imports are free of unauthorized genetically modified corn.

The vote could affect millions of dollars' worth of corn gluten exports. The dispute centers on a batch of Bt10 genetically modified corn that Swiss agrochemicals company Syngenta AG inadvertently sold in the United States and exported to Europe without approval. 

"This is a targeted measure which is necessary to uphold E.U. law, maintain consumer confidence and ensure that the unauthorized GMO Bt10 cannot enter the E.U.. Imports of maize products which are certified as free of Bt10 will be able to continue," said E.U. Health and Consumer Protection Commissioner Markos Kyprianou.

The ban will effectively shut out all imports of U.S. corn gluten, since there is currently no effective way of testing for Bt10, which has not been approved by U.S. or European regulators. E.U. spokesman Philip Tod said Syngenta was working to develop and validate such a test, but they could not say when it would be ready for use.

Michael Mack, chief operating officer of Syngenta Seeds, said it would quickly have a workable test for the E.U..

"We will make operational within a matter of days a valid test method to detect for Bt10," Mack said. Such a test would still need further approval from E.U. authorities. It was not immediately clear how long such approval would take.

U.S. shipments of corn gluten feed to the E.U. totaled 347 million euros ($450 million) last year.

The United States said the ban was exaggerated.

"We view the E.U.'s decision to impose a certification requirement on U.S. corn gluten due to the possible, low-level presence of Bt10 corn to be an overreaction," said Edward Kemp, spokesman for the U.S. mission to the E.U..

"U.S. regulatory authorities have determined there are no hazards to health, safety or the environment related to Bt10," Kemp said. "There is no reason to expect any negative impact from the small amounts of Bt10 corn that may have entered the E.U.."

The ban is to come into force early next week, pending approval by the E.U.'s head office. 

Environmental campaigners welcomed the move. "Europe now has a de facto ban on the import of many US animal feeds," said Friends of the Earth spokesman Adrian Bebb.

However, Greenpeace said stricter controls are needed to prevent more cases of unauthorized biotech imports.

"Europe is currently helpless to defend itself from contamination by GMOs that are suspected to harm human health and the environment," said Christoph Then, genetic engineering expert for the group.

"As long as E.U. authorities have no means to test imports for all the GMOs being released in the U.S. and elsewhere, it must say 'no entry' to the E.U. for any food, feed or seeds that are at risk of contamination," he said.

The E.U. said it is in continuous contact with U.S. authorities on the issue, but its decision to ban suspect corn gluten imports further strains trans-Atlantic trade relations.

Syngenta said last week it has reached a settlement with the U.S. government over the inadvertent sale to farmers of Bt10.

The company said in a written statement that under the settlement reached with U.S. authorities, it would pay a fine of $375,000 and teach its employees the importance of complying with all rules.

However, the E.U. has been annoyed that U.S. authorities allowed the export of Bt10 to Europe after it was mixed up with an authorized biotech Syngenta maize labeled Bt11.

About 1,000 tons of animal feed containing the corn are thought to have entered the E.U. since 2001. The E.U.'s head office earlier had said some food products, including flour and oil may also have been imported, but its statement Friday said that, "according to current information from the U.S. authorities and the European food industry, food products in the E.U. are not affected."

Nevertheless, the case has underscored European concerns about biotech foods, coming shortly after the E.U. relaxed restrictions on genetically modified organisms. 



Item 2
EU, US BATTLE OVER ILLEGAL GM CORN

BRIDGES Trade BioRes, Vol. 5 no. 7, 15 April 2005

The European Commission on 15 April voted to introduce emergency measures restricting the import of GM corn feed from the US. The decision requires all imports to be accompanied by an analytical report issued by an accredited laboratory certifying that the import is free of illegal GM corn. The move followed the discovery that approximately 1000 metric tonnes of an unapproved biotech corn strain have been imported from the US into the EU since 2001.

The US Mission to the EU informed the Commission on 22 March that up to 10 kg of the illegal Bt10 corn seeds were shipped from the US by biotechnology firm Syngenta to test sites in Spain and France for "research purposes" and up to 1000 metric tonnes of Bt10 feed products may have entered the EU since 2001. The seed entered the EU through export channels for Bt11, a corn seed that has regulatory approval in both the US and EU unlike Bt10, which does not have approval in either area. Although the US told EU officials at the time that Bt10 and Bt11 were the same, on 31 March Syngenta told the Commission that unlike Bt11, Bt10 contained a gene conferring resistance against the antibiotic ampicillin. Ampicillin is widely prescribed for infections of the middle ear, sinuses, bladder, kidney, meningitis and other infections and it is feared that consumption of Bt10 will lead bacteria in the stomach to pick up the resistance gene and become tolerant to the antibiotic, making it less effective against infections.

Nonetheless, the European Food Safety Authority said in a statement made on
12 April that the illegal corn is unlikely to pose any threat to health or the environment given that a similar strain of Bt-10 examined last year showed that corn of this type is "unlikely to alter the existing pool of bacteria" resistant to ampicillin. Also, research so far has indicated that ampicillin-resistant genes do not spread through pollination from genetically modified corn to normal corn, the Authority noted. Syngenta said that the resistance gene is inactive in Bt10 and played down concerns about antibiotic resistance.

The new EU measure says that given the failure of Syngenta or the US authorities to deliver data requested by the EU for a full safety assessment, "emergency measures" are required "in order to achieve the high level of health protection chosen in the Community". Under the new measures, any company importing GM corn feed or brewers' grains containing GM corn from the US into the EU must only do so if the imports are accompanied by an original analytical report issued by an accredited laboratory certifying that the product does not contain an illegal strain of GM corn. In the absence of such a report -- which is more detailed than existing EU requirements because it requires the approval by an accredited laboratory -- the importing company must either have the corn tested or not place it on the market. It also calls on EU member states to conduct spot checks of their GM corn imports, a process that is waiting on Syngenta's release of the full information about the molecular make-up of Bt10 and its distinction from Bt11, as well as the specific detection method to trace Bt10. It recognises that the measures should be "no more restrictive of trade than is required", and so limits the conditions only to corn feed and brewers' grains given that the US government has provided assurances that no GM corn food is imported into the EU from the US.

Environmental group Friends of the Earth said "this incident exposes an incompetent and complacent industry, an absence of regulation in the United States and a breakdown in Europe's monitoring of food imports. Immediate action is needed at an international level to prevent further contamination in the future." They called for an investigation into how Syngenta was able to sell unapproved GM products in the EU, and criticised the EU's slow reaction. "This is the latest in a long series of contamination events and demonstrates once again that GE crops can't be controlled, even by the companies that develop them", said Doreen Stabinsky, GE campaigner at Greenpeace, adding that the delay in making the release known -- almost four months since the US government entered into talks with Syngenta in December 2004 after four years of trade -- was particularly troubling.

The US criticised the EU measures as being unnecessarily restrictive. "We view the EU's decision to impose a certification requirement on U.S. corn gluten due to the possible, low-level presence of Bt-10 corn to be an over-reaction," said Edward Kemp, spokesman at the US Mission to the EU.

"U.S. regulatory authorities have determined there are no hazards to health, safety or the environment related to Bt-10," he said in a statement. "There is no reason to expect any negative impact from the small amounts of Bt-10 corn that may have entered the EU."

Additional Resources

The detection method for Bt-10 and the Recommendation to verify the presence/absence of BT10 maize in samples of maize, as endorsed by the European Network of GMO Laboratories, is available at http://gmo-crl.jrc.it

"Commission unable to stop unauthorised GMO," EU OBSERVER, 4 April 2005; "Settlement resolves biotech complaint," SWISSINFO, 9 April 2005; "EU mulls US trade ban in illegal GMO import row," REUTERS, 11 April 2005; "EU should not punish US in biotech corn case-USDA," REUTERS, 11 April 2005; "Commission seeks clarification on Bt10 from US authorities and Syngenta,"
EU PRESS RELEASE, 4 April 2005; "EU considers ban on US GM imports,"
EURACTIV, 13 April 2005; "EU Eyes Certification of US GMO Feed - Source,"
REUTERS, 13 April 2005; "EU RESTRICTS US MAIZE IMPORTS: De facto ban on maize-based animal feeds," FOE EUROPE NEWS RELEASE, 15 April 2005; "Syngenta sold wrong GE maize -- for four years," GREENPEACE, 24 March 2005; "U.S. calls EU move on GMO maize an over-reaction," REUTERS, 15 April 2005.



Item 3
FRIENDS OF THE EARTH PRESS RELEASE

For immediate release: FRIDAY 15 APRIL 2005

EU RESTRICTS US MAIZE IMPORTS
De facto ban on maize-based animal feeds

RESULTS:  Hungary abstained, Lithuania and Malta not present, 22 Countries in favour

Brussels, 13 April 2005 -The European Union has today introduced emergency measures restricting the import of animal feeds from the United States. EU member states voted almost unanimously for proposals that only permit shipments from the US that are certified free of an illegal genetically modified (GM) maize. (1) With no means to test reliably for the contamination, and no segregation from the US, the measures are likely to result in a de facto ban on the import of US maize-based animal feeds for the foreseeable future.

The agrochemical firm Syngenta admitted three weeks ago that it had sold unlicensed GM seeds - called Bt10 - to US farmers for four years, and that this illegal maize entered Europe. Syngenta has since refused to make public the information needed for governments to test food and feed imports for the illegal GM maize.

The new EU law is applicable to US imports of gluten feed and brewers grains (animal feeds) that are produced from GM maize. It states that "Despite requests made by the Commission, the US authorities were not in a position to provide any guarantee on the absence of "Bt10"...considering the lack of segregation or traceability measures in the United States..."

Adrian Bebb, GM campaigner for Friends of the Earth said:

"Europe now has a de facto ban on the import of many US animal feeds. Today's emergency measures will be unpopular with US Government and the biotechnology industry but will start to protect Europe from more contaminated products. Syngenta must now come clean and give European countries the information needed to reliably test for illegal contamination in foods and animal feeds already imported into the EU."

"The public should never have been exposed to an untested and illegal genetically modified crop. This incident exposes an incompetent and complacent industry, an absence of regulation in the United States and a breakdown in Europe's monitoring of food imports. Immediate action is needed at an international level to prevent further contamination in the future."

Whilst Friends of the Earth is backing the EU measures, it is urging the European Commission to go further and:
* Urgently review the EU's monitoring system to guarantee public protection from unapproved GM products in the future
* Demand a public investigation into how a biotechnology company can for 4 years sell the wrong seeds without anyone knowing
* Insist that Syngenta, the polluter, pays for all testing in Europe and not the public.

The incident was first made public through an article in Nature on 22 March (2). Between 2001 and 2004 Syngenta sold several hundred tonnes of a GM maize seed, called Bt10, to US farmers, mistaking it for another GM maize, Bt11. Unlike the Bt11 maize, Bt10 has not been approved for human consumption anywhere in the world. It has been estimated that around 1000 tonnes of the illegal GM maize entered the European food chain and was even planted at test sites in Spain and France.

Syngenta claimed that the Bt10 maize was "physically identical" to Bt11, a view initially endorsed by governments and the European Commission. Friends of the Earth disagreed, pointing out that the unapproved GMO also contained a controversial antibiotic resistance gene, which confers resistance to an important group of antibiotics. Syngenta finally admitted that this was indeed the case (3).

Contact: Adrian Bebb, + 49 1609 490 1163 (mobile); Geert Ritsema +31 629 005 908 (mobile)

(1) Member states voted in the Standing Committee on the Food Chain and Animal Health

(2) The original Nature article can be found at:
http://www.nature.com/news/2005/050321/full/nature03570.html

(3) Bt 10 contains the amp gene, which confers resistance to the ampicillin family of antibiotics.  In recent guidance, the European Food Safety Authority stated that GMOs containing this gene should not be approved for cultivation and their use restricted to field trials.

 


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