EFSA GMO Watch – July 2010

The EU Commission has responded to the Testbiotech Report on maize 1507 (http://www.testbiotech.org/en/node/365). In their answer, DG Sanco announced that the report will be forwarded to EFSA. It will be evaluated and the result published.

Testbiotech has released its report on EFSA draft guidelines on environmental risk assessment, which was funded by the Green Group in the European Parliament (http://www.testbiotech.org/en/node/400). EFSA announced that it will assess the report in detail and invited interested stakeholders to a meeting in September.
(http://www.efsa.europa.eu/en/press/news/gmo20100706.htm).

Inside the European Parliament, the debates on EFSA are becoming more intense. The Green Party asked for a stop to all further authorisations until the standards for risk assessment are clarified (http://jose-bove.eu/index.php?post/2010/07/07/Jos%C3%A9-Bov%C3%A9-et-San...

The vice-president of the Environment Committee, Corinne Lepage, is urging a new approach to selecting experts for EFSA: “The selection of EFSA GMO panel members should reflect all scientific views, not only industry's approach to health and environment risk evaluation. Pluralism, pluridisciplinarity and contradictory debates are the keys to a unbiased expertise process, that identifies risks and uncertainties.”
(http://www.corinnelepage.eu/Les-Echos-fr-OGM-Corinne-Lepage-reclame-une-...

New opinions:
EFSA has released a new favourable opinion on genetically engineered cotton used for food and feed:
“EFSA Panel on Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO); Scientific Opinion on application (EFSA-GMO-NL-2005-16) for the placing on the market of insect resistant genetically modified cotton (Gossypium hirsutum L.) 281-24-236/3006-210-23 for food and feed uses, import and processing under Regulation (EC) No 1829/2003 from Dow AgroSciences. EFSA Journal 2010; 8(6):1644. [32 pp.]. doi:10.2903/j.efsa.2010.1644. (1644 – Scientific Output number).”
(http://www.efsa.europa.eu/en/scdocs/scdoc/1644.htm

The cotton is an insect resistant and herbicide tolerant stacked event (expressing Cry1F, Cry1Ac, and the PAT Protein). Most of the risk assessment is based on consideration of only few empirical data that were provided. In this case, a feeding study on broiler chickens was performed over 42 days. The feeding study was not concerned with health effects but only general effects like weight gain. This is unacceptable from the perspective of risk assessment. As even the German Federal Office of Consumer Protection and Food Safety (BVL) point out in their comment to the dossier: “It should be stressed that these kind of feeding studies are limited to the assessment of the dietary feeding value.” This new EFSA opinion is a another example that the authority is applying standards that are too low for risk assessment and should not be accepted from the point of view of consumer protection.