Brussels, 04/11/2011 (Agence Europe) - The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) is adamant that the genetically modified maize MON810 from Monsanto poses no threat to health or the environment. However, monitoring of risk could be improved, it says. That, in short, is what an EFSA scientific opinion, dated 25 October, states on the 2009 Post-Market Environmental Monitoring (PMEM) report on Mon810.
The PMEM report was assessed by EFSA's Panel on Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO Panel) which concluded that maize MON810 cultivation for the 2009 growing season had no adverse effects on human and animal health or the environment and that the PMEM report corroborated the findings of the previous EFSA risk assessment of maize MON810. However, the GMO Panel pointed out a number of shortcomings in the methodology used for the monitoring and surveillance and made several related recommendations to improve future data collection and reporting.
The cultivation of transgenic maize MON810, one of only two GMOs, along with the transgenic Amflora potato from BASF, which can be grown in the EU, is banned in seven member states (France, Germany, Austria, Greece, Hungary, Luxembourg and Bulgaria) under safeguard clauses.
Given that it cannot force these countries to lift their safeguard clauses, the Commission brought forward a draft regulation in July of this year which sought to authorise member states to restrict or ban the cultivation within their borders of EU-approved GMOs for other than environmental and health reasons. (AN/transl.rt)