Brussels, 20/09/2012 (Agence Europe) - In just one day, the publication of a French scientific study establishing that the Monsanto GMO NK603 and Round-up, the total herbicide also by Monsanto (see EUROPE 10692), are toxic for the health of rats, a great deal of ink has flowed and will continue to flow. It is now up to the experts of the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), to which the European Commission immediately turned, to get down to the task of examining the study as soon as possible and of drafting an opinion, by the end of year if possible, the Commission said on Thursday 20 September. The same day, doubt was explicitly cast on the independence of EFSA GMO experts by Professor Gilles Eric Seralini of Caen university, who is the joint author of the scientific study, and who was speaking at a press conference organised at the European Parliament by MEP Corinne Lepage (ALDE, France).
Rather than answer calls for an immediate suspension of the authorisation for cultivation of the incriminated transgenic maize, the Commission has chosen to take its time by handing the matter over for the EFSA scientific experts to tackle. In 2009, EFSA affirmed that NK603 maize did not present any risk for animal or human health, like any other traditional maize. It nonetheless assures that, if the scientific GMO group of EFSA were to conclude that “new scientific elements” have come to light, then it would look at all the implications of that.
In response to a journalist who asked how the Commission planned to validate the relevance of this scientific study with conclusions that are diametrically opposed to those reached by EFSA, and if the EFSA scientists called upon to study the case would be the same as they were last time, Frédéric Vincent, the spokesman for European Health Commissioner John Dalli, kicked the ball into touch, saying the Commission's mandate to EFSA does not consist in validating what has been published but in verifying what is presented, in what conditions the research was carried out, and how the rats were treated. The scientists, he said, will pass on to EFSA all the elements that have led them to make diametrically opposed conclusions. EFSA received the European Commission's request for this yesterday, he added.
EFSA - incompetent and slipshod. Professor Gilles Eric Seralini, for his part, underlined that the scientific study of which he is jointly author, is the longest and the most detailed ever carried out on a pesticide in its overall composition and on a food GMO. Lasting two years, the study was on 200 rats with 100 parameters per rat and 50 parameters measured 11 times over the two years, while the regulation only calls for two or three analyses after 14 weeks. EFSA authorised the genetically engineered potato Amflora by BASF after testing during just three months on 30 rats. The same was true for MK603, when all the adverse effects (premature deaths, enormous tumours, kidney trouble, pituitary and sexual hormone anomalies) appeared in the fourth month, he explained. He went on to add that they regretted the incompetence and slipshod work done by EFSA, and did not agree to the same people doing a counter-expertise, as there are too many conflicts of interest. He does, however, call for the publication of the members of the panel responsible for counter-expertise and of their scientific publications before they are chosen as experts. Lepage said it was not a question of going elsewhere than EFSA but of calling for another method of work.
Lepage, who referred the matter to the 27 relevant EU ministers and to Commissioner Dalli to request generalised texting over two years, a moratorium on NK603 and review of the method used for assessing long term health risks, sees the publication of the study as a victory. She states that, as a citizen, she is proud and happy that civil society has managed to point a finger of blame at the failings of public bodies and at the inadequate expertise of research into the long term effects on human health. She said that, as citizens, it is possible, through research, to answer the legitimate questions raised by the public.
After the study was published, the French government referred the matter for opinion to its relevant authority (the Agence nationale de sécurité sanitaire - ANSES) and announced that, depending on the opinion of ANSES, the government will call on the European authorities to take every measure necessary in terms of protection of human and animal health, measures that will go as far as suspending, as a matter of urgency, the authorisation to import NK603 maize into the European Union, pending re-examination of the product on the basis of strengthened assessment methods.
According to a joint press release published in Paris on Thursday by the ministers Mariso Touraine, Delphine Batho and Stéphane Le Foll (our translation): “This study seems to confirm the inadequacy of toxicology testing required by the Community regulation for marketing approval of genetically engineered products. It validates the precautionary stance taken by the French government on the moratorium of GMO crops. The government calls on the European authorities to strengthen, as swiftly as possible and to a considerable extent, the evaluation of the health and environmental risks involved”. (AN/transl.jl)