Brussels, 15/11/2012 (Agence Europe) - Next week or early the following week at the latest, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) will publish its final assessment of the Seralini et al study on the long term toxicity of NK603 maize and the total herbicide RoundUp by Monsanto. Catherine Geslain-Lanéelle, EFSA Executive Director, said on Tuesday 13 November that the final declaration will be published in ten days' time at most. She was speaking on the sidelines of the conference organised by EFSA in Parma on the occasion of the authority's tenth anniversary (EUROPE will come back to this).
According to Geslain-Lanéelle, the declaration will include data published by member states that have assessed the study, including Germany, the Netherlands and France (Belgium having worked on the study without publishing anything) and elements of response that the Seralini team has provided for the review, Food and Chemical Toxicology.
Invited by EFSA to provide complementary information on the method used for the study (clarifications being requested on the objectives of the study, the protocol used for food testing and statistical analysis), the authors of the study did not provide EFSA with a formal response, preferring to address the magazine that had published their article on 19 September this year. Geslain-Lanéelle said: “But we are not complacent on this issue”. Invited to comment on criticism made in the Test Biotech report that accuses EFSA of using different scientific standards to assess the study by Professor Seralini that those used to assess the study carried out by industrialists (see EUROPE 10722), Geslain-Lanéelle said that, for the preliminary assessment “we followed the OECD guidelines. Those are not the same as for the 90-day studies. Seralini applies the 90-day study protocol for a study carried out over two years” (our translation). (AN/transl.jl)