APRIL 2007

New study reveals signs of toxicity of GE maize approved for human consumption
Greenpeace demands immediate withdrawal of high-risk GE products
By: Greenpeace Intl.
Published: Mar 13, 2007 at 06:24

Laboratory rats, fed with a genetically engineered (GE) maize produced by Monsanto, have shown signs of toxicity in kidney and liver, according to a new study.(1) This is the first time that a GE product which has been cleared for use as food for humans and animals has shown signs of toxic effects on internal organs.

The study, published today in the journal "Archives of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology", analysed results of safety tests submitted by Monsanto to the European Commission when the company was seeking authorisation to market its GE Maize variety MON863 in the EU. (2)

The data shows that MON863 has significant health risks associated with it; nonetheless, the European Commission granted licences to market the maize for consumption by both humans and animals. (3)

The incriminating evidence was obtained by Greenpeace following a court case (4), and passed on for evaluation by a team of experts headed by Professor Gilles Eric Séralini, a governmental expert in genetic engineering technology from the University of Caen. (5)

In a joint press conference with Greenpeace at Berlin, Professor Séralini said, "Monsanto's analyses do not stand up to rigorous scrutiny " to begin with, their statistical protocols are highly questionable. Worse, the company failed to run a sufficient analysis of the differences in animal weight. Crucial data from urine tests were concealed in the company's own publications."

Greenpeace is demanding the complete and immediate withdrawal of Monsanto's MON 863 maize from the global market and is calling upon governments to undertake an urgent reassessment of all other authorised GE products and a strict review of current testing methods.

"This is the final nail in the coffin for the credibility of the current authorisation system for GE products. Once it's known that a system designed to protect human and animal health has approved a high-risk product despite clear evidence of its dangers, we need to start "strip-searching" all GE products on the market, and immediately abort this flawed approval procedure," said Christophe Then, Genetic Engineer campaigner, Greenpeace International.

The data in question has been the subject of fierce debate since 2003, when significant changes were identified in the blood of tested animals fed on MON863. MON863 was approved by the European Commission, in spite of opposition by a majority of EU member states, who raised concerns over the safety of the maize. Professor Séralini's analysis now scientifically confirms these concerns.

As the study states, "with the present data, it cannot be concluded that GM corn MON863 is a safe product." And yet, MON863 has been authorised for markets in Australia, Canada, China, Japan, Mexico, the Phillipines, and USA, besides the EU.

"This is an international emergency alert, requiring a global response," concluded Then, "Only a complete withdrawal from all markets will curtail the possible damage."

Notes:
1. The article is due to be published online ( http://www.springerlink.com/content/"k=1432-0703 ) by the American journal Archives of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology; it will be printed in May. A copy can be faxed on request. A Greenpeace briefing on the study is available at: http://www.greenpeace.org/international/press/reports/gp_briefing_seralini_study

2. The tested GE maize named MON 863 produces a new insecticide called "modified Cry3Bb1" able to kill a pest insect in the soil (Diabrotica virgifera). This GE maize also contains a gene coding for antibiotic resistance.

3. The European Commission granted a license for MON 863 to be used in feed in August 2005, and subsequently approved it for human consumption in January 2006.

4. For details, please refer to the Greenpeace paper: "The MON863 case -a chronicle of systematic deception" http://www.greenpeace.org/international/press/reports/mon863_chronicle_of_deception

5. The analysis team was headed by Professor Séralini from the University of Caen and included experts from the French independent scientific organisation CRI
IGEN.

IMPORTANT RELATED RESEARCHSPIEGEL ONLINE - March 22, 2007, 06:21 PM URL:
http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/0,1518,473166,00.html

COLLAPSING COLONIES Are GM Crops Killing Bees? By Gunther Latsch

A mysterious decimation of bee populations has German beekeepers worried, while a similar phenomenon in the United States is gradually assuming catastrophic proportions. The consequences for agriculture and the economy could be enormous.

DDP

Is the mysterous decimation of bee populations in the US and Germany a result of GM crops?

Walter Haefeker is a man who is used to painting grim scenarios. He sits on the board of directors of the German Beekeepers Association (DBIB) and is vice president of the European Professional Beekeepers Association. And because griping is part of a lobbyist's trade, it is practically his professional duty to warn that "the very existence of beekeeping is at stake."

The problem, says Haefeker, has a number of causes, one being the varroa mite, introduced from Asia, and another is the widespread practice in agriculture of spraying wildflowers with herbicides and practicing monoculture. Another possible cause, according to Haefeker, is the controversial and growing use of genetic engineering in agriculture.

As far back as 2005, Haefeker ended an article he contributed to the journal Der Kritischer Agrarbericht (Critical Agricultural Report) with an Albert Einstein quote: "If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe then man would only have four years of life left. No more bees, no more pollination, no more plants, no more animals, no more man."

Mysterious events in recent months have suddenly made Einstein's apocalyptic vision seem all the more topical. For unknown reasons, bee populations throughout Germany are disappearing -- something that is so far only harming beekeepers. But the situation is different in the United States, where bees are dying in such dramatic numbers that the economic consequences could soon be dire. No one knows what is causing the bees to perish, but some experts believe that the large-scale use of genetically modified plants in the US could be a factor.

Felix Kriechbaum, an official with a regional beekeepers' association in Bavaria, recently reported a decline of almost 12 percent in local bee populations. When "bee populations disappear without a trace," says Kriechbaum, it is difficult to investigate the causes, because "most bees don't die in the beehive." There are many diseases that can cause bees to lose their sense of orientation so they can no longer find their way back to their hives.

Manfred Hederer, the president of the German Beekeepers Association, almost simultaneously reported a 25 percent drop in bee populations throughout Germany. In isolated cases, says Hederer, declines of up to 80 percent have been reported. He speculates that "a particular toxin, some agent with which we are not familiar," is killing the bees.

Politicians, until now, have shown little concern for such warnings or the woes of beekeepers. Although apiarists have been given a chance to make their case -- for example in the run-up to the German cabinet's approval of a genetic engineering policy document by Minister of Agriculture Horst Seehofer in February -- their complaints are still largely ignored.

Even when beekeepers actually go to court, as they recently did in a joint effort with the German chapter of the organic farming organization Demeter International and other groups to oppose the use of genetically modified corn plants, they can only dream of the sort of media attention environmental organizations like Greenpeace attract with their protests at test sites.

But that could soon change. Since last November, the US has seen a decline in bee populations so dramatic that it eclipses all previous incidences of mass mortality. Beekeepers on the east coast of the United States complain that they have lost more than 70 percent of their stock since late last year, while the west coast has seen a decline of up to 60 percent.

In an article in its business section in late February, the New York Times calculated the damage US agriculture would suffer if bees died out. Experts at Cornell University in upstate New York have estimated the value bees generate -- by pollinating fruit and vegetable plants, almond trees and animal feed like clover -- at more than $14 billion.

Scientists call the mysterious phenomenon "Colony Collapse Disorder" (CCD), and it is fast turning into a national catastrophe of sorts. A number of universities and government agencies have formed a "CCD Working Group" to search for the causes of the calamity, but have so far come up empty-handed. But, like Dennis vanEngelsdorp, an apiarist with the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture, they are already referring to the problem as a potential "AIDS for the bee industry."

One thing is certain: Millions of bees have simply vanished. In most cases, all that's left in the hives are the doomed offspring. But dead bees are nowhere to be found -- neither in nor anywhere close to the hives. Diana Cox-Foster, a member of the CCD Working Group, told The Independent that researchers were "extremely alarmed," adding that the crisis "has the potential to devastate the US beekeeping industry."

It is particularly worrisome, she said, that the bees' death is accompanied by a set of symptoms "which does not seem to match anything
in the literature."

In many cases, scientists have found evidence of almost all known bee viruses in the few surviving bees found in the hives after most have disappeared. Some had five or six infections at the same time and were infested with fungi -- a sign, experts say, that the insects' immune system may have collapsed.

The scientists are also surprised that bees and other insects usually leave the abandoned hives untouched. Nearby bee populations or parasites would normally raid the honey and pollen stores of colonies that have died for other reasons, such as excessive winter cold. "This suggests that there is something toxic in the colony itself which is repelling them," says Cox-Foster.

Walter Haefeker, the German beekeeping official, speculates that "besides a number of other factors," the fact that genetically modified, insect-resistant plants are now used in 40 percent of cornfields in the United States could be playing a role. The figure is much lower in Germany -- only 0.06 percent -- and most of that occurs in the eastern states of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and Brandenburg. Haefeker recently sent a researcher at the CCD Working Group some data from a bee study that he has long felt shows a possible connection between genetic engineering and diseases in bees.

The study in question is a small research project conducted at the University of Jena from 2001 to 2004. The researchers examined the effects of pollen from a genetically modified maize variant called "Bt corn" on bees. A gene from a soil bacterium had been inserted into the corn that enabled the plant to produce an agent that is toxic to insect pests. The study concluded that there was no evidence of a "toxic effect of Bt corn on healthy honeybee populations." But when, by sheer chance, the bees used in the experiments were infested with a parasite, something eerie happened. According to the Jena study, a "significantly stronger decline in the number of bees" occurred among the insects that had been fed a highly concentrated Bt poison feed.

According to Hans-Hinrich Kaatz, a professor at the University of Halle in eastern Germany and the director of the study, the bacterial toxin in the genetically modified corn may have "altered the surface of the bee's intestines, sufficiently weakening the bees to allow the parasites to gain entry -- or perhaps it was the other way around. We don't know."

Of course, the concentration of the toxin was ten times higher in the experiments than in normal Bt corn pollen. In addition, the bee feed was administered over a relatively lengthy six-week period.

Kaatz would have preferred to continue studying the phenomenon but lacked the necessary funding. "Those who have the money are not interested in this sort of research," says the professor, "and those who are interested don't have the money."

EU Conference Focuses On Freedom Of Choice Regarding GM Crops

by Staff Writers
Vienna, April 5 (AFP) Apr 05, 2006
An EU ministerial conference on genetically-modified organisms began here Wednesday with politicians emphasising the right of farmers to choose whether or not to produce GM crops. Around 2,000 protesters also gathered outside the meeting, entitled "Freedom of Choice," which focused on the issue of co-existence, referring to the problems involved in growing both GM and non-GM crops in Europe.

"Farmers should remain free to decide not to grow GM crops," EU Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas said at the two-day conference in Vienna.

"But that choice is eroded if GM and non-GM crops are unintentionally mixed up," added Agriculture Commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel, saying it was important to ensure "that GM and non-GM crops are properly segregated."

Non-governmental organisations said however such segregation was impossible and GMOs should be banned altogether.

"If GMOs are grown, conventional and biological agriculture are bound to be contaminated," Eric Gall, EU policy director for environmental group Greenpeace, told AFP.

He argued long-term risks related to GMOs were still unknown and contamination would generate financial losses for farmers of non-GM crops, with no possibility of compensation by industries and GMO growers.

NGOs seek an EU-wide policy against GMOs while the European Union delegates these matters to member states.

"We do not think it would be helpful to propose binding EU-wide rules on co-existence at present," Fischer-Boel said, since co-existence measures vary according to geography or climate.

An estimated 2,000 protesters, according to police, from all around Europe, marched to the Congress Centre where the conference was being held and handed the EU Commissioners a "Vienna Declaration," calling for a GMO-free Europe.

Austrian Agriculture Minister Josef Proell told them: "Europe is listening. We have very similar interests on the issue of genetic engineering."

But protesters were less hopeful. "Actually, we do not expect any result from inside," one protester, Renate Griletz, said, "but they should know we are standing here and are against it."

Source: Agence France-Presse