Stephen Leahy

BROOKLIN, Canada, Jun 24 2005 (IPS) — Genetically engineered maize planted in Canada and the United States, and sold in both markets, had an adverse affect on rats, according to secret Monsanto research released by a German court this week.

Independent scientists in Europe who have seen the study expressed concern at the results.

"If this maize is totally safe as Monsanto claims, then why did they fight to prevent the release of this study?" asks Éric Darier of Greenpeace Canada. "Are they trying to hide the fact that it may not be safe?"

After discounting Monsanto’s legal arguments regarding confidential information, a German court in Cologne ordered the full 1,139-page report on tests for food safety to be made public.

The 2002 report found that rats fed genetically engineered (GE) maize called MON 863 for 90 days ended up with malformed kidneys and unusually high levels of white blood cells. Monsanto says the "alleged" abnormalities in the rats were not the result of eating MON 863.

MON 863 contains a protein that kills maize rootworm larvae when they eat the roots of maize plants.

That report and other materials were submitted to the European Food Safety Authority, which concluded that "placing on the market of MON 863 is unlikely to have an adverse effect on human and animal health or the environment" Jerry Hjelle, vice president for Monsanto worldwide regulatory affairs, said in a statement.

The product also completed full regulatory review and has been grown commercially in the United States and Canada since 2003, said Hjelle.

But such reviews provide little comfort to the public, Darier said in an interview. Years of cutbacks in the U.S. and Canada have dramatically depleted the ranks of government scientists. Moreover, the responsibility for ensuring the safety of food products has been shifted to the companies themselves, he said.

Canadian health officials said while they have not done their own research on the safety of MON 863, the maize will stay on the market, according to media reports.

Regulators rarely verify the results of the studies conducted by companies like Monsanto by having government or independent scientists duplicate them, said Darier.

"This (the MON 863) is the first full study released to the public," he said

Scientists who reviewed the study have called Monsanto’s research shoddy and say the results require further investigation.

"If a trial produces such striking results, it must at all events be repeated," Prof. Gilles-Eric Séralini of the French state Commission du Génie Biomoléculaire (CGB) which is responsible for risk assessments of GE plants, said in a statement.

"The GE maize should not be allowed to be licensed as food or feedstuff," Séralini said.

GE researcher Arpad Pusztai, who reviewed the MON 863 study for the German government, said there were a host of problems with the way the study was done and in the reporting of the results.

"Nutritional scientists and leading journals would not accept these blatant inadequacies and misinterpretations," Pusztai said in a report. "How can regulators accept it for a novel genetically modified food?"

Canadian and U.S. regulators have not seen this study and it was only submitted to German regulators by Monsanto because of regulatory requirements in the European Union.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration does not require feeding studies for GE crops, said Doug Gurian-Sherman, senior scientist with the Centre for Food Safety (CFS), a Washington-based NGO.

"The FDA assumes all GE crops are perfectly safe," Gurian-Sherman told IPS.

In fact, the FDA doesn’t require any studies at all, it only makes recommendations and suggestions, he said. "The regulatory process for GE crops is run by the companies."

Reports about adverse affects on rats surfaced more than a year ago in Europe but no U.S. regulatory agency has looked at the full study, even after the CFS insisted they do so last fall, he said.

"U.S. regulators are willing to take some risks in order to push the technology," he said.

Meanwhile, today in Europe, EU environment ministers agreed to uphold eight national bans on GE rapeseed and maize. MON 863 appears to have escaped the ban, but if finally approved, it will only be used in animal feed.

Officials at Monsanto could not be reached for comment.