1.The misleading voice of EuropaBio - GM Watch comment
2.EU states order tests on US imports after finding illegal GMOs - Financial Times
3. FDA does not review GM crops either prior to or during the field trial process - Bill Freese
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1. The misleading voice of EuropaBio

The Financial Times piece below about European testing for the rogue GM rice strain (LL601) currently contaminating US rice supplies (item 2), contains a number of questionnable statements.

The most dubious has to be the one attributed to the Brussels based GM lobbyist Simon Barber of EuropaBio:

"Mr Barber of Europabio pointed out that all crops are approved by national food safety authorities before trials were begun."

This gives the impression that even though LL601 never gained approval for commercial growing in the US, it will still have gone through a careful screening process by the US's Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to make sure that it was safe before field trials began.

But nothing could be further from the truth, as Bill Freese, a biotech expert at the Center for Food Safety in the US, confirmed to us when we sent him the article. Bill told us, "This is absolutely false. FDA does not review GM crops either prior to or during the field trial process, which often goes on 5-10 years." (item 3)

Europabio is short for the "European Association for Bioindustries" and it describes itself as "the voice of the European biotech industry." It is a voice that is constantly heard within the European Union, where it seeks to shape legislation in a way that suits its members' interests. To this end it provides "a steady flow of information about biotechnology to the European Parliament, the European Commission and the Council of Ministers." Through its member associations, EuropaBio also "fosters a standing dialogue with policy makers and stakeholders at a national level".
http://www.gmwatch.org/profile1.asp?PrId=197

Judging by the misleading fantasy - about GM regulation in the US - fed to the Financial Times by Europabio's Simon Barber, "the voice of the European biotech industry" needs to be listened to with a healthy degree of scepticism.
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2.EU states order tests on US imports after finding illegal GMOs
By Andrew Bounds in Brussels Financial Times, October 27 2006 http://www.ft.com/cms/s/c6d3f926-6553-11db-90fd-0000779e2340.html

After finding traces of three different illegal strains of biotech rice in imports in as many months, fortress Europe this week pulled up the drawbridge. Unable to agree a common testing regime with the US, which is much more tolerant of genetically engineered produce, European Union governments have decreed that every American rice shipment be tested before unloading.

The image of "Frankenfoods" conjured up by the popular press a decade ago still resonates with the European public. Only 18 varieties of biotech crop have been approved even for animal consumption. Nonetheless, there are fears the monster may have escaped the laboratory for good. "We can only be responsible for our own testing and controls," says Philip Tod, spokesman for Markos Kyprianou, EU health commissioner. "It is incumbent on other countries to enforce theirs."

However, as biotech crops spread around the world - more than 8m farmers in 21 countries now grow them on 90m hectares of land, a 50-fold rise in a decade - the EU's ability to keep them out is under pressure, especially when its food safety agency ruled the genetically modified varieties found were not harmful to eat.

Environment ministers on Monday instructed Brussels to seek international rules and improve detection methods. "The European Commission and competent authorities of the member states do not have the necessary analytical tools to effectively check for the absence of unauthorised GMOs," said a statement tabled by Belgium and supported by six other member states.

The biotech industry realises the danger. Simon Barber of Europabio, the Brussels-based umbrella group for biotech companies, says: "Because we have a global trading system there is always the possibility that minute trace levels of GMOs will turn up where they do not have legal approval. This is going to happen again and again."

His group wants an international agreement on testing standards, something being debated at the United Nation's Food and Agriculture Organisation. Last year, the US admitted that unauthorised Bt 10 maize developed by Syngenta had been exported to the EU for several months without detection.

Green groups charge that Washington is not doing all it could and that the biotech industry may be pursuing a deliberate strategy of spreading their wares. If not, they appear to have lost control of their technology. Two of the types discovered this year have not been commercially approved anywhere. LLrice 601, detected in a shipment in the Netherlands in August, was field-tested by Aventis in the 1990s but abandoned before that company was acquired by Bayer of Germany in 2002. The US department of agriculture is investigating how it entered the food chain.

Louisiana State University, which helped with research on LL601, has revealed it has found trace amounts of LL601 in seeds of one of its long-grain rice varieties.France this month said it had detected another Bayer variety, LL62, in rice from the US. The company said it could not confirm the report but was ready to help.Annette Josten, spokeswoman for Bayer Cropscience, said: "It has been fully approved in the US but we do not sell it. The big exporters want import clearance in all the major markets before they use it."She did not know how it had found its way into the food chain. "We comply with all necessary rules and regulations under the law of the countries where we operate," she said.

Mr Barber of Europabio pointed out that all crops are approved by national food safety authorities before trials were begun. But he said the number of partners in such trials increased the risks of seeds "escaping". China is another matter. Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth, the pressure groups, found illegal Bt63 rice from China on supermarket shelves. Austria and Germany have confirmed the finds.

The variety has not been authorised anywhere but it is suspected that Beijing handed it out to farmers to plant. Greenpeace has demanded that all US imports be suspended and called for Bayer to be banned from further trials. However, US farmers may have the bigger say. They are suing Bayer over LL601 because they fear its presence will shut them out of European markets.
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3. FDA does not review GM crops either prior to or during the field trial process - Bill Freese

This is absolutely false. FDA does not review GM crops either prior to or during the field trial process, which often goes on 5-10 years. Though FDA recently established a process whereby companies may (not must) share limited data with the agency during the field trial process, I see no evidence that anyone is using it. Even if they do, it is essentially a worthless, rubber-stamp confidence building measure designed to quell concern when LibertyLink rice-type contamination debacles occur, and has little or nothing to do with food safety. In fact, the only procedure required for conducting a field trial of the great majority of GM crops (i.e. all except for a handful involving production of drugs or industrial compounds not meant for food use) is a so-called "notification" of the USDA by the institution doing the field test. The institution fills out a 2-page form with a few attachments, providing basic information about the crop, the gene vector, location of field trial, etc. In response, the USDA issues an "acknowledgement." As the language indicates, these are not true "permits," merely notifications. USDA issues such acknowledgements routinely, without conducting environmental assessments.