NOTE: This very useful comment from Joe Cummins, professor emeritus of genetics at the University of Western Ontario, Canada, is on the inaccurate reporting of the major contamination of Canadian flax exports with the unauthrorised (in Europe) GM herbicide tolerant variety "Triffid". It's a response specifically to "Illegal GM contaminates flax - UK fails to respond"
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=11496:illegal-gm-contaminates-flax-uk-fails-to-respond

Please also note that according to what Greenpeace in Germany has told us, the claim in one report based on the German press that GM flax (linseed) had been found growing in Germany is "crap. So far no GM linseed has been found growing in Germany; only [imported linseed in] food."
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Re: GMW: Illegal GM contaminates flax - UK fails to respond
Joe Cummins

Want to comment on the finding of Triffid genes in Europe and to point out Triffid aint experimental - it was deregulated a decade ago. Canada released Triffid for environmental release in 1996, for feed in 1996 and for food in 1998. The USA authorized the release of Triffid to food and feed in 1998 and to the environment in 1999.

These are all deregulation not "experimental GM herbicide tolerant variety". Triffid has been grown in the open fields in Canada and USA. Although by early 2001, under pressure from Canadian flax growers anxious to protect their markets, Triffid was deregistered and removed from the market in Canada, by that time around 200,000 bushels of Triffid flax seed had been grown on farms across the Prairies.

Triffid likely contaminated most North American flax exports including 'organic' flax because the crop is significantly insect pollinated. Why has the GM contamination escaped careful scrutiny in Europe during those years of Flax export? One explanation may be partly technical at least. The herbicides tolerated by GM flax are sulphonylurea derivatives and the genes transforming flax are not the usual genes used to produce herbicide tolerant crops. The promoter and terminator genes are native from the plant source of resistant genes Arabidopsis. What I am saying is that is that Triffid is a University of Saskatchewan product and does not employ the usual large company genes and that may be a reason they were not detected earlier.

During the past decade there has been a lot of pressure to produce pharmaceutical products and industrial plastics precursors in Flax so as to avoid polluting 'major' food and feed crops. This is being promoted by the usual GM spokespeople. Such mindless pollution of flax fails to recognize the crops natural dietary and medicinal properties.

The *triffid* is a highly venomous fictional plant species, the titular antagonist from John Wyndham's 1951 novel 'The Day of the *Triffids*.' The University of Saskatchewan appears to have used that great novel as a model for its GM creation.

cheers, prof. joe cummins