EU Commission repeatedly refuses offers of help to develop detection methods for the new generation of GMOs

The EU Commission has repeatedly refused offers of expert help to develop and implement detection methods for the new generation of GMOs – see the article below by Eric Meunier of the French organisation, Inf’OGM.

Dr Michael Antoniou, a London-based molecular geneticist, commented:

“It is very disappointing that the EU Commission has refused to support work to develop detection methods for the new generation of epigenetically altered or gene edited GM crops. I hope this will change.

“In this context I agree with the statement from the Scientific Advice Mechanism (SAM) that development of any method used to detect the new GM crops is dependent on whether 'detailed molecular information on the changes is available a priori'.

“As indicated in the article below, with old style transgenic GM crops you could analyse for GMO presence without prior knowledge of exactly which GMO may be present. This is because old style transgenes possessed common elements such as the CaMV promoter or NOS terminator. Thus you could look generically for these types of elements to see if any GMO is present without knowing exactly which one it is, before progressing to something more specific.

“In the case of new generation GM crops, which result in epigenetic or gene edited changes, this is not the case. There may be no introduced foreign DNA elements to look for. Hence we need to have information on the molecular changes in advance to develop the analytical method for any given altered crop.

“Hence we need these epigenetically altered or gene edited crops to be classed as GM, as they surely are, so that their molecular details are declared. Once these are known, then analytical methods for them can be developed in a very straightforward manner.”
—

EU: No program to detect new GMOs

Eric Meunier
Inf’OGM, 5 Oct 2017
https://www.infogm.org/6361-eu-no-program-to-detect-new-gmos?lang=fr
[edits by GMWatch in square brackets for English clarity]

In April 2017, the European Commission refused the official European Network of GMO Laboratories (ENGL), in charge of GMO detection and identification, to undertake a specific study on the new techniques of genetic modification. A surprising position from the European risk manager [which] thus deprives itself [of] an important technical resource on a very political question.

Deciding that the new techniques of genetic modification give rise to GMOs falling under the scope of the European legislation notably implies the capability to detect the modifications, to identify them, trace them and differentiate them from mutations and epimutations that can spontaneously appear in nature. This issue of detection and identification of new GMOs is so crucial that the seed industry tries to make believe that such a traceability is impossible or extremely difficult. And this lobby seems efficient : in April 2017, the report of the Scientific Advice Mechanism (SAM) [1] claimed that “The detection of changes made with any technique [...] is possible with a variety of analytical methods, if detailed molecular information on the changes is available a priori” [2]. In other words, it would be impossible to detect modifications if their presence and nature is not known and detailed beforehand. A stance Inf’OGM has already criticized, recalling the work of Inra and ENGL on the possible detection of unknown GMOs (with no prior information) [3].

When the detection network offers its help

The European Network of GMO Laboratories, the referring network of the European Commission, plays an “an eminent role in the development, harmonisation and standardisation of means and methods for sampling, detection, identification and quantification of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs)”. To do so, the ENGL has thematic working groups, cooperative research projects, enables technology transfer among members… and organises trainings and annual meetings to exchange ideas, knowledge and opinions.

In April 2017, in Ispra - Italy, the ENGL talked about the issue of the new techniques. If the meeting report [4] is short, it is nonetheless informative. The ENGL underlined it “could play a role in the discussion on detectability of new organisms generated with new techniques”. Meaning that the ENGL had not yet been mobilised on this issue, which is already quite surprising… but the European Commission’s answer is even more surprising : “SANTE explained that the ENGL is a very important network, but that the Commission decided to have a more open debate on this issue looking into the future from a broader perspective”. In other words, ENGL’s experts were willing to examine this issue but the Commission refused.

The requests started in 2013

Intrigued, Inf’OGM read in details the other meeting report of the ENGL. And found out that the issue of the new GMOs detection had already been raised in 2013 (the report of the previous years are not online) and until April 2017. Several times, the ENGL reminded it could play a role in this matter. But it never led to a dedicated working group … And in September 2016, it was agreed that “it is premature to initiate further actions until the legal situation has been clarified”. Will the recent refusal from the Commission put an end to the request of the ENGL to deal with this issue?

Inf’OGM already reported that, in order to detect the new GMOs, a matrix approach collecting different evidences could be imagined. But this would necessarily need “a research project [...] funded by the European Commission to establish the protocols, as it was done for transgenic plants in the late 1990s and early 2000s” [5]. But for the European Commission, such a project is apparently not on the agenda.

Notes

[1] Inf'OGM, « Nouveaux OGM : l’Europe mobilise (à nouveau) des scientifiques », Eric MEUNIER, 29 mars 2017

[2] Inf'OGM, « EU - New GMOs : a political report... under scientific camouflage  », Eric MEUNIER, 22 septembre 2017

[3] Inf'OGM, « EU - New GMOs : a political report... under scientific camouflage  », Eric MEUNIER, 22 septembre 2017

[4] http://gmo-crl.jrc.ec.europa.eu/ENGL/docs/ENGL-Plenary-27th.pdf

[5] Inf'OGM, « EU - New GMOs : a political report... under scientific camouflage  », Eric MEUNIER, 22 septembre 2017