WASHINGTON, Sept. 7, 2016 - The
European Food Safety Authority’s GMO panel has
issued a clean bill of health to Syngenta’s genetically modified five-event
stack in maize, finding no safety risk even if the grains were accidentally
released into the environment.
Syngenta applied for approval of
the stack in 2011 for food and feed uses, import and processing – but not for
cultivation.
EFSA said it had previously
identified no safety concerns in the five single events that are combined to
produce the five-event stack, which comprises Bt11 × 59122 × MIR604 × 1507 ×
GA21. The stacked traits convey herbicide tolerance to glyphosate- and
glufosinate ammonium-based herbicides, and resistance to specific insect pests,
including larvae of the European corn borer, Mediterranean corn borer and corn
rootworm.
“No new data on the single events,
leading to a modification of the original conclusions on their safety, were
identified,” the EFSA panel said in a paper.
The conclusion also applies to any
of 20 subcombinations of the events, but the GMO panel said Syngenta “should
provide relevant information, if these subcombinations were to be created via
targeted breeding approaches and imported into the EU in the future.”
A minority opinion attached to the
EFSA scientific paper, however, said that “no specific data regarding any of
those 20 subcombinations have been provided by the applicant, who also did not
give a satisfactory rationale explaining the reasons why those data are missing
and/or why (the applicant) would consider that they are not necessary for the
risk assessment.”
The next stop in the process is
the European Commission, which
has three months to review EFSA’s assessment, and after that to the
Standing Committee on the Food Chain and Animal Health.
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