-Caveat Lector-
Wednesday, 15 August, 2001, 16:47 GMT 17:47 UK
Greenpeace worried by 'mystery DNA'
By BBC News Online's environment correspondent Alex Kirby
Greenpeace is asking scientists worldwide to help identify a fragment of
DNA found in genetically-modified (GM) soya.
The presence of the fragment, in Monsanto's Roundup Ready soya, was
detected by Belgian scientists.
Greenpeace is urging the UK government to order sales of the soya to be
suspended.
But Monsanto says "the information provided by Greenpeace has not
changed the competent authorities' conclusions of their original risk
assessment".
The Belgian team's discovery, made some months ago and reported now in
the European Journal of Food Research Technology, refers to "a
DNA segment of 534 bp DNA for which no sequence homology could be
detected".
Dr Doug Parr, Greenpeace-UK's chief scientific adviser, said: "No-one
knows what this extra gene sequence is, what it will produce in the
soyabean, and what its effects will be.
Technology 'imprecise'
"If Monsanto did not even get this most basic information right, what should
we then think about the validity of all their safety tests and
experiments, which are based upon these data?
"Despite Monsanto's optimistic reassurances, this research presents further
evidence that genetic modification is an imprecise technology.
"Given the history of omission and negligence associated with it, regulators
should seriously reconsider how they approach approvals of GM
plants."
Lindsay Keenan, of Greenpeace International, said: "From a legal point of
view, the only adequate reaction regulatory bodies could have is to
suspend the GM approval and re-evaluate its environmental and health
impact."
Greenpeace says Monsanto's soya represents more than 50% of all GM
crops globally.
It is grown only in the US, Argentina and Canada, but sold worldwide and
used in processed foods like chocolate, baby-food, bread, pizzas,
ice-cream, and as animal feed.
Monsanto says it has previously shown that "any deletion, rearrangement or
modification of the DNA referred to by Greenpeace occurred at
the time of the original insertion event".
Not new
Tony Combes of Monsanto told BBC News Online: "It would have been a
constituent of the Roundup Ready soyabeans used in all the safety
assessment studies."
"So this clearer data is not new and has in fact been conveyed to all
European Union competent authorities
"There is no discrepancy. The sequence information provided originally has
not changed; it's just that now we know more detail about it."
Mr Combes said studies supported the conclusion that there were no
unexpected effects from the insertion or transformation process, and that
Roundup Ready soya was comparable to conventional beans except for the
one trait which gave it its name.
The Advisory Committee on Releases to the Environment, which advises the
UK government, said last January it was satisfied with
Monsanto's revised risk assessment submitted in response to the Belgian
data.
Monsanto's revised assessment, the committee concluded, "did not alter the
conclusions of the original assessment . . . the presence of the
DNA does not appear to have any deleterious effects with respect to
environmental safety".
A spokesman for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
(Defra) told BBC News Online the Belgian data "are not new and
change nothing".
'Technical' concerns
The Advisory Committee on Novel Foods and Processes, which reports to
the Food Standards Agency, asked Monsanto in January for data
showing the DNA fragment was "silent" and did not result in the production of
a novel protein.
Tony Combes told BBC News Online: "We're doing the experiments to
provide the data the committee wants, and they should be complete
very soon.
"But its concerns are nothing to do with safety. They're all technical."
Steve Wingate, Webmaster
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