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[SANET-MG] Syngenta acknowledged that they lied



From GM watch
XCERPTS: Officials at the company last week argued that Bt10 is
basically identical to Bt11 corn, which has been approved for sale (see
Nature 434, 423; 2005). But this week, Sarah Hull, a spokeswoman for
Syngenta, confirmed that a marker gene that confers resistance to
ampicillin, a commonly used antibiotic, was present in the Bt10 seeds.

Critics have expressed surprise that neither Syngenta nor the US
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced the presence of the
marker when they admitted that the release of Bt10 had taken place. "It
is quite scandalous," says Greg Jaffe, head of the biotechnology project
at the Center for Science in the Public Interest

In a ruling published last April, for example, the European Food Safety
Authority, which advises European Union governments on food issues, said
that marker genes conferring resistance to ampicillin "should be
restricted to field trials and not be present in genetically modified
plants placed on the market".
------
Stray seeds had antibiotic-resistance genes
Nature
Published online: 29 March 2005; | doi:10.1038/434548a
Colin Macilwain
Accidental release of genetically-modified crops sparks new worries.
http://www.nature.com/news/2005/050328/full/434548a.html

Hundreds of tonnes of genetically modified corn seeds sold to farmers by
mistake over the past four years contained a gene for antibiotic
resistance, Nature has learned. The release of such genes into the
environment is sometimes considered inadvisable, as there is a small
chance that they could flow from crops to microorganisms and spread
problems of antibiotic resistance.

The Swiss biotechnology company Syngenta admitted last week that it had
accidentally released a variety of corn (maize) called Bt10 between 2001
and 2004. Like other crops with the name Bt, this corn had been
genetically modified to produce a protective pesticide. But Bt10 has not
been approved for sale by regulatory agencies.

Officials at the company last week argued that Bt10 is basically
identical to Bt11 corn, which has been approved for sale (see Nature
434, 423; 2005). But this week, Sarah Hull, a spokeswoman for Syngenta,
confirmed that a marker gene that confers resistance to ampicillin, a
commonly used antibiotic, was present in the Bt10 seeds. She adds that
this gene would not have been active in the corn plants that grew from
the seeds.

Antibiotic-resistance genes are widely used as 'tags' during the
production of genetically modified crops, to help breeders identify and
preserve desirable strains. But the genes are often removed before the
seeds enter the food chain. The presence of the marker gene in Bt10 corn
was noted in a 2003 advice notice from a UK government committee, the
Advisory Committee on Releases to the Environment, which was using Bt10
as a comparison to prove that there were no marker genes in Bt11 corn.

Critics have expressed surprise that neither Syngenta nor the US
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced the presence of the
marker when they admitted that the release of Bt10 had taken place. "It
is quite scandalous," says Greg Jaffe, head of the biotechnology project
at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a pressure group in
Washington DC. "This shows that the government and the company are not
being forthright."

Hull says that the company didn't mention the gene's presence because
"it wasn't relevant to the health and safety discussion". She adds that
the antibiotic-resistance genes have been around for a long time.
"They've been studied extensively, and they pose no risk to humans or
animals," she says. Regulators say that the genes present a very small
risk to human health, either directly - if in the stomach of a patient
on antibiotics, for example - or indirectly through gene flow into microbes.

Michael Rodemeyer, director of the Pew Initiative on Food and
Biotechnology, a think-tank in Washington DC, says that the presence of
such genes would be unlikely to see a crop declared unsafe in the United
States - but adds that it could cause problems in Europe.

In a ruling published last April, for example, the European Food Safety
Authority, which advises European Union governments on food issues, said
that marker genes conferring resistance to ampicillin "should be
restricted to field trials and not be present in genetically modified
plants placed on the market". And the Codex Alimentarius Commission, the
international food-standards body, has urged the agricultural
biotechnology industry to use alternative methods to refine genetically
modified strains in the future.

The EPA, which is jointly investigating the release of the Bt10 corn
with the US Department of Agriculture, declined to say what it knew
about the antibiotic-resistance marker. "What the company told us and
when about the marker gene is part of our ongoing investigation and we
are not able to discuss it at this time," the agency said in a statement.

"I think they've done a terrible job," says Margaret Mellon, head of the
food and environment programme at the Union of Concerned Scientists in
Washington DC, referring to both Syngenta and the government agencies.
"There are lots and lots of unanswered questions, and the longer they
remain, the less confidence people are going to have in the technology
and in the regulatory system."




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