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[SANET-MG] judge orders disclosure of secret maize report
At least on court seems to have honorable judges who recognized that CBI
designation was being used to hide evidence of injury from GM food and feed.
Judges order disclosure of secret study on GM risks
By Geoffrey Lean, Environment Editor the independent
12 June 2005
Judges have ordered the publication of a secret study which has raised
fears that eating GM food may harm human health, after it was revealed
in The Independent on Sunday last month.
A court in Cologne last week granted Greenpeace access to the 1,139-page
study - by the giant biotech firm Monsanto - which found that rats fed a
modified corn had smaller kidneys and raised levels of white blood cells
and lymphocytes compared with those fed a non-GM corn.
The maize - code-named MON 863 - is expected to be approved for human
consumption in Europe later this year. Professor Gilles-Eric Seralini of
the University of Caen, who scrutinises the safety of GM products for
the European Commission and French government, describes the findings as
"very worrying".
Environmental groups in several European countries have been pressing
for the report's publication for months. They intensified their campaign
after The Independent on Sunday's disclosures, and the EC also called
for the secrecy to be lifted.
Monsanto - which dismisses the differences between the rats as pure
chance - supplied the study to safety authorities on condition it was
kept confidential. It has consistently refused to make the study public,
saying it "contains confidential business information which could be of
commercial use to our competitors". Last week the dispute ended in a
German court, where Greenpeace argued the study should be published
under a European Union law, namely the public should have access to
documents assessing GM risks.
The court agreed. Greenpeace hailed the victory as "an important
success". Monsanto appealed. Tony Combes, UK director of corporate
affairs, said: "Everyone who needs to see [the study] has seen it."
The company denies environmentalists' accusations that it is appealing
to try to keep the study secret while European ministers decide next
month whether to allow the corn to be sold for human consumption. If
ministers cannot agree, the EC has made clear it will wave it through
anyway, using a loophole in European law.
Dr Brian John, of GM-free Cymru, welcomed the court's decision and said
it would be "irresponsible and cynical in the extreme" to pass the corn
for human consumption
judge orders
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