http://terreetmer.canalblog.com/archives/2010/01/13/16437394.html

http://www.mdrgf.org/pdf/Dossier_presse_Roundup_final.pdf

Monsanto Pulls GM Corn Amid Serious Food Safety Concerns

Applicant's dossiers contained wide-ranging fraudulent research

For the first time, a GM multinational has pulled two GM corn varieties from the regulatory and assessment process at the eleventh hour (1), after planning for a future income of several billion dollars per year from global sales (2). Monsanto has abandoned its ambitious plans for a so-called "second generation GM crop" rather than accede to a request from European regulators for additional research and safety data (3).

Under conditions of great secrecy, Monsanto has informed EFSA that it no longer wishes to pursue its application for approval of GM maize LY038 and the stacked variety LY038 x MON810. Both of these varieties were designed to accelerate the growth rate of animals. Two letters were sent to EFSA from the Monsanto subsidiary company Renessen at the end of April this year confirming the withdrawal of its applications originally submitted in 2005 and 2006. The letters cite "decreased commercial value worldwide" and state that the high-lysene varieties "will no longer be a part of the Renessen business strategy in the near future." (4) There has been no announcement of these decisions on the Monsanto web site, and there are no mentions on EFSA or European Commission web sites either. In other words, there is a conspiracy of silence involving both the applicants and the regulators.

The two letters sent to EFSA in April requested the return of all dossier material (varietal characterization, experimental protocols, and test results) which was submitted with the applications for cultivation, animal feed and human food (4). EFSA acceded to this request, making it impossible for any future independent researchers to analyse the Monsanto / Renessen data. That in itself is profoundly disturbing.

Scientists who have followed these two applications are quite convinced that the "decisions to withdraw" have nothing to do with commercial considerations and everything to do with food safety. In other words, the varieties are too dangerous to be allowed onto the open market -- although they would certainly have been approved by EFSA and most other European regulatory authorities had it not been for the diligence of independent scientists in New Zealand who subjected the application dossiers to very close scrutiny (5). In the absence of such scrutiny in the United States, the varieties were approved in 2005 for cultivation, animal feed and human food use on the other side of the Atlantic (6). Consents for food and feed use were also given in Japan, Canada, the Philippines, and South Korea. In 2007 Food Standards Australia and New Zealand (FSANZ) approved LY038 for food and feed use in spite of strenuous objections from the Green Party and scientists at Canterbury University's Centre for Integrated Research in Biosafety (INBI) who warned that the new corn was not safe for humans when cooked (7). They also expressed concerns about unpredictable health effects, increased levels of toxins in high- lysene corn, and possible allergies and links to cancer.

The socialist mayor of Vert of Vert-Saint-Denis (Seine-et-Marne Region, East of Paris) has demanded that Roundup herbisides be withdrawn from the shelves of a DIY store in neighbouring town, following recent CRIIGEN research work.

The chemical in question is a weed-killer, the Roundup, which, according to the mayor, pollutes the ground water in Champigny. The ground water in Champigny supplies drinking water to one million people in the Seine-et-Marne and part of the Essonne regions, as Stéphane Daron, Mayor's Cabinet Executive Officer, stated to AFP (Agence France Presse), thus confirming a piece of information from the local edition of Le Parisien.

Stéphane Daron stated: "We heard that Roundup active agents were recently traced at the bottom the sheet of water. This is definitely an issue in terms of human health and biodiversity", he said, referring to a scientific paper from the University of Caen which demonstrates the noxiousness of Roundup.

According to Daron "this is going to lead to extra costs for the users in the sense that we are going to need to find some procedure to decontaminate drinking water".

The town hall sent three letters to the headquarters of the store in Cesson since May 2009, criticising them for promoting the product, thus encouraging citizens to use it" and demanding/suggesting that it should be withdrawn from the shelves of the store, "in a civic gesture", added M. Daron.

He regretted that "so far, we haven't heard from Leroy-Merlin".

The townhall admits the limits of its action, saying that ideally the herbicides ought be withdrawn from the stores, but the trouble being that these products have been approved by the Ministry of Agriculture".

However, they want to bring the case before the association of communes in Sénart (San) which comprises nine different municipalities in the region and before the General Council of the Département.

According to AFP, Leroy-Merlin headquarters are refusing to comment. 

Roundup is the number one selling herbicide worldwide and it is produced by the US company Monsanto.

For the original AFP wire in French, click below:

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5idc36Cb5_1lPnLv9bo0Awzk-T5ag

Contact : Prof. Gilles-Eric Seralini,  This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tox.2009.06.006

For any question please contact Pr. Gilles-Eric Séralini, This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

Press Release - July 2nd 2009

On 11 June 2009, the Minister of Agriculture turned down the request of CRIIGEN

Tuesday, 30 June 2009

Following studies led by Pr Séralini, President of the Scientific Council of CRIIGEN, studies highlighting the toxicity of Roundup and the fact it was insufficiently tested, CRIIGEN referred the case to the French Ministry of Agriculture, with a letter dated 23 March 2009, calling for a suspension of marketing authorisation for Roundup. In a letter dated 11 June 2009 (see link below), the Minister turned down this request, relying on the conclusions drawn by the experts. 

CRIIGEN is referring the case to the French State Council on the matter at issue. Indeed, the toxic actions of Round up have been greatly underestimated, insofar as glyphosate alone and not the commercial formulations with adjuvants has been tested in the long term on mammals. 

Read the Minster's letter                                                              

For further details please contact Mme Lepage's office + 33 1 56 59 29 56

Different Roundup Formulations Lead to Embryonic, Umbilical Cord and Placental Cell Death and Are Poorly Assessed - January 2009

For the first time, the toxicity mechanisms of four different Roundup formulations were studied in human cells. They act at doses where they are not herbicides anymore. The cells were neonatal cells freshly isolated from the umbilical cord, or less sensitive cell lines specially used to measure pollutant toxicity.

Article's reference: http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/tx800218n

Press Release

"The French an American spin offs of the research supported by CRIIGEN":

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=weed-whacking-herbicide-p

Effects of the Herbicide Roundup on Human Embryonic Cells  - April 2007

Professor Séralini’s group, in the University of Caen, France, just published a study on the previously unknown toxic effects of Roundup on human embryonic cells. Roundup is the major herbicide in use worldwide, including on GMOs for food and feed. 

Read the Press release 

Article's reference: Arch. Environ. Contam. Toxicol. 53, 126–133 (2007) http://www.springerlink.com DOI: 10.1007/s00244-006-0154-8

Time and Dose-Dependent Effects of Roundup on Human Embryonic and Placental Cells