EFSA Confirms GM Corn Varieties Safe

Matt Hopkins Posted by Matt Hopkins|4 November 2008

The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), Europe’s top food safety agency, has reaffirmed that two genetically modified (GM) corn varieties in line for approval to enter the EU were safe enough to be cultivated there.

The opinion of Parma, Italy-based EFSA, on the Bt11 seed – developed by Syngenta, and the 1507 – by DuPont’s Pioneer Hi-Bred Internationaland Dow AgroSciences’ unit Mycogen Seeds, was seen as paving the way for possible EU approval.

"The GMO Panel (of EFSA) reaffirms its previous conclusions on the environmental safety of maize Bt11 and 1507, expressed on 19 January 2005, 20 April 2005 and 7 November 2006," EFSA said in an opinion released on its website.

Its declaration on Bt11 and 1507 was issued on the same day as an opinion that France’s ban on a GM corn variety developed by US biotech giant Monsanto and already cleared in the European Union, was unjustified, reports Reuters.

Top Articles
ECCA Calls on Incoming Irish EU Presidency to Strengthen Legal Certainty in Omnibus X