Germany''s objection to GM maize rejected
The Scientific committee on plants (SCP) has rejected Germany's invocation of the Council directive regarding the genetically modified Bt-maize line. The opinion was adopted by written procedure on 9 November following the committee's meeting on 22 September 2000. The German Competent Authority took the decision to invoke Article 16 earlier in the year because of the suspicion that not all of the preconditions for placing the maize on the market had been met. The Eco-Institute e.V. in Freiburg, Germany, carried out additional research, which recorded that the possibility of the ampicillin resistance gene spreading from the Bt maize line to bacteria, thus increasing the resistance to lactam antibiotics could not be excluded. The Commission acted by asking the SCP to consider whether the information submitted by Germany constituted relevant scientific evidence that would cause the committee to consider the product constituting a risk to human health and the environment, or which would invalidate the original risk assessment for the other Bt products that have been approved or are pending appraisal by the SCP. The SCP conclude that the information offered by Germany neither alters the original risk assessment or invalidates the risk assessments made for other Bt-products. 'Since no actually new data are presented in the material attached to the German invocation, the risk of the antibiotic resistance gene present [...] has to be assessed on the basis of the material originally presented by the company against the present knowledge on the horizontal gene transfer', states the SCP's opinion.h prog
Countries
Germany