Monsanto Avoids Official French Hearing on its GM Maize

[lovuian]

http://www.lemonde.fr/planete/article/2012/11/09/ogm-monsanto-echappe-a-une-audition-par-l-anses-sur-le-mais-nk603_1788553_3244.html

I will provide a bit of translation since the article is in French
“At a joint hearing held on Wednesday, November 7 by the committees of Social Affairs and Sustainable Development of the National Assembly [France], an official from the National Agency for Food Safety, Environment and Labour (ANSES) explained that the agency would not be hearing from Monsanto as part of the follow up to the publication by controversial biologist Gilles-Eric Seralini on the effects of GM maize NK603, which the company produces.

As quoted by the Doctors’ Daily [publication], the director of risk assessment at ANSES, Dominique Gombert, told members of the Assembly that the agency had sent Monsanto “an extremely specific letter about the questions we wanted to ask them, especially about effects in long-term studies. Following this letter, we had a conference call with Monsanto and lawyers of the company to make us clarify the conditions for bringing about this hearing. Following this pre-hearing, the company stated that, within the time limit, it was not possible for it to mobilize experts, knowing that this hearing will give rise to the publication of verbal exchanges,” reported Mr. Gombert.

“Monsanto has sent us a document of about five pages that essentially describes the current conditions of authorization of GM plants and NK603. I have not found specific evidence regarding any long-term studies that the firm might have conducted,” concluded Mr. Gombert.”

Either Monsanto did not do long term studies or it did and it showed harmful side effects

Stay tuned

the German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR) has already admitted (while rejecting Seralini's study) that no long-term studies have been done on the complete glyphosate herbicide formulations as they are sold and used - only the 'active ingredient' glyphosate has been tested.

http://www.bfr.bund.de/en/press_information/2012/29/a_study_of_the_university_of_caen_neither_constitutes_a_reason_for_a_re_evaluation_of_genetically_modified_nk603_maize_nor_does_it_affect_the_renewal_of_the_glyphosate_approval-131739.html