TITLE:  Cows die mysteriously on farm in Hesse / Germany
SOURCE: Greenpeace Germany
DATE:   Dec 8, 2003

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Cows die mysteriously on farm in Hesse / Germany
Greenpeace calls for investigation by Robert-Koch Institute, since
cows were fed on GM maize

Berlin, 8 Dec. - Fifteen Greenpeace activists are today protesting
with a cow's skeleton in front of the Robert-Koch Institute in Berlin.
A banner questions the safety of genetically engineered feed. The
protest is being made because the institute has not yet clarified the
puzzling circumstances, which led to twelve cows dying on a farm in
the state of Hesse, although it is officially the institute's
responsibility to do so.

The animals were fed genetically manipulated maize between 1997 and
2001. The Robert-Koch Institute is responsible for authorising the GM
maize and has so far re-fused to instigate further investigations to
clarify what has happened. Greenpeace is calling for a full
investigation into the deaths of the cows and an immediate ban on the
GM maize concerned, the Syngenta company's "bt176" maize.

"The Robert-Koch Institute manages genetic engineering instead of
actively ensuring safety and the scrutiny of its use," says Henning
Strodthoff, genetic engineering expert at Greenpeace. "The GM maize
should never have been approved. Even the US has now taken it off the
market. The incident in Hesse again shows how lightly the risks of
genetic engineering are considered. In this situation no new licences
for GM plants should be issued," Henning Strodthoff went on, "and
certainly not by this institute."

The investigations made so far for the most part rule out the
possibility of common diseases or errors in feeding the animals as the
cause of the cows dying. Syngenta gave the farmer partial
compensation
in 2002 but refused to recognise the GM maize as being the cause. The
farmer called in vain on the authorities and Syngenta to provide more
support in making a full investigation into the case, and has now made
the details of it available to Greenpeace.

This GM maize is in Europe only grown commercially in Spain. Studies
on bt176 maize have again and again made surprising findings. The
newly created Bt protein which is in fact supposed to protect the
maize from particular insects that feed on it, for example, becomes
degraded more slowly than had been anticipated. It is found in cows'
stomachs, intestines and excrement. Experiments on mice show that it
may function similarly with mammals, something which had always been
ruled out. The case is particularly explosive because the EU is
discussing a new application for another Syngenta GM maize. This bt11
maize is intended for human consumption, and forms the same
poisonous
protein.

There are in Germany only a few companies and chain stores like the
Metro group that want to use genetic engineering in the products they
sell and market. Metro also does not rule out the possibility that
genetic engineering is already present in its own brands. In Germany
genetic engineering gets into consumers' food via animal feed.


[more information in German can be found at:
http://www.greenpeace.org/deutschland/fakten/gentechnik/
genmanipuliertes%20tierfutter/index