Green group urges EU ban on Aventis gene corn

     BRUSSELS, April 27 (Reuters) - Friends of the Earth (FoE) called on
Friday on the European Union to ban
one of the few gene-modified (GM) food products allowed to be used in
the bloc, claiming it had not been proven to
be safe.

     The environment group said a pesticide-resistant maize strain
manufactured by Franco-German group Aventis
(AVE.N) (AVE.PA) should never have been permitted for cultivation and
use in the EU because scientific tests were
insufficient to show it posed no risk to health or the environment -- a
claim denied by Aventis.

     FoE said the maize, marketed as a feed crop, had only been fed to
chickens during testing and not cows and pigs,
which are the most likely to be fed the corn and which have very
different digestive systems.

     A study at Britain's Bristol University, commissioned by FoE, found
the chicken test to be scientifically unsound.
FoE said other research submitted by the company when it applied for
authorisation was equally unconvincing.
FoE campaigner Adrian Bebb told Reuters, ``Consumers have had a gut
feeling that things are not right and this
confirms that they have been right about GM foods.''

     Aventis rejected FoE's claim, saying the studies cited by the group
were only a small part of the evidence it
provided to show its maize was safe. Tests on ruminants had shown the
feed was no different from conventional
maize strains, it said.

     ``They (FoE) drew their conclusions from a selective part of the
documents we supplied to the authorities,''
Aventis spokesman Gerhard Waitz told Reuters. ``As their objective is to
ban GM foods they interpreted it in favour
of their arguments.''

     The maize was granted market authorisation by the EU in 1998 -- one
of just over a dozen GM plants that have
ever been allowed for use in the 15-country bloc which is sceptical of
the new technology that the United States has
embraced.

     The Aventis maize was one of the last GM products to be granted
approval before the EU imposed an informal
moratorium on new permits three years ago, pending new, tougher
legislation on GM authorisations.

     Italy, Austria and Germany have since then banned a number of GM
products cleared by the EU because of fears
over possibly unreliable evidence. FoE said it would push all EU
countries to follow suit over the Aventis maize.