Western Mail
 
21 June 2005
 
'Useless GM file' attack
 
The row over the importation of illegal GM cattle feed maize into Europe  
continued this week with Welsh campaigners lodging a formal complaint about  
"Stalinist" action by Britain's official food safety watchdog body.
 
The Food Standards Agency heavily censored a dossier on the illegal Bt10  
maize obtained by GM Free Cymru under the Freedom of Information Act.
 
The agency blanked out large sections of a letter from the EU's Institute  
for health and consumer protection and most of a file relating to the  maize.
 
Even the telephone numbers of the European Commission and the biotech  
company Syngenta were covered in thick black ink, along with statistics on the  
trade in maize between Europe and the US.
 
"It took us weeks of pressure to get these documents and when we get them  we 
find they've been so heavily doctored they are almost useless.It's a joke,"  
GM Free Cymru's Brian John.
 
The group claims the agency is too close to the giant biotech companies  
desperate to get their products into Europe.
 
"The censoring of these documents raises new questions about the agency's  
role in this scandal, and its relationship with giant biotech companies,"said Dr 
 John, who has lodged a formal complaint with the agency.
 
"After endless procrastination, we have at last been sent a bunch of  
documents relating to the scandal, only to find that they have been heavily  censored 
in manner that would have done credit to Stalinist Russia."
 
The trade in illegal GM maize was originally exposed in the scientific  
magazine Nature in March, but it was only later that it emerged that  the maize 
contains a gene conferring resistance to antibiotics.  If it  entered the food 
chain it could create resistance to antibiotics.
 
At least 1,000 tonnes is known to have illegally landed in Europe before  the 
mistake was revealed the maize has also been sent to Japan and other  
countries. A shipment of 2,500 tonnes was seized in Ireland last month.
 
The Swiss-based biotech company Syngenta said it had mistakenly sold the  
wrong maize to American farmers for the past four years.  In April, the EU  
introduced emergency measures to stop any shipments of contaminated animal  feeds, 
measures that led to the discovery of the illegal maize in Ireland.
 
Japan, the largest importer of US maize, said it will now test every  
shipment for illegal contamination.
 
The Food Standards Agency said it was not aware of any of the maize  entering 
Britain.