Mark Buckingham, a spokesman for Monsanto, dismissed the report's findings.
"We are confident that GM crops can be and are being properly assessed for safety and that GM crops being used by farmers are just as safe and in some cases safer than conventional crops and foods," he said.
According to a compendium of EU-funded research published by the European Commission in 2010, "there is, as of today, no scientific evidence associating GMOs with higher risks for the environment or for food and feed safety than conventional plants and organisms."
Buckingham added that GM crops are "designed to be safe" by scientists and plant breeders, and that national and international regulators whose job is "to check that a crop is safe and to protect consumers" have certified GM.
"Since GM crops were first grown on a large scale 19 years ago in the mid 1990's, billions of meals including ingredients from these crops have been safety consumed by people around the world. No health effects what so ever have been observed"--"GM crops have a track record of safety," said the Monsanto spokesperson.
The author of the new study, however, disagreed. At the request of the Norwegian Environment Agency, the report focused on analysing the herbicide tolerant trait of Monsanto's 'Intacta' crop.
"The literature contains a number of recent scientific studies which do indicate potential adverse effects," said Catacora-Vargas, noting that Monsanto's comment solely concerned Intacta's insect resistance.
By selectively focusing on studies of only certain impacts of the crop, Monsanto and other biotechnology companies are misleading the public.
She added that the EU's 2010 compendium, which is also cited in the new Norwegian study, "is one of the very few with specific research on Intacta. These few papers are insufficient"--"evidence wise"--"to assert that Intacta is safe to the environment and human health. If integral analysis of GM crops' sustainability is incomplete, it is just because the knowledge available on GMO safety and sustainability is also incomplete. There are more unknowns than evidence on the safety of GM crops."
The release of the new Norwegian report coincided with a spate of bad news for the biotechnology food industry. An expensive two-year research trial to test GM wheat's ability to repel aphids (also known as plant lice), conducted by Rothamsted Research, failed spectacularly to produce the desired results.
Most GM crops contain the Roundup Ready trait patented by Monsanto. But in March, an assessment by the World Health Organization's (WHO) cancer arm published in The Lancet, found that Roundup is "probably carcinogenic to humans."
The study evaluated evidence of human exposures to Roundup since 2001, largely for agricultural workers in the US, Canada and Sweden. Alarmingly, it found "limited evidence of carcinogenicity in humans for non-Hodgkin lymphoma," along with "convincing evidence that glyphosate also can cause cancer in laboratory animals."
According to Dr. Helen Wallace of the campaigning group, Genewatch UK, Monsanto's GM crops "are now failing in the field due to the growth of superweeds resistant to the weedkiller RoundUp which is blanket sprayed on these GM plants."
Despite the "high failure rate of experimental GM crops," Genewatch UK notes ongoing efforts at "collaboration between government-funded scientists, ministers and industry on a PR strategy to try to rehabilitate GM crops in Britain and weaken regulations."
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