BioWorld International Correspondent

BRUSSELS, Belgium - Reports of unauthorized GM rice in Europe continued to emerge over the past week, leaving the biotech industry exposed to allegations of inadequate controls. The European Union authorities have asked their U.S. counterparts for an explanation about how so much illegal GMO rice from the U.S. is turning up in the Netherlands, Sweden, France, Germany and Switzerland.

In the UK, environmental group Friends of the Earth said that it had found traces of GMOs in two rice samples from the country-wide supermarket chain, Morrisons, which now has withdrawn the products. On Sept. 12, the Germany-based discount chain Aldi Nord, which operates about 3,500 shops in Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Denmark, France, Spain and Portugal, decided to take a rice brand off the shelves, following claims from Greenpeace that the rice had tested positive for LL601. Also on Sept. 12, Migros, the largest supermarket chain in Switzerland, confirmed traces of LL601 and said it was holding back its U.S. supplies and recalling rice products already sold. France has found seven samples that are positive - out of a total of 19 - for traces of LL601. And the latest EU figures show that of 162 rice varieties checked, 33 contained illegal GM rice from the U.S.

Green politician and former German farm minister, Renate Kunast, said last week that the EU should ban rice coming from the U.S. She said that following the recent discovery of illegal GM rice from the U.S. on sale in the EU, member states should improve their controls on imports.

On Sept. 18, French socialist member of the European Parliament, Anne Ferreira, demanded a halt to "genetic pollution," claiming that the inability of biotech companies and the authorities to safely contain GM crops had been demonstrated by the recent cases of cross-contamination of non-GM foods.

The European Union food safety authority stated on Sept. 15 that the traces of Bayer's LL601 are "not likely to pose an imminent safety concern to humans or animals." However, it added, exposure cannot be accurately estimated.

"Exposure levels to LL601 in the EU member states cannot be estimated accurately from the data provided and little is known with respect to the extent of LL601 in the rice supply," the agency said. The authority's GMO panel said it "has evaluated the available scientific data on LLRICE601 and concluded that there are insufficient data to provide a full risk assessment."

The concerns over GM crops spilled over into the European Union's meeting of agriculture ministers on Sept. 18, at which a majority of member states rejected authorization of imports of a genetically modified oilseed rape from Bayer. The council had been asked for a decision on marketing oilseed rape products (Brassica napus L., lines Ms8, Rf3 and Ms8xRf3) genetically modified for tolerance to the herbicide glufosinate-ammonium. Earlier discussions in EU expert committees had failed to reach a decision

Authorization for the product was opposed by France, Slovenia, Austria, Estonia, Malta, Latvia, Italy, Greece, Lithuania, Cyprus, Denmark, Hungary, Poland and Luxembourg, and was supported by Portugal, Germany, Finland, the UK, the Netherlands and Belgium. Since Spain, Sweden, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Ireland abstained, the result was a stalemate.

"A familiar situation to what we have faced before," said Finnish agriculture minister Juha Korkeaoja - who currently chairs the EU agriculture council. "There was neither a majority for nor a majority against." In consequence, he admitted, the issue will be resolved by officials rather than politicians: Under EU rules, the senior officials who make up the European Commission makes the final decision whether a GM crop will be authorized if EU ministers cannot agree.

But Helen Holder, GM campaigner at Friends of the Earth Europe, said, "Most member states are not happy for this genetically modified oilseed rape to be allowed into the EU. The European Commission must listen to these national concerns and refuse to authorize the crop." She accused the Commission of being "pro-biotech" because it "has systematically authorized genetically modified organisms, regardless of the general voting pattern by national ministers."

And in a parallel meeting of EU experts also on Sept. 18, biotechnology suffered another setback. There was insufficient support for a commission proposal to force Hungary to lift its ban on Monsanto's MON810 maize, which has been approved by the EU. Since January 2005, the authorities in Budapest have prohibited the use, sale, production and import of the seeds, as a result of safety concerns. The commission now will put the subject to a vote among EU ministers at an upcoming council meeting.

Setback For Advanced Therapies Legislation

The European Union's plans for new rules on advanced therapies ran into trouble last week when the key European Parliament committee failed to agree on a legal text. The bid to create a European framework for cell therapy, gene therapy and tissue-engineered products is supported by the biotech industry because it could create a single, European marketing authorization for the next generation of high-technology medical treatments.

On Sept. 14, the European Parliament's environment committee rejected the draft report prepared by Slovak doctor Miroslav Mikol ik. A new report now will have to be drafted. The European biotech industry is pushing for the new legislation, because it wants to ensure that hospitals are subject to the same authorization procedure as industry. "In the interests of patient safety, all manufacturers preparing products routinely should have to comply with the same standards of quality, safety and efficacy," argued Europabio, the European biotech industry lobby.

The industry also wants to bring the highest standards into all European regulatory decisions on advanced products. It is concerned that national expertise is not always at a sufficient level to respond to marketing authorization applications for products of that type. At the same time, it wants to make sure that the ethical debate raised by advanced therapies is conducted at national level, since attempts to reach agreement at European level are likely to delay any new legislation.

Biochemist Heads European Research Council

The European Research Council has appointed a biochemist as its first secretary general. Ernst-Ludwig Winnacker, professor of biochemistry at the University of Munich, will head the council until June 2009. The council, created at the end of 2005, has been set up to become the first pan-European funding agency for frontier research. Its claim is that early stage, as well as fully established investigators from across Europe, will be able to compete for its grants, with scientific excellence as the sole criterion for funding.