Europeans Send Transgenic Corn Back to the Laboratory

By Wolf Rendall

Renessen, a joint venture of the Monsanto and Cargill corporations, has backed away from an attempt to market corn engineered to provide high levels of the amino acid lysine after European regulators questioned the safety of this new variety for human consumption. LY038 is not intended for humans and has been approved for use in other countries, including cultivation in the United States, but the probability of genetic cross-contamination with conventional varieties prompted the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) to demand approval for human consumption as well. Faced with this additional hurdle, Renessen withdrew its petition. The company cited commercial reasons which were not elaborated.

Lysine is a fundamental component in muscle tissue, but animals cannot produce it themselves and must take it in from the food they consume. Because animals living in large-scale industrial cattle, poultry, and swine farms feed on a diet based heavily on grain, and corn in particular which contains very little lysine, it is a limiting factor in producing large quantities of marketable meat. Animals raised in these conditions are typically given lysine supplements to counteract the lack of lysine in their diets. LY038 contains on the order of 50 times the lysine of a typical corn variety, incorporating a gene from the soil bacterium C. glutamicum.

Fears rose as it was apparent that corn grown near LY038 corn could easily develop the same high lysine characteristics as transgenic pollen blows into adjacent conventional corn plots. The EFSA’s GMO panel was concerned because when heated in cooking, Lysine bonds with sugars to form advanced glycoxidation endproducts (AGEs). AGEs oxidize inside the body causing inflammation and have been linked to diabetes, Alzheimers Disease, stroke, cardiovascular disease, kidney dysfunction, and muscle degeneration. This level of regulatory oversight has been conspicuously absent in other countries where LY038 has been approved including the U.S. ,Japan, and New Zealand.

The repertoire of seed companies like Monsanto, which controls 90% of the world market for GM seeds, is dominated by Bt-Cotton, Bt-Corn, and Round-up Ready Soybeans, which have come under fire in recent years by consumers who are unsure about the benefits of these GMOs. LY038 represented an attempt by the biotechnology industry to diversify its portfolio of offerings, although LY038 also contains the Bt gene, a pesticide that occurs in the B. thuringiensis soil bacterium.

Europe has shown itself to be the most aggressively anti-GMO region on earth and this recent development measures up to their past efforts against GMO proliferation and labeling mandates that make sure that consumers can make informed decisions.