Actually, I did produce such evidence. I looked at three of his examples of incidents contradicting the standard view of GMO safety and found:
• One did not contradict current views of safety
• One was a study with unorthodox methodology (Lotter himself says as
much) that has not seen journal publication.
• One was from a mass-market book by a non-scientist.
Nice cherrypicking. Is there a global warming denier handbook you reference before posting?
EFSA dealings makes as little sense to me as doing so with all FDA deaings.
EFSA doesn’t not equal the FDA. There you go again with the same tactics of climate change deniers. Focusing on false equivalencies and distractions.
Sorry, but that distracting drivel doesn’t work on me and only further erodes your position.
That's a damn good reason to be wary of the EFSA. However, so far there is no evidence of corruption in this specific case
It's becoming more and more obvious that you're only going to see what you want to see.
It was very crafty of you to quote both of my links and pretend to address both without doing so.
From link two:
" … This report confirms that there is no effective system in place at the agencies to ban conflicts of interest or to stop staff going through the revolving doors between the agencies and industry. Ongoing conflicts of interest at EFSA and the EMA jeopardise food safety and public health. The agencies have so far failed to take the action which is so badly needed”
I checked and Ms. Banati was not on this panel
You’re conveniently making the false assumption that the problems weren’t endemic at the EFSA despite evidence to the contrary.
You’re good at that.
But, ok, I’ll play… just who was on that “esteemed” EFSA panel?
Hans Christer Andersson?
Hans Christer Andersson has been regularly involved in ILSI conferences and workshops over the last decade. He co-authored an article with employees from Nestlé, Danone and ILSI, coordinated by ILSI Europe which influenced a piece of EFSA guidance in 2008.
Over the last decade Andersson has been regularly involved in ILSI activities, participating in several ILSI workshops, including in Marseille in 2002, in Brussels in 2005, in Paris in 2009 and 2011. In 2003, he co-authored an article coordinated by ILSI Europe’s Natural toxin task force entitled “Guidance for the safety assessment of botanicals and botanical preparations for use in food and food supplements” with employees from Nestlé, Danone and ILSI on “assessing the safety of [botanicals bred with the assistance of genetic engineering technology] with physiological (or functional) health benefits”.
In 2008, EFSA issued a scientific opinion with almost the same title: “Guidance on Safety assessment of botanicals and botanical preparations intended for use as ingredients in food supplements”. The ILSI article was one of the key references for the EFSA’s opinion.
Salvatore Arpaia?
He was a former GM plant designer who developed a transgenic pest- resistant aubergine with the help of Monsanto in the late 1990s, using the same marker gene (nptII) as BASF used for the Amflora potato.
From 1989 till 2002 he was an employee of Italian biotech company Metapontum Agrobios, which managed “several important biotechnological projects aimed to obtain insects and virus resistant plants and improve quality of industrial and agronomic species”.
In 2006 and 2007 Arpaia received funding from his former employer Metapontum Agrobios to continue studies “on the evaluation of the environmental impact of Bt-expressing eggplant and potato”. During his career at Metapontum Agrobios, and in collaboration with the Italian Instituto Sperimentale per l’Orticoltura and Monsanto, Arpaia developed a transgenic aubergine resistant to the Colorado potato beetle, a common pest.
To create this GM insect-resistant plant he and his team used the same antibiotic resistance gene nptII that BASF used to create its Amflora potato. In 2000, Metapontum Agrobios signed a petition to express his “support for the use of recombinant DNA as a potent tool for the achievement of a productive and sustainable agricultural system”. The petition was the centre piece of the AgBioWorld initiative led by the ultra-right Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) in Washington for its campaign against “death by regulation”. CEI is funded by corporate sponsors including Monsanto and Dow.
Detlef Bartsch?
Former consultant for Monsanto. In 2002, he appeared in a promotional video produced by the biotech industry. In 2008, he co-signed an article aiming at redesigning the risk assessment of GM insect-resistant crops, along with employees from Monsanto, Dupont, Syngenta, BASF and GMO panel colleagues, Schiemann and Sweet.
Detlef Bartsch has been scientific director at the Federal Office of Consumer Protection and Food Safety (BVL) in Germany since 2002. Well-known for his pro-GMO views he even appeared in a promotional video produced by the biotech industry in 2002. In 2008, Bartsch co-signed an article in the journal Nature Biotechnology with employees from Monsanto, DuPont, Syngenta and BASF, and with EFSA GMO panel colleagues Joachim Schiemann and Jeremy Sweet on redesigning the risk assessment of GM insect-resistant crops that produce their own pesticide and indiscriminately kill non-target arthropods – which may reduce biodiversity in fields.
The article intends to “provide guidance to regulatory agencies” and to “help harmonize regulatory requirements between different countries and different regions of the world” – an old dream of the biotech industry. In 2004 Bartsch reviewed a Monsanto-funded report on the impact of agricultural biotechnology on biodiversity. Since 2002 he is a member of the German Society for Plant Breeding (GPZ e.V.), which is funded among others by BASF, Monsanto, Syngenta, Pioneer.
In 2000, when he was a researcher at the Technical University of Aachen (RWTH), Bartsch launched an appeal to environmental groups called “Don’t neglect the ecological advantages of plant biotechnology”. Bartsch has been a member of the International Society for Biosafety Research (ISBR) since 2002, sponsored by biotech companies through ILSI and Croplife International.
Howard Davies?
His institute has received funding from Monsanto to introduce GM potatoes in Kenya and it has external contracts with BASF and Bayer. Some of its sponsors are not disclosed “for commercial reasons”. Davies has spoken at ILSI conferences and has been a scientific reviewer for ILSI and biotech industry publications.
Howard Davies has researched GM potatoes at the Scottish Crop Research Institute (SCRI), recently renamed the James Hutton Institute, for a number of years. According to SCRI’s 2009 annual report, Davies’ employer was leading work to support virus-resistant GM potato introduction in Kenya as part of a project backed by The Monsanto Fund. Monsanto supported the SCRI with a grant of £186,000 (€212,000). The SCRI also has external research contracts with biotech giants BASF and Bayer. Another of the SCRI’s external contracts has been on “potato breeding” but the name of the funder is undisclosed for commercial reasons. In 2008, the SCRI also worked with Syngenta to develop a mathematical model.
Davies is also directly linked to the biotech industry. He has collaborated with ILSI and several biotech companies, and spoken at an ILSI workshop. In 2004 and 2006, at ILSI’s request, he acted as a reviewer of ILSI-led scientific articles before they were submitted for publication. In 2007 he did the same for an article authored by employees from DuPont, Monsanto, Bayer, Cargill, Syngenta, BASF, Dow, and ILSI. It is not clear whether he was paid for these jobs. In November 2009 Davies gave a presentation in Paris at an ILSI Health and Environmental Sciences Institute (HESI) workshop on “Evaluating biological variation in non-transgenic crops”. Other speakers included employees from DuPont, Bayer and Monsanto.
Patrick du Jardin?
A paid consultant for Monsanto in 2006. In November 2007, he appeared to act as a lobbyist on behalf of the biotech industry by handing over an open letter to the then Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas. Over the last decade, du Jardin has developed research on GM plants using several antibiotic-resistant marker genes, similar to those used by BASF in the Amflora potato.
In 2006 du Jardin had a four-month contract as a consultant for Monsanto. His job was to “consolidate a report” on agrobiotech research in Sub-Saharan Africa, according to his declaration of interests to EFSA. In 2006-2007 he gave lectures at the university of Liège, Belgium, with a former Monsanto employee.
While a member of EFSA’s GMO panel, Patrick du Jardin appeared to act as a lobbyist for the biotech industry. On 28 November 2007 he handed over an open letter to the then European Commissioner for the Environment Stavros Dimas with two other pro-GM scientists from the European Federation of Biotechnology (EFB) – “a front for companies like Monsanto”, according to Greenpeace. The letter was an answer to two draft decisions that Dimas had made public a week earlier and that could block marketing approval for new GMOs from Syngenta and Pioneer. The three scientists gave a press conference in front of the Berlaymont building. They were backed by Europabio, the biotech industry lobby group in the EU.
Du Jardin also has a scientific conflict of interests in the Amflora dossier as a result of his own research on GM potatoes with an antibiotic-resistant transfer gene similar to the one used by BASF in Amflora.
Jozsef Kiss?
Jozsef Kiss’s lab was formerly funded by GM seed producer Pioneer Hi-Bred to conduct field studies on the environmental impact of GM maize.Pioneer Hi-Bred also had several contracts with researchers from Kiss’s institute from 2006 to 2009.
From 2006 to 2009, GM seeds giant Pioneer Hi-Bred had several contracts with researchers from Jozsef Kiss’s institute at Szent Istvan University, Hungary. According to Kiss’s EFSA declaration of interests, the French subsidiary Pioneer Génétique signed a research and development agreement with his employer “to conduct field studies for instance on the impact of GM maize on non target arthropods”. Kiss wrote he was “requested to technically lead the field study in 2006 but gave it up in middle of 2006” and some of his staff members took over the lead. He also added that he had “no direct or indirect financial interest in that study” and will not be involved in any publication related to this research.
Gijs Kleter?
Gijs Kleter has been an active scientific contributor to the food industry-funded think tank and lobby group ILSI for six years. Kleter was a member of the so-called ILSI International Food Biotechnology Committee (IFBiC) task force 4 on the nutritional and safety assessment of nutritionally improved crops derived through biotechnology with his colleague Harry Kuiper from the university of Wageningen (see above), from 2002 to 2007. As part of this group, chaired by Kevin Glenn, a Monsanto employee, Kleter co-authored two scientific reports with biotech industry employees, including from Monsanto and Bayer.
Although disbanded, the task force “continues to have impact” today, according to ILSI. Through partnerships, the task force’s findings and recommendations, published in 2004 and 2007, have been conveyed “to hundreds of thought leaders around the world”.
In May 2011 Kleter participated in an ILSI biotechnology workshop in Paris with GMO panel colleagues Jean-Michel Wal and Christer Andersson. Kleter has also been involved with the Dutch Biotechnology Industry Association (NIABA) as an ‘observer’ from 2000 to 2008. Funded by more than 70 corporate members, NIABA’s mission is “to support the growth and development of biotechnology in The Netherlands by advocating favourable legislative and policy actions as well as providing valuable business networking opportunities”.
Harry Kuiper?
Dutch scientist Harry Kuiper, the chair of the GMO panel, has a long-standing relationship with the biotech industry, either directly or through the International Life Sciences Institute (ILSI), a controversial food and biotech industry-funded scientific think tank and lobby group. Kuiper wrote several key reports for ILSI and recently reviewed and commented on an article sponsored by biotech companies including Syngenta, Monsanto and Bayer.
Harry Kuiper, the chair of the GMO panel, is a long time biotech enthusiast. While speaking at a conference in Rome in 2003, Kuiper “stressed that GM products are the most studied and understood of any food products that have been introduced to consumers”, according to a US cable released by WikiLeaks.
Kuiper is also a long time collaborator of the controversial food and biotech industry-funded scientific think tank and lobby group, the International Life Sciences Institute (ILSI). In 1997, ILSI set up a European working group to deal with ‘novel food’. The RIKILT team (Institute of Food Safety) at the University of Wageningen, in the Netherlands, including Harry Kuiper and Gijs Kleter (see below), cooperated with ILSI.
In June 1998 Kuiper was the overall rapporteur for a three-day ILSI workshop on the detection methods for novel foods derived from GMOs. He drafted a 28-page report summarising the workshop. From 2000 to 2007, Kuiper was a key member of ILSI’s International Food Biotechnology Committee (IFBiC) ‘task force’ on Nutritional and safety assessments of foods and feeds nutritionally improved through biotechnology.
According to ILSI, this task force successfully influenced EFSA’s guidelines for the risk assessment of new GM plants. In 2006, the chair of the ILSI task force, Monsanto’s Kevin Glenn, boasted at a workshop in Greece that a key 2004 ILSI report co-drafted by Kuiper and Kleter48 had had a huge impact on EFSA’s guidelines. The so-called ‘comparative assessment’, based on the assumption that the GM crop plant and its conventional crop counterpart can be seen as equivalent, was implemented as a starting point for risk assessment by EFSA (as a result, the risks of GM plants are less rigorously investigated than they would be if EFSA assumed that genetic engineering and conventional breeding are fundamentally different in substance).
In fact, while acting as an expert for EFSA Kuiper has always kept close ties with the biotech industry. Besides his involvement with ILSI, he reviewed and commented on an article sponsored and written by biotech companies including Bayer, Syngenta, Monsanto, Pioneer, and Dow in 2009. In March 2011, Kuiper was invited to speak at a workshop organised and chaired by a Monsanto employee in Washington.
Joe Perry?
Joe Perry, who was vice-chair of the GMO panel, was being paid by a company working for BASF, Bayer, Monsanto and Syngenta to carry out “development and pre-sales trials” on a wide range of crops. Up until 2006, Perry was a GMO researcher in a private institute sponsored by Syngenta, Bayer, DuPont and Dow AgroSciences.
Joe Perry is a private consultant in biometry and ecology “with a minor component of GMO- related work in 2006 and 2007, exclusively for Rothamsted Research”, according to his declaration of interests. From 1976-2006, Perry was a researcher into GMOs at Rothamsted Research, a private institute which is sponsored by Syngenta, Bayer, DuPont and Dow AgroSciences, and which works with BASF Plant Science.
Perry now works for Dewar Crop Protection Ltd. (DCP), a company doing “development and pre-sales trials on a wide range of crops for chemical companies”. BASF, Bayer, Monsanto and Syngenta represented the majority of DCP’s clients in 2007 (the most recent list of clients published online). Other clients included one of the world’s leading agricultural chemical companies NuFarm, which manufactures the pesticide Credit® Xtreme used with Roundup Ready corn, soybeans, cotton and sugarbeet. DCP’s boss Alan Dewar, who like Perry, also had a career at Rothamsted Research, has also faced criticism for his conflicts of interest in the UK. Is Joe Perry really “independent” when vice-chairing the GMO Panel at EFSA? Taking a scientific decision at EFSA that would adversely affect a client of his employer DCP could in turn affect his consultancy work for DCP.
Joachim Schiemann?
Removed by EFSA for ‘potential’ conflict of interests.
German scientist Joachim Schiemann was removed from the GMO panel by EFSA’s administration in June 2009, just five days after the long-awaited publication of EFSA’s consolidated opinion on the use of antibiotic resistance marker genes in GM plants. Schiemann, who had been a member of the GMO panel since its creation in 2003, co- signed this key opinion. The reason for his dismissal was his appointment as head of the Institute for Biosafety of Genetically Modified Plants at the Julius Kühn Institute (JKI) in Quedlinburg, which raised concerns about a possible conflict of interest. “It is a matter of interpretation whether my appointment as head of the Institute for Biosafety of Genetically Modified Plants increased my involvement in risk management issues and – as a consequence – might have generated a conflict of interest”, Schiemann told Corporate Europe Observatory.
Schiemann is also a member of the controversial Public Research and Regulation Initiative (PRRI) described as an “industry-funded pressure group that campaigns for weaker biosafety legislation and against public access to information” – a description that PRRI has denied. According to its website, PRRI receives funding from Monsanto and CropLife International (the main lobby group for pesticide and GM seed producers).
Schiemann is also a trustee of the Fraunhofer Institute for molecular biology and applied ecology (IME) in Aachen, which focuses on the development of GM plants such as a virus- resistant grapevine. He is the treasurer of the International Society for Biosafety Research (ISBR) which organised a symposium on GMOs sponsored by ILSI and Croplife International in November 2010.
Back in 1996, Schiemann filed a patent as inventor and owner of GM plants with fluorescent proteins to better identify them in the wild.
Willem Seinen?
Willem Seinen has had a strong financial interest in the field of biotechnology since December 2006 as the manager of three start-up biotech companies. He was previously a member of an expert panel set up by oil giant Shell, a company which has invested billions of dollars in “advanced biofuels” using biotechnology.
Willem Seinen, manager of three biotech companies. Since December 2006, Seinen has been a member of the management team of three start- up biotech companies: Alloksys Life Sciences BV, Amrif Life Sciences BV, and SERM Therapeutics BV. According to Seinen, these start-up companies have no involvement in or links with companies developing GMOs. Until 2007, Seinen was a member of an expert panel set up by Shell, the oil and chemical giant which has invested billions of dollars in “advanced biofuels” made through biotechnology. Back in 1996, he co-signed a study co- sponsored by the Chemical Manufacturer’s Association, an industry lobby group.
Jeremy Sweet?
Also a former vice-chair of the GMO panel, received research funding from Monsanto, Bayer and BASF in 2006. He also gave seminars in Japan and Korea for the controversial pro-biotech think tank and lobby group ILSI. Since 1995, he has been a member of the biotech industry lobby group, the British Crop Protection Association, alongside GM seed manufacturers BASF, Bayer CropScience, Dow, DuPont, Monsanto, Nufarm and Syngenta. In 2008, he co-signed a scientific paper redesigning the risk assessment of GM insect-resistant crops, with employees from Monsanto, Dupont, Syngenta and BASF.
In 2006 environmental consultant Jeremy Sweet received research funding from Monsanto, Bayer and BASF, and gave seminars for the controversial pro-GM think tank International Life Sciences Institute (ILSI) in Japan and Korea. Sweet is the chairman of the Symposium Committee of the International Society for Biosafety Research (ISBR) which, in November 2010, organised a symposium on the biosafety of GMOs – an event sponsored by ILSI and Croplife International, a lobby group for the manufacturers of genetically engineered seeds, pesticides and other agricultural chemicals. Since 1995, Sweet has been a Council member of the British Crop Protection Association, whose members include GM seed manufacturers BASF, Bayer CropScience, Dow, DuPont, Monsanto, Nufarm and Syngenta Sweet has argued that the risks of GMOs are exaggerated.
In 2003 he wrote in a book review: “We already widely use GM technology in medicine, we now expect to buy a greater diversity of introduced food crops and products from around the world, with associated depletion of non-renewable resources, and introduced alien whole genomes abound in our cities, towns and countryside. How long will it take to put the introduction of a few novel genes in our food crops into the correct perspective?”. In 2008, with two fellow EFSA GMO panel members he co-signed a scientific paper redesigning the risk assessment of GM insect-resistant crops with employees from Monsanto, Dupont, Syngenta and BASF.
Jean-Michel Wal?
Jean-Michel Wal’s lab currently receives funding from pro-GM giant Nestlé. Wal has been involved in ILSI working groups and workshops since 2002. He has also co-authored scientific articles with food and biotech industry employees, including from Nestlé and Unilever. Wal is a member of the French Institute for Nutrition (IFN), sponsored by pro-GM companies including Kraft, Nestlé and Unilever.
Jean-Michel Wal’s laboratory on food immuno-allergy at the French Institute for Agricultural Research (INRA) has been funded by the Nestec Research Centre, a discreet subsidiary of agro-business giant Nestlé, since January 2006 to do research on allergenicity of milk proteins. According to Wal, this research has “no relationship with GMOs”. But Nestlé’s interests are not limited to the allergenicity of milk proteins and the company has always been overtly pro GM foods. Genetically engineered ingredients have been found in Nestlé baby food sold in Russia, Kazakhstan and China, and the Swiss giant is the owner of a patent on a GM coffee plant.
Nestlé has a duty to its shareholders to promote an industry- friendly climate within regulatory bodies and financing Wal’s lab could be said to fulfil this goal.
Wal has been a regular speaker in working groups, workshops and scientific meetings organised by the controversial food industry-sponsored think tank ILSI Europe since 2002 In November 2009 in Paris, Wal attended another ILSI HESI workshop on “Evaluating biological variation in non-transgenic crops” with GMO panel colleagues Howard Davies and Christer Andersson.
In May 2011, again in Paris, he participated in an ILSI biotechnology workshop with GMO panel colleagues Gijs Kleter and Christer Andersson. Most of the speakers were biotech industry representatives from Monsanto, Pioneer, Bayer, DuPont and ILSI. Wal also regularly co-authors scientific articles with food and biotech industry employees. In 2007, he co-signed an article on the role of post-market monitoring (PMM) in the safety assessment of novel foods with employees from Unilever, Nestlé, Danone, Bayer and ILSI. Jean-Michel Wal is a member of the French Institute for Nutrition (IFN), a food industry- sponsored organisation which corporate members include Coca-Cola, Kraft, Nestlé, Mars and Unilever.
YOUR PANEL IS SHIT.
What’s up with all the dishonesty and purposefully obtuse cherrypicking? Let me guess. You work in the industry, don’t you?
Be honest.
