Canada
June 21, 2004
By Roberta Rampton
Reuters News Service via
Checkbiotech.org
Monsanto Co. has
formally withdrawn submissions for its genetically modified
wheat from all regulatory agencies except the U.S. Food and Drug
Administration, a company spokeswoman said.
The withdrawal is
the last step in Monsanto's announcement last month that it
would shelve plans to introduce the world's first GMO wheat,
spokesman Chris Horner said.
"It's a natural part of the process that we announced last
month," Horner said.
Monsanto had asked for government approvals for the GMO wheat in
Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Russia, South Africa and
Columbia, Horner said.
The company and regulators in the countries "mutually agreed"
that Monsanto should withdraw its submissions, he said.
Monsanto had planned to commercialize the wheat for growth in
Canada and the United States, but ran into opposition from
export buyers who worried their consumers would reject it.
Canadian and U.S. farm groups and exporters worried that the
modified wheat could not be kept separate from their traditional
crops, putting other grain at risk of rejection from buyers.
Environmental groups around the world also demonstrated against
the wheat because of safety fears.
Monsanto has said it would wait to resume work on the wheat,
designed to resist applications of its Round Up weed killer,
until other types of GMO wheat are commercialized.
In the United States, the company withdrew submissions it had
made to the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Environmental
Protection Agency, but decided to proceed with an application at
the Food and Drug Administration.
The FDA review is believed to be almost complete, Horner said.
Approval from the agency would establish that the wheat is safe
for human and livestock consumption. "It would establish the
safety for food and feed consumption, and it would be be one
less regulatory approval to obtain, if and when that day ever
comes," Horner said.
Approval from the FDA alone would not be enough to allow
Monsanto to commercialize the wheat, Horner added.
"It doesn't change the commercialization status at all, but from
a regulatory perspective it (would) indicate that there are no
issues with this product from a food and feed safety
perspective," he said.
The U.S. wheat industry agrees with Monsanto's decision to
proceed with FDA approvals, said U.S. Wheat Associates, a trade
group that promotes U.S. wheat overseas.
"We appreciate that FDA will complete its reviews of health
aspects of Roundup Ready wheat, so that the concerns of critics
can be answered," the group's president Alan Tracy said in a
release.
Monsanto withdrew all its feed, food and environmental safety
regulatory applications in Canada, where the Canadian Wheat
Board, which exports most of the country's wheat, had threatened
to sue the company if it received approvals.
"Monsanto has made the right decision," said Louise Waldman, a
spokeswoman for the wheat board.
The CWB continues to lobby the Canadian government to change its
regulatory process to consider the market impact of future GMO
wheat varieties before granting them approval, Waldman said. |