www.checkbiotech.org ; www.raupp.info ; www.czu.cz

¨ Food Safety Minister Annette King has called for a review of the new
variety of GM corn with high lysine content that the Trans-Tasman food
regulator (FSANZ) had said was safe to be a human food, February 2007.

The Sustainability Council and Canterbury University's Centre for
Integrated Research in Biosafety have been pressing for this action due to
the precedent that would be set by making legal a GM product that was never
intended for human consumption and also because of the particular food
safety risks this form of GM corn carries.

The minister's call for a review is an important step towards halting the
audacious bid by GM plant developers to have Australian and New Zealand
regulators abandon a fundamental principle of food safety testing. It puts
back to FSANZ the question of what would be the results if the lysine corn
were consistently tested against the appropriate non-GM corn, rather than
against another genetically modified variety - contrary to internationally
accepted practice. FSANZ now has three months to conduct the review and
report back to the ministers of each Australian state and Annette King. The
terms of reference set for this review will be critical to its outcome.

[www.scoop.co.nz]