Milan, Italy and Tuskegee, Alabama - Data from field trials conducted
in Italy which compared GM and non-GM maize have been suppressed for two
years by government officials and scientist at a public research
institution. The data, which are highly relevant to public health, are
striking and significant.
The trials were conducted in Lombardy, a major maize-growing region in
the northern part of Italy, and compared two conventional maize varieties
with two similar varieties genetically engineered to produce the Bt proteins
which protect the crop from European corn borers.

The two engineered Bt maize varieties, P67 and Elgina, are similar to
those grown commercially on 20 million hectares in many countries, including
some member states of the European Community. They were planted in 2005 in
Landriano at a farm owned by the University of Milan along with their
nonengineered counterparts, P66 and Cecilia, and comparing the grain yield
data demonstrated spectacular results.

The conventional varieties produced between 11 and 11.1 tons of grain
per hectare, while the engineered varieties yielded between 14.1 and 15.9
tons per hectare. This translates into a yield increase of between 28 and 43
percent.

Italian farmers are not allowed to plant Bt maize. Taking into account
the total area of conventional maize cultivation in Italy, the yield
differences, maize prices and pest pressures, the data show that Italian
farmers have forfeited between roughly 300 million and 1 billion Euros a
year because of the continuing prohibition.

These yield data were released in 2006 by the National Institute for
Research on Food and Nutrition (INRAN), a research institution funded and
run by the government, albeit without the emphasis they deserved. The data
were never formally published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal and the
report page has been moved to secondary pages on the INRAN server.

Other data from those field trials, however, have until now been kept
completely hidden. From the perspective of public health, they are far more
important.

The field trials in question were actually designed to determine if GM
crops could be useful to Italian agriculture or pose dangers to consumers.
The outcome confirms that not only maize enhanced to resist insect pests can
be more profitable for farmers but it also has a positive effect on the
quality of the grain, having a reduced fumonisin content. Fumonisins are
toxins produced by fungi which can infect a growing maize plant. These
toxins are dangerous to humans and animals; in humans there is evidence that
they cause spina bifida, a highly disabling developmental defect occurring
during early stages of pregnancy. Affected children usually cannot walk and
they suffer kidney and urinary problems. Often, this is accompanied by brain
damage. In horses and pigs, fumonisins cause other kind of illnesses.

The fungi infect a growing maize plant by entering the plant through a
wound. Since European corn borers inflict significant wounds on growing corn
plants, they leave these plants open to infection. During the field trials
in Lombardy, no corn borer larvae were found on the engineered Bt varieties.
At the same time, an average of 29 of these pests were found on each stalk
of the conventional varieties-with more than one-third of them in the cobs.

It is unfortunate that so little attention was paid to the financial
significance of the findings. It is another matter entirely to cover up data
with obvious implications for public health, and it is up to the government
to explain why the data on these toxins were kept under wraps.

The data were generated in the public sector with taxpayers' money,
and they were produced by the University of Milan, a reputable public body.
It is unquestionable that they belong to the Italian public, and their
relevance to human and animal health is unequivocal.

The data should be submitted as quickly as possible for publication in
a reputable journal, so that the scientific community is informed. It is
immediately crucial, however, that they be made widely available so that
consumers and farmers can clearly understand the financial and medical
issues at stake. This is made far more urgent because of the misinformation
and lies being spread by the 'Free from GMOs' ('Liberi da OGM') campaign, a
large Right Bt Corn ? Left Conventional Corn coalition of lobby groups which
are trying to impose a permanent ban on the cultivation of GM crops in
Italy.


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