EUROPEANS won鈥檛 be eating genetically modified salad any time soon. Faced
with widespread public suspicion of GM food, a Dutch seed company seeking
approval for modified salad leaves in the European Union now says it won鈥檛
market the products even if it is given permission to do so.
The company, Bejo Zaden of Warmenhuizen in the Netherlands, is applying to
the European Commission鈥檚 Scientific Committee on Food for permission to sell GM
green-hearted chicory and radicchio rosso seed to farmers. The plants are
modified to be pollen-free, allowing Bejo to control pollination and produce
high-yield hybrids.
But any decision will make little difference to the plants鈥� commercial
prospects. 鈥淚t is obvious that there must be public acceptance first,鈥� says Dick
Vanderzeiden of Bejo. He predicts that it could take 15 years before Europeans
accept raw GM foods.
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The GM food products approved in Europe so far are cooked and processed
before being eaten. In a separate development last week, the EU agreed that
processed foods containing no more than 1 per cent of GM material in any
ingredient can be labelled as GM-free. Any modified DNA in processed foods is
likely to be destroyed, but intact DNA from raw vegetables might be taken up by
gut bacteria.
This possibility alarmed British officials who reviewed Bejo鈥檚 application.
The salad leaves retain a marker gene that confers resistance to the antibiotic
kanamycin. Although this antibiotic isn鈥檛 widely prescribed, bacteria acquiring
this gene may also become resistant to streptomycin and spectinomycin. 鈥淲e鈥檝e
turned it down,鈥� says a spokeswoman for the British government. 鈥淚t鈥檚 for the
Commission and the Dutch company to decide what to do next.鈥�
The company is confident that resistance to the other antibiotics won鈥檛 be
passed on. But one British expert, who asked not to be named, argues that Bejo
should have removed the gene. 鈥淚t鈥檚 basically fairly lazy genetics,鈥� he
says.
The US Food and Drug Administration approved the radicchio rosso in 1997,
though Bejo has yet to market it. But according to the Biotechnology Industry
Organization in Washington DC, raw GM foods such as tomatoes, papayas and
squashes are already on sale in the US.