GM linseed: Products being taken off the market
 

(01 October 2009) The European Commission has ordered Member States to remove food products derived from genetically modified linseed from the shelves. The flax comes from Canada and is not authorised in the EU. In September, a total of eight notifications were received by the European Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed (RASFF). The first warning came from Germany.

Canadian authorities have stopped shipments of linseed to the EU for the time being. The Canadian Flax Council has announced that stocks destined for the European market have been quarantined. According to European inspection labs, the herbicide-tolerant CDC Triffid flax is to blame. A test is currently being developed in Canada which is designed to guarantee that only non-GM linseed be exported in future.

CDC Triffid flax was commercially authorised in 1996, both for cultivation and as a food / feed product. Canadian food safety authorities had previously assessed the GM flax and its derived products as safe. In consideration of export markets, particularly those in Europe where zero tolerance policies are in place, no GM flax was grown either in Canada or the USA. Authorisation of the variety was rescinded in Canada in 2001. Cultivation of CDC Triffid flax has since been banned. The Canadian Grain Commission is investigating how the admixture of the GM flax in linseed products could have occurred.

In Germany, the GM linseed has been found in at least seven states up to now. Baking ingredients contaminated with the GM linseed had been distributed to 15 German states and exported to other countries by a German company based in Hessen. Linseed is an ingredient in baked-goods and muesli. Consumption of products containing minute traces of GM linseed do not present a health risk. Since linseed derived from GM flax is not authorised in Europe, however, products containing even minimal amounts cannot be made commercially available.

See also on GMO-Compass:

• GMO Compass Food Database: Linseed

Further information:

• Flax Council of Canada: GMO Flax Update No. 1 (28 September 2009)