EU Assesses Safety of GM Maize MON 95275 for Food and Feed Use

On August 1, 2024, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), at the request of the European Commission, officially published a detailed scientific assessment of the safety of GM maize MON 95275 for use in food and feed.

EFSA's team of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO) experts, after a thorough and rigorous evaluation process, has unequivocally declared that GM maize MON 95275 has demonstrated an equivalent safety profile to its conventional counterpart and rigorously tested non-GM maize varieties in terms of its potential impacts on human and animal health and the environment.

In particular, the team of experts noted that the MON 95275 transgenic corn was originally developed to enhance its defense against certain coleoptera insects. To achieve this, the scientists introduced expression boxes such as mpp75Aa1.1, vpb4Da2 and DvSnf7. Through in-depth molecular characterization and advanced bioinformatics analysis, the study did not find any similarities between these newly introduced components and known toxins. At the same time, the agronomic/phenotypic and compositional differences between MON 95275 and traditional control varieties were compared in detail, and the results showed that there were no problems requiring further investigation.

The expert team further stressed that the Mpp75Aa1.1 and Vpb4Da2 proteins in MON 95275, as well as DvSnf7 dsRNA and its derived siRNA, do not present a risk of toxicity and sensitization. In addition, the introduction of transgenic technology did not change the overall sensitization of MON 95275 maize. More importantly, the use of genetically modified corn as a food and feed raw material does not raise any concerns about human and animal nutrition.

EFSA's team of GMO experts concluded that the GMO maize, MON 95275, is safe enough to match conventional and other non-GMO maize varieties without the need for additional monitoring measures in the food and feed markets. Even in extreme circumstances, the accidental release of the GMO corn into the natural environment does not raise any environmental safety concerns.