BRUSSELS - The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) was, according to this story, cited as giving a clean bill of health Thursday to Monsanto's NK603 maize, assuring its safety for human and animal consumption but the positive assessment is only one step down a long road toward lifting the 15-nation bloc's five-year unofficial ban on new genetically modified foods and crops.

EFSA was quoted as saying in a statement that, "The panel has concluded that the herbicide tolerant GM maize NK 603 is as safe as conventional maize and therefore that its placing on the marketing for import for processing and food or feed use is unlikely to have an adverse effect on human or animal health."