Deutsche Welle says Germans do not want US biotech giant’s genetically modified corn strain.

Germany has decided to ban genetically modified corn, Agriculture Minister Ilse Aigner announced Tuesday, amid concerns over its environmental and economical impact.

We in the information security field (you know who you are) often whine about the scarcity of data to make informed risk decisions. The factors that fuel debate over genetically modified crops has many interesting parallels to the study of information security.

• Crops vary greatly and thus are difficult to evaluate in terms of safety (infosec varies by business)
• Genetic modification involves many factors beyond the desired state, while toxicity is only measured by known toxins and nutrient levels (infosec struggles with whitelist/blacklist are similar)
• There do not appear to be any peer-reviewed clinical studies published on animal health risks from GM, let alone human (breach data is only just maturing enough for peer-review and studies of depth)
• GM companies try to establish a comparison test for crops as a litmus of safety, but there are no regulations for test methods and measures (common controls and frameworks continue to appear, with no one accepted test of security)