Posted on 07/27/2004 8:40:09 PM PDT by neverdem
Genetically engineered crops do not pose health risks that cannot also arise from crops created by other techniques, including conventional breeding, the National Academy of Sciences said in a report issued yesterday.
The conclusion backs the basic approach now underlying government oversight of biotech foods, that special food safety regulations are not needed just because foods are genetically engineered.
Nevertheless, the report said that genetic engineering and other techniques used to create novel crops could result in unintended, harmful changes to the composition of food, and that scrutiny of such crops should be tightened before they go to market.
"The most important message from this report is that it's the product that matters, not the system you are using to produce it," Jennifer Hillard, a consumer advocate from Canada who was on the committee that wrote the report, said in a telephone news conference. Committee members said the genetically engineered foods already on the market are safe.
The study, "Safety of Genetically Engineered Foods: Approaches to Assessing Unintended Health Effects," is somewhat vague on how regulations should change, but rather deals more with the science needed to determine whether food from genetically engineered crops and animals might be harmful.
It does not, for instance, explicitly recommend mandatory reviews of new genetically engineered foods by the Food and Drug Administration. It says that assessments should be made on a case-by-case basis. Right now, companies that create such crops voluntarily consult with the F.D.A.
The report suggests that in some cases, surveillance might be needed after a food gets to the market to check for possible health effects, something not done now. It also calls for some information on the composition of genetically modified foods to be made public rather than kept proprietary.
Both sides in the polarized debate about genetically engineered foods found things to like and not like in the report.
"They've clearly identified that there are significant problems with our technological ability to both identify changes that might happen in G.E. crops as well as to evaluate what those changes might mean," said Doug Gurian-Sherman, a senior scientist at the Center for Food Safety in Washington, which opposes biotech crops.
But backers of biotech were heartened by the report's determination that the risks of biotech foods are not unique. Michael Phillips, vice president of agricultural science and regulatory policy of the Biotechnology Industry Organization, said in a statement that the report "should lay to rest the few naysayers who continue to question the safety of these crops."
The report was commissioned by the three agencies that regulate genetically engineered crops: the F.D.A, the Department of Agriculture and the Environmental Protection Agency. It was produced by a committee of mostly academic scientists led by Bettie Sue Masters, of the department of biochemistry at the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio.
Genetic engineering involves the transfer of a specific gene from one organism to another. Cross-breeding, by contrast, involves the mixing of thousands of genes, most unknown. Another breeding technique is to bombard plants with radiation or expose them to chemicals to induce hundreds of random mutations in hopes of finding one that will confer a desirable trait.
The report said that genetic engineering was more likely to cause unintended effects than the other techniques used to develop plants except for the mutation-inducing technique.
Right now, crops produced by techniques other than genetic engineering go through virtually no regulatory scrutiny.
PING
Well... of course not!!!
/sarcasm
Nature has been doing the engineering for billions and billions of eons! No regulatory supervision! Wake up PHD idiots! We were all wiped out long ago! What dorks.
My only concern about this is that Nature does not appear to be deliberately malevolent, but human engineers might. If we are learning one thing from all these computer viruses, it is that there are individuals out there who get a kick out of causing harm to other people that they don't even know. God help us when these creeps can make actual disease organisms instead of just computer simulations.
BTT!!!!!!!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.