Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
a “familiarity principle” when reviewing risk and safety studies, based
on its view that safety issues do not differ between GM plants and con-
ventional plants when similar traits are being conferred.
Although these developments have made the agency extremely
accommodating to companies promoting GM plants, Congress has not
intervened. Indeed, in 2000, a congressional committee reported favor-
ably on the agency's program, stating that:
Since 1987, APHIS has processed more than 5,000 permits and
notifications for field testing at more than 22,000 sites and nearly
50 petitions for deregulation. Of the 44 different types of plants
modified using rDNA techniques, field testing has occurred for vari-
eties altered for herbicide resistance (28%), insect resistance (24%),
product quality (19%), virus resistance (10%), agronomic properties
(6%), fungal resistance (5%), and other properties, including bacte-
rial resistance (8%). In no instance has any biotech plant approved
for field testing by USDA created an environmental hazard or exhib-
ited unpredictable or unusual behavior compared to similar crops
modified using conventional breeding methods.
8
However, APHIS has taken some steps to make its regulatory program
more robust. Concerned about incidents of contamination of conven-
tional crops, and fearing that contamination of both conventional and
GM human food crops by new GM crops encoding compounds for phar-
maceutical and other industrial products would lead to far more serious
incidents that endanger public health and disrupt the food system, the
agency in 2005 revised its regulation on notification to provide that such
non-food GM crops may only be introduced under a permit, making
them ineligible for the notification procedure.
9
In addition, the agency
has had to make its procedures compliant with environmental laws. For
example, federal courts have determined that APHIS failed to comply
8
Committee on Science, US House of Representatives, Seeds of Opportunity, Report
106B (2000).
9
7 C.F.R. 340.4 on the Introduction of Plants Genetically Engineered to Produce Indus-
trial Compounds.
