Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
regulate bioengineered crops as well as to require that all products containing ingredi-
ents from transgenic organisms be labeled. Similar regulations were enacted in many
countries, whereas a few choose to invoke outright bans of what they defined as GM
plants, foods, feed and ingredients isolated from them (Chassy, 2008).
Over the last 20 years, transgenic crops have been widely planted around the globe
and used to provide animal feed, chemicals, and food and food ingredients for humans.5
The remarkably consistent and documented record of safety has confirmed the opinion
of the U.S. NAS that there are no novel risks associated with crops produced using in
vitro DNA methods. In fact, not a single incident of harm to humans or animals has
been factually documented to have resulted from the consumption of transgenic crops.
There have, however, been many anecdotal claims of harm caused by GM crops and a
few peer-reviewed scientific papers have claimed results that point to potential dangers
of GM crops. The media and World Wide Web abound with stories about the harms
caused by, and the hypothetical dangers of, GM crops and animals. Many consumers
are understandably concerned about GM safety, and, in the face of consumer concern
as well as constant pressure from activist groups that oppose GM crops, governments in
many countries have increased the regulatory scrutiny imposed on GM crops.
This chapter describes the scientific food-safety risk assessment of crops produced
using biotechnology and details the rationale for the claim that crops produced using
in vitro DNA-manipulation are no more or less risky than those produced by any other
modality of plant breeding. It briefly reviews the kinds of changes in DNA and com-
position that occur as a result of conventional plant breeding and compares these with
changes that are introduced by newer methodologies such as rDNA transgene insertion.
The techniques of plant breeding continue to evolve and it is not clear that plant varieties
produced by some newer methods of breeding will be considered to be GM plants. The
challenge of deciding what is and what is not a GM food will be considered.
The scientific concepts and specific considerations of a food safety assessment of
transgenic feeds and foods will be described (König et al., 2004; Chassy, 2007, Chassy,
2010). Three key issues (unintended effects of breeding, potential allergenicity, and risks
associated with changes in composition) will be considered in detail. The value and
power of animal feeding studies that are often used in the process of food safety assess-
ment will be discussed. It is concluded that whole food animal-feeding studies are of
little value and the use of animals in this manner is unethical. This leads to a discussion
of the misuse of animal studies and what constitutes scientific misconduct.
The chapter will conclude that the risks presented by transgenic crops are no differ-
ent than those presented by any other crop bearing a novel phenotype, that new crop
varieties are almost without exception as safe as any other, and that crops produced by
conventional breeding methods would be better candidates for premarket regulatory
review than those produced using biotechnology. A focus on the safety of novel traits
would prove more cost-efficient and scientifically justified. However, regulation of GM
crops around the world is not science based, but rather driven by political and ideational
factors that lump all rDNA plants together as especially worthy of surveillance and
control on safety grounds. The time and money spent on regulation of GM crops has
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