Food Safety - The Oxford Topic of Food, Politics, and Society - page 592

rDNA-containing organisms remain in the product. Nor is it required that chemicals
produced by rDNA-containing GMO bacteria and yeasts be labeled. In the European
Union, these transgenic organisms are considered to be only “processing aides.”
A partial list of existing and potential new technologies and a brief explanation of
each is presented in Table 24.1. It is instructive to look at the definition below of a GMO
used by the World Health Organization of the UN (WHO) to determine if the technolo-
gies listed in Table 24.1 produce crop varieties that would be captured by this definition
and therefore classified as GM:
Genetically modified organisms (GMOs) can be defined as organisms in which the
genetic material (DNA) has been altered in a way that does not occur naturally. The
technology is often called “modern biotechnology” or “gene technology,” sometimes
also “recombinant DNA technology” or “genetic engineering.” It allows selected
individual genes to be transferred from one organism into another, also between
non-related species.6
The definition would not capture small RNA methodology since no genes per se are
transferred and no novel proteins are produced. Similarly, in vitro and in vivo mutagen-
esis would fall outside the definition for similar reasons. Modification of transcription
factors7 (TF) might fall under the definition if a TF from a different species is introduced.
The definition appears to capture cis -genic methods although whether the genetic mate-
rial has been altered is open to dispute since the genes inserted arise from the same
specie; however, the definition literally excludes transfer of genes. Transient expression
products would be excluded even if DNA were present in the specific method used since
DNA is not transferred permanently into the genome (no gene transfer has occurred).
Thus, it appears that at least one commonly accepted definition of GMO would fail to
capture most of the technologies described in Table 24.1. A number of countries have
chosen to define GMOs differently and as a consequence there is great potential for con-
fusion in international trade. An international workshop was held in 2011 to consider
the regulatory implications of diverse definitions of alternative and new gene technolo-
gies presented in Table 24.1 (Lusser and Davies, 2013).
It is important to note that mutagenesis, viral infections, and cross-breeding can
produce the same kinds of DNA sequence and phenotypic changes as the technologies
listed in Table 24.1 (Parrott, 2005; Weber et al., 2012). In fact, traditional breeders have,
over the years, created a number of new varieties that are now known to involve changes
in small RNAs, TFs, and nucleotide-level mutations (Parrott et al., 2010). This begs the
question, “ Why are methods that produce the same result in a more exact and precise way
than the older black-box methods of mutagenesis and crossing captured by a GMO defini-
tion that leads to rigorous safety assessment by regulators ?” One simple answer is that the
definition seeks to regulate new varieties developed in a laboratory by means of in vitro
DNA technologies that are viewed as unnatural —that is, they do not occur in nature.
Setting aside the fact that virtually none of our crop plants occur in nature in their
present form and all are extensively genetically modified, the definition of GMO
excludes products that could, in principle, be produced by other breeding methods and