April 7, 2000
OECD News Release
Paris -- Many people in the world are eating genetically modified (GM) foods and to date there have been no substantiated adverse effects. But these foods have only been on the market for less than a decade, leaving open the possibility that adverse effects may still be detected in the future.
Those are the two opening conclusions of the Chairman's Report on the OECD's recent Conference on the Scientific and Health Aspects of GM Foods, which has just been made public along with the Rapporteurs' Summary on website: http://www.oecd.org/subject/biotech/edinburgh.htm. The Conference Chairman, Sir John Krebs, also notes that future policy discussions about GM foods and their safety aspects should be more open and inclusive than in the past: "People want to know how decisions are reached and to be consulted," he states. Part of that openness, he suggests, can be achieved by giving consumers the ability, through labelling, to choose whether to eat GM foods or not.
In his report on the Conference, hosted by the U.K. government in Edinburgh on 28-29 February - 1 March 2000, Sir John applauds the fact that international bodies, including the OECD, are working to achieve consistent standards and criteria for assessing food safety. He acknowledges, however, that there are areas of concern about testing for food safety. In particular, he recommends a review of one commonly used tool to assess food safety, the concept of "substantial equivalence" in which comparisons are made between novel foods and foods that are historically accepted. He also acknowledges that there is a general agreement that methods for testing toxicity and allergenicity of GM foods need re-examination.
Looking forward, Sir John Krebs suggests that the conference's success in including all sides of the debate surrounding GM foods should mark a new start in the global debate about biotechnology in agriculture.
Specifically, he recommends that an international forum, including both scientists and representatives of a range of interest groups from farming and industry to environmental and other civil society organisations, be set up to continue the process started in Edinburgh.
The role of such a forum would be twofold: to provide governments worldwide with expert advice on the risks and benefits of the new technology, and to build a bridge of understanding between technological developments and the concerns and aspirations of citizens. Its objective, Sir John says, "would be to provide governments with a state of the art assessment of scientific knowledge about GM technology, and to set this assessment in the context of broader concerns of society".
The Chairman's Report will be presented to the OECD Council on 12 April and will subsequently be included in the OECD's submission to the Group of Eight industrial countries' summit meeting in Okinawa on 21-22 July. Also included in this submission will be reports on: the safety and assessment of novel foods, prepared by the OECD's Task Force for the Safety of Novel Foods; related environmental issues, prepared by the OECD's Working Group for the Harmonisation of Regulatory Oversight in Biotechnology; a compendium of national and international food safety assessments, produced by the OECD's Ad Hoc Group on Food Safety; and the conclusions of a consultative meeting between the OECD and representatives of civil society.
(posted without permission)
