- LONDON (Reuters) - British
scientists called on Monday for more rigorous, explicit and comprehensive
checks of foods made from genetically modified (GM) crops before they are
sold to consumers.
-
- A report by Britain's Royal Society of leading scientists
said improvements in testing were needed, particularly if GM products are
to be added to infant formula in the future.
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- "There is no reason to question the safety of foods
made from GM ingredients that are currently available, nor to believe that
genetic modification makes foods inherently less safe than their
counterparts,"
said Dr. Jim Smith, who chaired the committee that produced the
report.
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- But he said regulations were not clear enough and there
were important gaps and inconsistencies between countries.
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- "It is important that we get the regulations
tight,"
Smith told a news conference, adding that the criteria of assessing safety
should be made explicit and objective.
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- The report assessed all the scientific evidence available
since 1998 on GM plants, whose genes have typically been engineered to
enhance such attributes as resistance to pests or herbicide.
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- British and EU laws should ensure that rigorous tests
are conducted if GM ingredients are used in infant formula, because babies
are very vulnerable to changes in the nutritional content of their diet,
it added.
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- New drugs undergo years of rigorous tests on animals
and humans before they are approved for general use. The safety of GM
plants
is determined by a looser measure known as "substantial
equivalence,"
showing a genetically modified plant is chemically similar to its natural
equivalent.
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- But scientists and environmentalists have criticized
substantial equivalence, saying it is too subjective and not accurate
enough.
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- Smith and his colleagues said new genetic screening
techniques
that will detect very subtle differences between GM and natural foods will
improve "substantial equivalence" but the criteria must be
objective,
comprehensive and consistent.
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- "New technology can give us a more explicit
fingerprint
of the GM and non-GM plants," Dr. Clare Mills, of Britain's Institute
of Food Research, explained.
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- The report concluded that DNA from viruses used in GM
plants during the modification technique or eating food containing plant
DNA that had been modified would not be harmful to humans.
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- It also called for screening of all new foods for
allergic
reactions, including risks from inhaling.
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- Current tests are only done on GM ingredients that are
eaten, but the report said there could be risks of allergic reactions among
people growing the plants who breathed in pollen and dust.
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