Home » Food & Drink » Food Safety » Claims That GE Food is Safe Are Junk Science

Claims That GE Food is Safe Are Junk Science

©

Steven M. Druker, an attorney and Executive Director for the Alliance for Bio-Integrity submitted his organizations comments to the Food and Drug Administration during their official comment period Genetically Engineered food on May 2, 2001. The comments, which are contained in their entirety on the web site of the Organic Consumer's Association web page http://www.purefood.org are a broad and credible condemnation of the US Food and Drug Administration's failure to apply acceptable scientific analysis to the question of whether or not genetically engineered food is safe for consumption.

Druker's key points are:

1. FDA's claim that GE foods are generally recognized as safe is false and fraudulent.

2. There is not, and never has been, adequate consensus, in the broader scientific community, to support the FDA's contention that GE food is safe.

3. There was sufficient doubt about the safety of GE foods within the FDA's own scientific staff to nullify GRAS (safety) status.

4. The FDA knows there has never been expert consensus about the safety of GE foods.

5. The FDA has made fraudulent claims about (a) the existence of scientific consensus and (b) the safety of GE foods.

6. FDA's behavior is wrong and reprehensible.

FDA says, according to Druker, that there is no evidence that GE food is nutritionally different than any other food. The Agency, and other GE supporters, have consistently promoted the idea that GE food is not only similar to non-GE foods but the plant breeding process that create GE food plants is similar to traditional plant breeding practices. To support a number of the points above The Alliance included this comment, made by an FDA official and included in the FDA Administrative Record, in its comments.

"The processes of genetic engineering and traditional breeding are different, and according to the technical experts in the agency, they lead to different risks."

FDA's claim that there is scientific consensus on the safety of GE food is also debunked in The Alliances comments.

"Research at UK's John Innes Centre confirms that the viral promoter used in almost all GE plants can facilitate various abnormal genetic recombinations. This could lead to serious disruptions or to generation of new and hazardous chemicals. Additionally, experts warn that parts of existing viruses could recombine into novel and more dangerous viruses."

and

"The discoveries of the human genome project released in early 2001 (a) confirm that the foundational assumptions of genetic engineering are overly simplistic and seriously unsound and (b) indicate that recombinant DNA techniques entail greater potential for unpredictable hazards than was previously suspected even by experts advocating a more precautionary approach."

The copyright of the article Claims That GE Food is Safe Are Junk Science in Food Safety is owned by . Permission to republish Claims That GE Food is Safe Are Junk Science in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.