The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) recently published an opinion on a report drawn up by the French authority, ANSES, which deals with the future regulation of plants obtained from new genetic engineering (NGT). ANSES published two reports in which it questions whether the criteria proposed by the EU Commission for decision making whether NGT plants are equivalent to conventionally-bred plants are adequate.
If the Commission proposal were to be accepted, around 90 percent of the NGT plants (currently under development) could be classified as equivalent to conventionally-bred plants, and therefore exempted from mandatory risk assessment. In both the reports, ANSES comes to the conclusion that the criteria proposed by the Commission are insufficient to conclude on safety and equivalence of NGT plants to conventionally-bred plants.
One crucial criterion proposed by the Commission is a ‘threshold’ that allows 20 genetic changes per NGT-plant if they are to be seen as equivalent to conventionally-bred plants. ANSES, however, has introduced examples to show that the number of mutations is not a suitable criterion for deciding whether NTG plants can be considered to be as safe as plants obtained from conventional breeding.
The EFSA opinion states that the criteria are not meant to define levels of risks, but would only allow certain NGT plants to be classified in different categories. This statement is misleading as the Commission proposal clearly links the requirement for mandatory risk assessment to the ‘threshold’ of 20 genetic changes per NGT plant.
ANSES provides several examples in its reports highlighting substantial differences between NGT plants and conventionally-bred plants, even in cases where less than 20 genetic changes were made. EFSA, however, has failed to consider any of these examples.
Furthermore, EFSA only took one report into account, leaving aside the second, much more detailed ANSES report. As both reports are closely linked, EFSA has clearly failed to provide a sufficient analysis of the arguments put forward by ANSES.
Consequently, Testbiotech is accusing EFSA of acting like a ‘service institution’ defending the Commission proposal without sufficiently assessing relevant scientific counter arguments.
Whatever the case, the Commission proposal is likely to be subject of further controversial debates. The Hungarian Presidency of the Council has announced to reopen discussions on the file at the upcoming meetings between experts of Member States. Testbiotech expects that the arguments put forward by ANSES and other experts and institutions will now be discussed in more detail.
Contact:
Christoph Then, info@testbiotech.org, Tel + 49 151 54638040
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