Biotech food is safe: Is anyone going to tell the consumer?

09-15-2008: EuropaBio welcomes the report issued by the Joint Research Centre that reconfirms the results of a 2001 Commission study concluding that no demonstration of any health effect of GM food products has ever been reported and the use of more precise technology and the greater regulatory scrutiny very likely makes them even safer than conventional plants and foods.

“That food made from biotech crops is safe for human and animal consumption is not exactly news,” says Willy De Greef, Secretary General of EuropaBio. The 2001 study by the European Commission covering 15 years experience with agricultural biotech products affirmed exactly that, and so did the more recent reports by the WHO, the French and British Academies of Medicine and other renowned institutes, “We hope that the European policymakers who have insisted on verifying this fact again will now act in accordance with the findings in the form of more timely and actual approvals of biotech products”.

The head of EuropaBio calls for widespread communication from the EU to the general public about the JRC’s findings, something that that was sorely lacking when the 2001 Commission study was published.

“Now that we have once again (re-)ascertained the safety of biotech foods, let’s give consumers the opportunity to choose among a variety of safe foods produced with the help of modern biotechnology… let’s get these products approved!” he concluded.

Original publication: JRC Study: Scientific and technical contribution to the development of an overall health strategy in the area of GMOs.