Plant Biotech Blog

Technologies come with some concomitant and some consequential benefits, both of which should be taken together in assessing the total benefits that accrue. No technology is risk free. Benefits of a technology should hence be weighed against minimal and acceptable risks and a favourable cost-benefit ratio.

Risk assessment, mitigation and management are at the heart of regulatory processes. Planting a non-Bt refugium along with Bt crops is a means of mitigating the risk of acquired resistance, and so is gene stacking (http://www.fbae.org/Channels/Views/transgenic_bt_technology2.htm).

Stakeholder acceptance of a technology is rooted in a rational and balanced projection and not in hype. Factual information will enhance the credibility of the establishment and help the consumer take educated and lasting decisions.

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Biosecurity has two components: a) Biosafety, the safety of GE products to humans and animals as food, feed and medicine, and b) Environmental safety, the safety of non-target organisms, soil and water. The terms biosecurity and biosafety are often used incorrectly as synonyms.

Raised from both the pro-tech and anti-tech platforms, biosecurity issues are relevant even to products of classical agricultural biotechnology, but were never made an issue in that context.

Science has answers on all biosecurity concerns. The regulatory process ensures that all questions are answered reasonably satisfactorily.

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The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) routinely and stringently used the Principle of Substantial Equivalence (PSE) for decades to assure the public of the safety of foods and drugs. This criterion refers only to the product and not the process of its production. On account of the high standards of FDA’s regulatory oversight, most other countries generally approve drugs and pharmaceuticals on the basis of FDA’s approval.

PSE is now being applied to products from GEOs, in order to assure the consumer that the product is ’substantially equivalent‘ (SE) to its conventional counterpart and so is safe for human consumption. In the context of GEOs, PSE is frequently an issue for serious discussion (http://www.fao.org/biotech/logs/c9logs.htm, http://www.i-sis.org.uk/subst.php).

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