Talk:Genetically modified food/Safety

This page is intended as a compilation of the sources (along with the relevant quotes) discussed in the June 2015 GM food RfC. Entries are in no particular order and loosely follow the order in which they were presented in the RfC.

Scientific, medical, and regulatory organizations

• American Association for the Advancement of Science

• The World Health Organization, the American Medical Association, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, the British Royal Society, and every other respected organization that has examined the evidence has come to the same conclusion: consuming foods containing ingredients derived from GM crops is no riskier than consuming the same foods containing ingredients from crop plants modified by conventional plant improvement techniques.

• American Medical Association

• Bioengineered foods have been consumed for close to 20 years, and during that time, no overt consequences on human health have been reported and/or substantiated in the peer-reviewed literature.

• United States Institute of Medicine and National Research Council

• To date, no adverse health effects attributed to genetic engineering have been documented in the human population.
• In contrast to adverse health effects that have been associated with some traditional food production methods, similar serious health effects have not been identified as a result of genetic engineering techniques used in food production. This may be because developers of bioengineered organisms perform extensive compositional analyses to determine that each phenotype is desirable and to ensure that unintended changes have not occurred in key components of food.

• European Directorate-General for Research and Innovation

• The main conclusion to be drawn from the efforts of more than 130 research projects, covering a period of more than 25 years of research, and involving more than 500 independent research groups, is that biotechnology, and in particular GMOs, are not per se more risky than e.g. conventional plant breeding technologies.
• These activities provide at least equal assurance of the safety of these foods compared to conventional counterparts, provided these GM products have been approved by the EU and the national food safety evaluation procedures.

• World Health Organization

• ...individual GM foods and their safety should be assessed on a case-by-case basis and that it is not possible to make general statements on the safety of all GM foods.
• GM foods currently available on the international market have passed safety assessments and are not likely to present risks for human health. In addition, no effects on human health have been shown as a result of the consumption of such foods by the general population in the countries where they have been approved.

• Food and Agriculture Organization

• Currently available transgenic crops and foods derived from them have been judged safe to eat and the methods used to test their safety have been deemed appropriate. These conclusions represent the consensus of the scientific evidence surveyed by the ICSU (2003) and they are consistent with the views of the World Health Organization (WHO, 2002). These foods have been assessed for increased risks to human health by several national regulatory authorities...using their national food safety procedures (ICSU). To date no verifiable untoward toxic or nutritionally deleterious effects resulting from the consumption of foods derived from genetically modified crops have been discovered anywhere in the world (GM Science Review Panel). Many millions of people have consumed foods derived from GM plants – mainly maize, soybean and oilseed rape – without any observed adverse effects (ICSU).
• The lack of evidence of negative effects, however, does not mean that new transgenic foods are without risk (ICSU, GM Science Review Panel). Scientists acknowledge that not enough is known about the long-term effects of transgenic (and most traditional) foods. It will be difficult to detect long-term effects because of many confounding factors such as the underlying genetic variability in foods and problems in assessing the impacts of whole foods. Furthermore, newer, more complex genetically transformed foods may be more difficult to assess and may increase the possibility of unintended effects. New profiling or 'fingerprinting' tools may be useful in testing whole foods for unintended changes in composition (ICSU).

• IAASTD

• There are a limited number of properly designed and independently peer-reviewed studies on human health (Domingo, 2000; Pryme and Lembcke, 2003). Among the studies that have been published, some have provided evidence for potential undesirable effects (Pryme and Lembcke, 2003; Pusztai et al., 2003).

• Health Canada

• Health Canada is not aware of any published scientific evidence demonstrating that novel [GM] foods are any less safe than traditional foods.

• British Medical Association

• [M]any unanswered questions remain, particularly with regard to the long-term impact of GM foods on human health and the environment.
• In our view, the potential for GM foods to cause harmful health effects is very small and many of the concerns expressed apply with equal vigour to conventionally derived foods.

• American Society for Cell Biology

• ...far from presenting a threat to the public health, GM crops in many cases improve it.

• American Society for Microbiology

• ASM is not aware of any acceptable evidence that food produced with biotechnology and subject to FDA oversight constitutes high risk or is unsafe

• American Society of Plant Biologists

• Since the commercial introduction of GE crops in 1996, there has not been a single documented instance of harm to human health. Furthermore, thousands of scientific studies from the academic, government, and private sectors have been performed on various aspects of GE crops. These data have been comprehensively assessed in multiple National Research Council reports...

• French Academy of Sciences

• ...all criticisms against GMOs can be set aside based for the most part on strictly scientific criteria.

• International Council for Science (ICSU)

• Currently available genetically modified foods are safe to eat.

Review articles

• Plant genetics, sustainable agriculture and global food security

• There is broad scientific consensus that genetically engineered crops currently on the market are safe to eat. After 14 years of cultivation and a cumulative total of 2 billion acres planted, no adverse health or environmental effects have resulted from commercialization of genetically engineered crops ...
• ...the processes of genetic engineering and conventional breeding are no different in terms of unintended consequences to human health and the environment.

• A literature review on the safety assessment of genetically modified plants.

• An equilibrium in the number research groups suggesting, on the basis of their studies, that a number of varieties of GM products (mainly maize and soybeans) are as safe and nutritious as the respective conventional non-GM plant, and those raising still serious concerns, was currently observed. (NB: Is there a better quote? "Equilibrium" doesn't mean 50-50 in a scientific context, and from the list of 28 studies reviewed, only 5 concluded with adverse effects and a few more found effects that were not adverse.)

• An overview of the last 10 years of genetically engineered crop safety research.

• The scientific research conducted so far has not detected any significant hazards directly connected with the use of GE crops.

• Genetically modified plants and human health

• Foods derived from GM crops have been consumed by hundreds of millions of people across the world for more than 15 years, with no reported ill effects (or legal cases related to human health), despite many of the consumers coming from that most litigious of countries, the USA.

Low-quality or arguable MEDRS

• Safety of genetically engineered food

• ...evidence to date has not indicated that any foods developed for human consumption using genetic engineering techniques pose risks greater than foods produced using traditional methods.

• A golden opportunity, squandered

• ...a broad scientific consensus holds that ‘the same physical and biological laws govern the response of organisms modified by modern molecular and cellular methods and those produced by classical methods. ... [Therefore] no conceptual distinction exists between genetic modification of plants and microorganisms by classical methods or by molecular techniques that modify DNA and transfer genes.’

• No scientific consensus on GMO safety
  • A broad community of independent scientific researchers and scholars challenges recent claims of a consensus over the safety of genetically modified organisms (GMOs). In the following joint statement, the claimed consensus is shown to be an artificial construct that has been falsely perpetuated through diverse fora.

• Contrary to popular belief

• ...no adverse health effects have been recorded from eating [GM foods].

• The truth about genetically modified food

• ...despite overwhelming evidence that GM crops are safe to eat...

Probably not (or definitely not) MEDRS

• Genetically modified foods: What is and isn’t true
• Peer-reviewed publications on the safety of GM foods
• Public and Scientists’ Views on Science and Society
• Effects of information on consumers' willingness to pay for GM-corn-fed beef
• Conclusiveness of toxicity data and double standards
• GMO labeling not necessary
• GMOs should be safety tested
• Understanding GMO
• California voter information guide
• Colorado labeling initiative
• Who says GMOs are safe? (and who says they’re not)
• The so-called scientific "consensus"
• The so-called scientific "consensus" #2
• The regulation of GMOs in Europe and the United States
• Regulation of agricultural biotechnology

This section omits the links to organizational information pages, those which didn't address safety, and those brought up in support of tangential issues (erring on the side of inclusion in all cases).

Uncategorized

• Italian scientific societies and Union der Deutschen Akademien der Wissenschaften - weight depends on the status of these societies.
• [13] [14] are reviews published in low-quality journals, and [15] needs more analysis
• Panel report from the Royal Society of Canada was mentioned a few times and could potentially be relevant, but relevant statements weren't being quoted. At one point the report was linked via this book, but it's being misquoted there.
• Science News is MEDRS (lower reliability than review articles), but only directly addresses safety in a quote from the AAAS.