GM foods debate at FDA
engineered foods to cause allergic reactions has spurred the Food
and Drug Administration to hold a meeting to look into the best
methods for determining whether these foods pose an allergic risk.
Concerns in the US about the potential for future genetically engineered foods to cause allergic reactions has spurred the Food and Drug Administration to hold a meeting to look into the best methods for determining whether these foods pose an allergic risk.
The meeting, held on Tuesday and Wednesday this week, is the first of the newly developed food biotechnology subcommittee, an FDA spokeswoman who requested anonymity told United Press International.
The subcommittee, which includes representatives from industry and a consumer interest group, will 'discuss different approaches to assess whether proteins in bio-engineered foods would be likely to cause allergic reactions or not,' the spokeswoman said.
The meeting will be used to develop guidance for the tests industry should conduct on the products they are developing to 'ensure the safety of new bio-engineered foods for consumers,' she said.
Gregory Jaffe, director of Center for Science in the Public Interest's biotechnology project, said the potential for bio-engineered foods to cause allergic reactions 'is definitely of concern.'
So far none of the bio-engineered foods currently on the market appear to be causing allergies or other adverse reactions in people, Jaffe added.
Mike Rodemyer, executive director of the Pew Initiative on Food and Biotechnology, which does not take a position on genetically modified foods, concurred with Jaffe.
"The issue really is trying to look ahead at next generation of products where we really haven't had experience before," Rodemyer told UPI.
Jaffe said the FDA should have been advising companies on the appropriate tests to rule out allergenicity 'a lot earlier.' This is because several bio-engineered foods are already on the market and in the food supply, including Monsanto's Roundup Ready corn and soybeans, which have a gene that makes them resistant to herbicides. Rodemyer said the real concerns regarding bioengineered foods are about allergenicity rather than toxicity. There "isn't really a good scientific test to predict ahead of time whether a protein causes allergies," he said, but "we know how to screen for the kind of obvious changes in toxicity."
