EU Center Says Biotech Foods Safe

Posted by Matt Hopkins|September 24, 2008

The Joint Research Centre, The European Union’s scientific and technical research laboratory and an integral part of the European Commission, has released its report on the "Scientific and technical contribution to the development of an overall health strategy in the area of GMOs (genetically modified organisms)."

The overall results of the study indicate that:

There is a comprehensive body of knowledge that already adequately addresses current food safety issues including those dealing with GM products; it is considered by the experts as sufficient to assess the safety of present GM products.
Developments in biotechnology will require even more sizeable efforts to maintain an adequate capacity to deal with novel products.
Such research and development efforts need to be firmly inscribed in an international context.
It is essential that a forum is created where stakeholders meet regularly to share expertise, to identify areas of improvement, to forecast upcoming developments, and to anticipate needs for scientific and technical efforts.
"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 European Association for Bioindustries. 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."