Report calls for GM food testing

Safety checks for GM foods should be improved, asserted the UK's leading body ofscientists, the Royal Society, this week.

The body has just released a report that warns that safety assessments should be improved before a greater variety of foods made from genetically modified plants are declared fit for human consumption.

It concludes that there is no reason to doubt the safety of foods made from GM ingredients that are currently available, nor to believe that genetic modification makes foods inherently less safe than their conventional counterparts. However, the report calls for the tightening of regulations for all novel foods, particularly with respect to allergy testing and the nutritional content of infant formula.

The report also recommends that the methods for comparing GM foods with their conventional counterparts, by applying the principle of 'substantial equivalence', should be made more explicit and objective during safety assessments, and harmonised between Member States of the European Union.

Dr Clare Mills, head of physical biochemistry at the Institute of Food Research, was appointed to the working party because of her expertise in plant food allergens. Dr Mills's current research interests include investigating the way in which plant protein structure and food processing affect food protein allergenicity.

Talking of the advances in analytical techniques, Dr Mills said:"Substantial equivalence has been the best method available, and it has worked well with the crops considered to date. Now we have the techniques to define the differences (if any) between GM and non-GM crops objectively, which will allow a transparent assessment of the new generation of crops now in development."​

Other researchers at the Institute of Food Research are working on the development of methods for the detection of possible 'unintended effects' of genetic modification and methods to issue early warnings of any problems long before the products approach the commercial stage. The research is part of an EU-funded project involving eleven laboratories across Europe. The UK-based research is also supported by the Food Standards Agency.