The National Academy of Sciences said the government should conduct safety reviews of all new plant varieties that pose potential hazards, not only those that result from genetic engineering. To support its position, the NAS pointed to the emergence of new technology, such as gene editing, and the sometimes startling effects of conventional plant breeding.
In a 409-page report, a panel of experts selected by NAS said GE crops, grown commercially for two decades, are safe, but that weed resistance is a major problem.
GE crops have been controversial since they were approved for cultivation in the 1990s. The NAS panel said the crops — primarily corn, soybeans and cotton — have been an economic boon to farmers. But there was no evidence that they drove up yields faster than conventional breeding would have. “Not all issues can be answered by science alone,” said NAS in a release. The new crops create legal and social questions.
“On the basis of its review of the evidence on health effects, the committee does not believe that mandatory labeling of foods with GE content is justified to protect public health, but it noted that the issue involves social and economic choices that go beyond technical assessments of health or environmental safety; ultimately, it involves value choices that technical assessments alone cannot answer,” said NAS.
The panel of experts proposed a crop-review system that would assign differing levels of scrutiny based on a plant’s characteristics. “New plant varieties that have intended or unintended novel characteristics that may present potential hazards should undergo safety testing — regardless of whether they were developed using genetic engineering or conventional breeding techniques,” said NAS. The panel said the current system of heavy review of genetic engineering was becoming less defensible as biotechnology becomes a familiar method and processes such as genome editing or synthetic biology fall outside of the regulatory framework.
The administration has launched a review of the government’s system for regulating novel plants. At present, the USDA, FDA and EPA share primary responsibility for ensuring GE plants are safe, based on a law protecting seed quality. Techniques such as gene editing are not covered by the network because they do not introduce material from dissimilar plants and animals, as genetic engineering does.
Agricultural groups have said that gene editing and similar methods should be exempted permanently from biotechnology regulation.
A month ago, DuPont Pioneer said it expects that by 2021 it will be selling a gene-edited strain of high-starch “waxy” corn seed to farmers. It would be the first commercial crop variety developed with CRISPR technology by the second-largest seed company in the world.