Are Biotech Foods Safe?

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Although regulatory agencies are charged with protecting the public, internal FDA memos made public by a lawsuit reveal that political appointees at the FDA were under orders from the White House to promote GMOs. The resulting policy from the FDA has created a false impression of scientific agreement when the real situation surrounding GMOs is one of continuing debate and uncertainty.

The person who oversaw policy development at the FDA in 1991 was Deputy Commissioner for Policy Michael Taylor. Prior to that Taylor was an outside attorney for both Monsanto and the Food Biotechnology Council. After he left the FDA, he became Monsanto’s vice president.
In 1992 the Food and Drug Administration claimed that they had no information showing that GM foods were substantially different from conventionally grown foods and were safe to eat and labeled them “Generally Recognized as Safe,” or GRAS.

According to US law, to be considered GRAS the substance must be the subject of a substantial amount of peer-reviewed published studies (or equivalent) and there must be overwhelming consensus among the scientific community that the product is safe. GM foods had neither.

The FDA’s own scientists had warned agency regulators that GMOs could create unpredictable, hard-to-detect side effects, including allergies, toxins, new diseases and nutritional problems.  
The declaration of GRAS status by the FDA deviated from the Food and Cosmetic Act and years of legal precedent. This status allowed products to be commercialized without any additional testing.

Subsequently the FDA declared that GM crops are GRAS as long as their producers say they are. That means the FDA does not require any safety evaluations or labeling of GMOs. A company can even introduce a GM food to the market without telling the agency. This conflict of interest in both the promotion and regulation if the biotech industry is a key factor in the problem of maintaining both transparency and scientific integrity during the regulatory process of GM foods.