House of Lords written question – answered at on 28 June 2010.
To ask Her Majesty's Government why, in the light of the effect of insertional mutagenesis which takes place during genetic transformation of between 1 per cent and 4 per cent of the genes of the host genome on its function, the Food Standards Agency, the European Food Standards Agency and other regulators base their safety assessment on substantial equivalence.
The Advisory Committee on Novel Foods and Processes (ACNFP) considered the issue of insertional mutagenesis in 2007. The committee agreed that genetically modified (GM) plants may contain DNA changes at loci other than the insertion site but pointed out that similar changes occur in plants that have not been subject to techniques of genetic modification.
The ACNFP also noted that these changes are taken into account in the safety assessment of GM plants, as carried out by the European Food Safety Authority. These assessments are not based solely on substantial equivalence of the GM plant with its non-GM counterpart and they include the assessment of intended and unintended effects, whether resulting from the inserted transgene or from other unintended genetic changes.
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