Brussels, 04/07/2012 (Agence Europe) - A public consultation, which will run until 31 August, on the draft European Food Safety Agency (EFSA) guidance document on environmental risk assessment (ERA) of genetically modified (GM) animals is causing great concern at Friends of the Earth Europe (FoE), which sounded the alarm on Wednesday 4 July.
This environmental NGO considers that the existence of this EFSA document, drafted at the request of the European Commission, is clearly the first step towards the introduction of genetically modified animals onto the EU market and authorisation of such products for commercial ends. This is despite the fact that the major supermarkets have expressed no wish to sell these products and consumers are fiercely opposed to GMOs.
Mute Schimpf, a food expert at FoE said that, “the idea of eating genetically modified meat or milk turns people's stomachs. Leading European supermarkets know it would be bad for business to sell GM animal products and will not stock them. Not a single country allows GM animals for food production. So why is the European Commission starting a procedure to approve such products? It's preposterous”.
The draft guidance document to which all stakeholders are invited to respond online mainly focuses on genetically modified fish, insects, mammals and birds and states the specific data requirements and methodology for the ERA of GM animals for applications that should be submitted for if market authorisation were to be allowed in the European Union (EU) in the future. Risk assessment (particularly the interaction of GM animals with targeted and non-targeted organisms, the environmental impact of techniques used for breeding or using GM animals (as well as the impact of GM animals on human and animal health) is based on a comparative approach to genetically modified animals and non-genetically modified animals.
Until now, no request for the authorisation of GM animals for marketing has been submitted in the EU. It is to be prepared should there be future requests that the Commission has called on EFSA to draft this guidance. (AN/transl.fl)