Risk assessments of GMOs for food in Europe are not sufficient, according to the results of the pan-European research project RAGES (Risk Assessment of Genetically Engineered Organisms in the EU and Switzerland), presented on Tuesday 29 October in Switzerland, in the presence of representatives from the European Commission, EFSA and Swiss authorities.
These results seem to support the European Parliament, which in recent years has voted in favour of some 40 objections to the authorisation of new genetically modified plants, often citing the absence of an adequate and sufficient risk assessment – criticisms also made by experts from several Member States.
Established in 2016, this research project on the risks of genetically modified plants is independent of the interests of the biotechnology industry and involves a dozen experts from the scientific and academic worlds of five European countries (Germany, Austria, United Kingdom, Norway and Switzerland) (see EUROPE 11669/14).
According to Testbiotech (Institute for Independent Impact Assessment in Biotechnology), one of the coordinators of RAGES, these results show that, in many cases, risk assessors follow a “don’t look, don’t find” approach that does not take into account the limitations of knowledge and does not identify major uncertainties or knowledge gaps. EFSA’s assessment reportedly does not thoroughly examine all relevant risks, but focuses on those risks that can be most easily examined.
The result is that risk assessment practices are not sufficient to meet the legal requirements to establish the safety of GMOs, food or feed based on these GMOs.
As an example of an incomplete assessment, ‘SmartStax’ maize, developed and marketed by Monsanto (Bayer) and DowDupont (Corteva), which tolerates several herbicides and produces six insecticidal Bt toxins, was authorised for import into the EU without a single study on food and feed and its potential health effects. The results of RAGES will be published in early 2020. (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)