GMO crops have no health risks for human health, study says
A study by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine reports that genetically engineered crops and food made from it don’t pose additional health risks to humans compared with their conventionally bred counterparts.
The findings were released in a 408-page report by a NAS committee. It reviewed epidemiological data from the US and Canada, where food made with genetically engineered (GE) plants has been consumed for the past two decades, and compared it with information from Western Europe, where such foods aren’t widely eaten.
“The committee found no evidence of differences between the data from the United Kingdom and western Europe and the data from the United States and Canada in the long-term pattern of increase or decrease in specific health problems after the introduction of GE foods in the 1990s,” the NAS said. While no substantiated evidence was found to link modified crops to increased health risks, the study cited the difficulty in detecting subtle or long-term effects on health and the environment.
Genetically modified crops have attracted controversy ever since they were first commercialized two decades ago, but have come under particular scrutiny in recent months. In the US, a law requiring labeling of some foods containing GMO ingredients is set to take effect in Vermont on July 1 after a bid to create a national standard stalled in the Senate earlier this year. Major food companies have said scientific consensus proves that genetically modified organisms, or GMOs, are safe and that labeling is unnecessary and could drive up costs for consumers. Groups opposed to GMOs on ethical and environmental grounds say consumers have a right to know if their food has been modified.
The NAS study said mandatory GE-labeling would give buyers the chance to make “their own personal risk-benefit decisions” about the products. Without it, consumers are deprived of making an informed choice about the goods, the authors wrote. The study “takes a major policy step in calling on the food and agriculture industries to increase transparency regarding GMO foods,” the Environmental Working Group in Washington said in a statement.
Another source of debate over GMOs involves safety concerns of glyphosate, the weedkiller that some crops have been modified to tolerate. The chemical, sold by Monsanto Co. under the Roundup brand, probably causes cancer, the International Agency for Research on Cancer said last year. Monsanto, the world’s largest seed company, rejected the findings. The World Health Organization and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations said in a report Monday that glyphosate isn’t likely to be carcinogenic.
The committee recommended that new crop varieties be regulated based on a plant’s characteristics, rather than the process by which it was created. The committee’s review was focused on corn, soybean and cotton crops and involved the review of about 900 publications. More than 90% of the corn and soybeans planted in the US last year were produced from genetically engineered seed, according to US Department of Agriculture data.
Source: Bloomberg
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