[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]
GM microbes in food
Codex alimenatarius is the group of bureaucrats who work for FAO and set
standards for foods that are usually implemented by the world trade
organization. Codex standards tend to be forced on the world. The
deliberation on GM organisms includes GM microbes in foods. The
standards being considered by codex are clearly a means to spread GM
microbes with little or no testing based on "substantial equivalence" to
protect the food manufacturers from liability from their untested
products. Portions of the codex positions that no animal testing is
needed and substantial equivalence dogma is the rule are given below.
The document shows the naked bias and willingness to endanger the public
of the codex bureaucrats. In the codex system step 6 is the final step
before implementation.
The 3rd Session of the Codex Ad Hoc Intergovernmental Task Force on
Foods Derived from Biotechnology discussed the Proposed Draft Guideline
for the Conduct of Food Safety Assessment of Foods Produced Using
Recombinant-DNA Microorganisms and agreed to advance it to the next
session of the Codex Executive Committee for its adoption at Step 5
since the Task Force noted that the general approach and outline of the
Proposed Draft while it noted there were several proposals to amend the
paragraphs in the text (para 88, ALINORM 03/34).
The 50th Session of the Codex Executive Committee adopted it at Step 5
and advanced to Step 6 Draft Guideline for the Conduct of Food Safety
Assessment of Foods Produced Using Recombinant-DNA Microorganisms.
12. Animal studies cannot readily be applied to testing the risks
associated with whole foods, which are complex mixtures of compounds,
and often characterized by a wide variation in composition and
nutritional value. Due to their bulk and effect on satiety, they can
usually only be fed to animals at low multiples of the amounts that
might be present in the human diet. In addition, a key factor to
consider in conducting animal studies on foods is the nutritional value
and balance of the diets used, in order to avoid the induction of
adverse effects that are not related directly to the material itself.
Detecting any potential adverse effects and relating these conclusively
to an individual characteristic of the food can therefore be extremely
difficult. Another consideration in deciding the need for animal
studies is whether it is appropriate to subject experimental animals to
such a study if it is unlikely to give rise to meaningful information.
13. Animal studies typically employed in toxicological evaluations
also cannot be readily applied to testing potential risks associated
with ingestion of microorganisms used for food production.
Microorganisms are living entities, containing complex structures
composed of many biochemicals, and therefore are not comparable to pure
compounds. In some processed foods, they can survive processing and
ingestion and can compete and, in some cases, be retained in the
intestinal environment for significant periods of time. Appropriate
animal studies should be used to evaluate the safety of recombinant-DNA
microorganisms where the donor, or the gene or gene product do not have
a history of safe use in food. Further, appropriately designed studies
in animals may be used to assess the nutritional value of the food or
the bioavailability of the newly expressed substance in the food.
14. Due to the difficulties of applying traditional toxicological
testing and risk assessment procedures to whole foods produced using
microorganisms, an alternative approach is required for the safety
assessment of foods produced using microorganisms, including
recombinant-DNA microorganisms. This has been addressed by the
development of a multidisciplinary approach for assessing safety, that
takes into account the intended effect, the nature of the modification,
and detectable unintended changes that may occur in the microorganism
or in its action on the food, using the concept of substantial
equivalence . While the focus of a safety assessment will be on the
recombinant-DNA microorganism, additional information on its
interaction with the food matrix should be taken into consideration
when applying the concept of substantial equivalence, which is a key
step in the safety assessment process. However, the concept of
substantial equivalence is not a safety assessment in itself; rather it
represents the starting point that is used to structure the safety
assessment of [both] a recombinant-DNA microorganism relative to its
conventional counterpart [as well as the food produced with the aid of
the RDM relative to its conventional counterpart]. This concept is used
to identify similarities and differences between a recombinant-DNA
microorganism used in food processing and its conventional counterpart.
Generally, the comparison should be between the recombinant-DNA
microorganism and its recipient strain used in its development. [An
evaluation of the differences between the recombinant-DNA microorganism
and its conventional counterpart could be a starting point to address
safety concerns.] However, there will be instances when the food or
specific gene product(s) encoded by the modified DNA and produced by
the recombinant DNA microorganism should be compared with the
appropriate conventional counterpart. The safety assessment carried out
in this way does not imply absolute safety of the new product; rather,
it focuses on assessing the safety of any identified differences so
that the safety of the recombinant-DNA microorganism can be considered
relative to its conventional counterpart.
In closing , codex functions very much like the bureaucrats in the
old movie soylent green.A New York ploice detective (Charlton Heston) in
an AD2022 marked by overpopulation investigates what appears to be a
routine murder and in the end discovers that "soylent green", the main
food for the world's population, is actually made from dead human bodies.
.