December 8, 2013: PROPONENTS of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) as safe-to-eat gained the upper-hand as the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said in a statement on Friday it will not require labeling of GM products.
GMOs virtually has no difference from conventional food, is not cancer-causing, and has been proven safe for human health under numerous tests, the FDA statement said.
According to the food authority, packaged products containing GM crops like the Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) corn and those that are not yet in the market, the Bt eggplant and the Vitamin A-rich Golden Rice, have no verifiable difference from any other conventional crops, adding that labeling is only mandatory if there are safety issues.
“These are as safe as the usual crops in the market. The nutrition contents too are substantially equivalent compared to usual farmers’ produce, so why GM food should be labeled?” Oscar Gutierrez Jr., chairman of the FDA Policy Planning Office, was quoted in the statement as saying.
Controversies
ON May 17, the Special 13th Division of the Court of Appeals issued a ruling to permanently stop confined field trials of Bt eggplant because these allegedly pose risks to human health and the environment.
The appellate court said the field trials of Bt talong (Bt eggplant) are unsafe to humans and environment and that the government of Philippines has failed to adopt sufficient biosafety protocols, as well as feasibility studies on GMOs to protect the environment and people’s health.
The groups Masipag (Farmer-Scientist Partnership for Development), Greenpeace Southeast Asia, and other advocates against GMOs contend that Bt eggplant is genetically modified to produce its own toxin to kill the eggplant fruit and shoot borer.
According to these groups, genetic engineering disrupts the precise sequence of genetic codes, disturbing the functions of neighboring genes, and that when consumed; GM foods may give rise to potentially toxic or allergenic molecules or even alter the nutritional value.
Concerns were also raised over genetic contamination, wherein a GMO crop reproduces once released in the open via pollination and interacts genetically with natural varieties of the same crop. Bt corn has contaminated the indigenous varieties of corn in Oaxaca, Mexico, a rich gene pool for maize varieties, according to a study published in academic science journal Nature.
In an earlier interview, Masipag said that prospects of export for Philippine organic corn, and eventually rice, might be affected once contamination is proven.
Last month the Department of Agriculture (DA) Undersecretary for Operations Dante S. Delima said the country has already shipped out 350 metric tons of organic rice to several countries.
Biotechnology was identified by the agriculture department as one of the strategies of the government to pursue its food staples sufficiency program in improving the production of staple foods to feed the burgeoning population.
Differences
ACCORDING to the FDA, the difference between GM and non-GM crops is the presence of recombinant DNA or the protein gene that is present in GM crops.
However, in the process of cooking the GM crop, the protein is destroyed or denatured, the FDA said.
“Once cooked, it’s no longer there. The food no longer carries the verifiable recombinant DNA. So what is there to label?” Gutierrez said, adding that in processed products like corn oil or corn syrup which are by-products of both GM and non-GM crops, nutritional content is practically the same in all aspects.
Bt corn, which contains the Bt protein, cannot harm humans because it will need an alkaline environment to be activated, and human guts are acidic, Antonio A. Alfonso said in an interview.
Alfonso, director of DA’s Crop Biotechnology Center, added that the human body does not have receptors in their cells to receive the insecticidal protein.
Guidelines
IN its “Draft Guidelines on Labeling of Prepackaged Foods Derived from or Containing Ingredients from Modern Biotechnology,” the food and drug agency indicated that it will not require labeling for GM packaged foods.
“Special labeling shall not be required for prepackaged food products derived from modern biotechnology that is highly processed as to eliminate the verifiable presence of recombinant DNA [rDNA] or its resulting protein. [These] are substantially equivalent compared with its conventional counterpart or as safe,” it added.
The regulation is in accord with the food safety standards Codex Alimentarius listed in the “Compilation of Codex Texts Relevant to Labelling of Foods Derived from Modern Biotechnology.”
Special labels will only be required when there is safety concern about food, according to the guidelines, and this only in instances that “significant change in composition, level of toxin, toxicity, allergenicity, nutritional value, or intended use of the food product as compared to its comparator.”
The Codex Alimentarius Commission (CAC) was established by the Food and Agriculture Organization and World Health Organization in 1963 to develop harmonized international food standards, guidelines and codes of practice to protect the health of consumers and ensure fair trade practices. The commission also promotes coordination of all food standards work undertaken by international governmental and non-governmental organizations like European Food Safety Authority and International Life Science Inc. The Sanitary Phytosanitary Agreement of the World Trade Organization ensures that internationally traded food meets the standards based on the scientific principles set by the CAC.
Advisory
IN its Advisory 2013-014 on “Safety of GM Food Produced through Modern Biotechnology” dated June 24, 2013, the FDA stated that food-safety assessment of biotechnology products “is more rigorous,” compared to other conventionally bred crops.
“For the GM food crops that have undergone food-safety assessment and approval process, the consensus of scientific opinion and evidence is that the application of GM technology introduces no unique food safety concerns and up to this time there is no single case of evidence of harm in man,” the FDA said.
The FDA also said with GM crops, Filipino farmers who do not want to plant biotech crops may use conventional seeds that are widely available. Farmers planting corn have chosen to plant the GM Bt corn which as of 2012 occupied 719,446 hectares. This area was up from 685,372 hectares in 2011 and was a steady increase from around 10,000 hectares when it was first planted in 2003, it noted.
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