• DOI:10.1038/nbt0703-739
• Corpus ID: 2533628

Codex guidelines for GM foods include the analysis of unintended effects

@article{Haslberger2003CodexGF,
  title={Codex guidelines for GM foods include the analysis of unintended effects},
  author={Alexander G. Haslberger},
  journal={Nature Biotechnology},
  year={2003},
  volume={21},
  pages={739-741}
}

• A. Haslberger
• Published 1 July 2003
• Political Science, Medicine
• Nature Biotechnology

I n response to the increased delivery of genetically modified (GM) foods to international markets, the Ad Hoc Intergovernmental Task Force on Food Derived from Biotechnology of the Codex Alimentarius Commission (Rome) agreed in March on principles for the human health risk analysis of GM foods 1. These principles dictate a case-by-case premarket assessment that includes an evaluation of both direct and unintended effects. They state that safety assessment of GM foods needs to investigate direct health effects (toxicity), tendency to provoke allergic reactions (allergenicity), specific components thought to have nutritional or toxic properties, the stability of the inserted gene, nutritional effects associated with genetic modification and any unintended effects that could result from the gene insertion. Of particular note, the task force broadens risk assessment to encompass not only health-related effects of the food itself, but also the indirect effects of food on human health (e.g., potential health risks derived from outcrossing). Unintended effects of the product The Codex's aim is to anticipate not only the direct risks, but also the indirect/unan-ticipated risks that the products of modern agriculture might pose for human health. All of the methods used for breeding or manipulating plant traits, including self-and cross-pollination, the generation of hybrids or haploid breeding, mutational breeding (including X-rays or chemicals) and advanced biotechnologies (including protoplast fusion and/or recombinant DNA technology), have the potential to generate unanticipated effects in plants. In conventional breeding programs of spring barley, for example, different degrees of a temporary breakdown of the resistance to powdery mildew by a sudden relief of soil water-stress have been attributed to the genetic background rather than the specific allele 2. There have also been reports that a traditionally bred squash caused food poisoning 3 , a pest-resistant celery variety produced rashes in agricultural workers (which was subsequently found to contain seven-fold more carcinogenic psoralens than control celery 4) and a potato variety Lenape contained very high levels of toxic solanine 5 (which was subsequently withdrawn from cultivation). The use of tissue culture in plant breeding has also often resulted in somaclonal variation of plant lines and irregular phenotypes or field performance. Somaclonal variations are mutational and chromoso-mal instabilities of embryonic plants regenerated from tissue cultures. These instabilities may result from activation of dormant transposons in the chromosome 6. The consequent genetic variability is known to persist for many generations and is difficult to eliminate by backcrossing. For plants …