ASYMMETRY OF MISINFORMATION: From Krugman To GMOs

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13. The purpose of labeling is to allow for post-market safety research

and to allow consumers to make their own choices.

With regard to the former, it is not possible to survey consumers as to GMO use if GMO products are not labeled.

http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=10977&page=183

SAFETY OF GENETICALLY ENGINEERED FOODS
APPROACHES TO ASSESSING UNINTENDED HEALTH EFFECTS

Report from:

Committee on Identifying and Assessing Unintended Effects of Genetically Engineered Foods on Human Health
Board on Life Sciences
Food and Nutrition Board
Board on Agriculture and Natural Resources
INSTITUTE OF MEDICINE AND NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMIES
THE NATIONAL ACADEMIES PRESS
 Washington, D.C.

Additional Tools for Postcommercialization: Identification and Assessment of Unintended Effects
Findings

Postcommercialization or postmarket evaluation tools for verifying and validating premarket assessments of novel substances in food or detectable changes in diet composition, including tracking and epidemiological studies, are important components of the overall assessment of food safety. . . .

Postmarket surveillance is a commonly accepted procedure, for example, with new pharmaceuticals and has been beneficial in the identification of harmful and unexpected side effects. As a result, pharmacologists accept postmarket surveillance as a part of the process to identify unexpected adverse outcomes from their products. This example is especially pertinent to GE foods because of the unique ability of this process to introduce gene sequences to generate novel products into organisms intended for use as food and especially in situations where the novel products are introduced at levels that have the potential to alter dietary intake patterns (e.g., elevated levels of key nutrients).

Given the possibility that food with unintended changes may enter the marketplace despite premarket safety mechanisms, postmarket surveillance of exposures and effects is needed to validate premarket evaluations. . . . Thus the process of identifying unintended compositional changes in food is best served by combining premarket testing with postmarket surveillance, when compositional changes indicate that it is warranted, in a feedback loop that follows a new GM food or food product long-term, from development through utilization

RECOMMENDATION 5

When warranted by changes such as altered levels of naturally occurring components above those found in the product’s unmodified counterpart, population-specific vulnerabilities, or unexplained clusters of adverse health effects, the committee recommends improving the tracking of potential health consequences from commercially available foods that are genetically modified, including those that are genetically engineered, by actions such as the following:

Improve the ability to identify populations that are susceptible to food allergens and develop databases relevant to tracking the prevalence of food allergies and intolerances in the general population, and in susceptible population subgroups.

Improve and include other postmarket resources for identifying and tracking unpredicted and unintended health effects from GM foods:

Improve the sensitivity of surveys and other analytical methodologies currently used to detect consumer trends in the purchase and use of GM foods after release into the marketplace,