Does it matter to you how the food you eat and feed your family is produced? Most of us who care about our health or that of our loved ones, or know something about nutrition and molecular biology, would say “yes”. But, for the FDA, it matters not a bit what’s happened to your food on its way to your dinner plate. That’s the thrust of the new guidance document released by the agency on foods from GE plants. All that matters to the FDA is the finished product. This means a GE tomato gets to be treated, in regulatory terms, exactly the same way as a regular tomato. No additional safety measures are necessary for gene-edited fruits and vegetables because the process used to create them, says the FDA, is irrelevant. We have to push back against this short-sighted, unscientific, pro-industry stance taken by the federal government. Just think about the influx of synbio foods that are coming to market, thanks to the fact that the FDA has effectively said to industry with its latest guidance it’s ‘game on’ for GE foods, and you don’t need to worry about any additional safety hurdles or labeling.
Write to Congress and the FDA, telling them that we need more testing of gene-edited foods that research is increasingly finding are not bioequivalent to traditional foods.