Edinburgh

The debate on genetically modified (GM) foods must become “more open, transparent and inclusive”, concluded an international meeting in Edinburgh last week.

A draft report on the three-day conference, which was held to address the scientific and health aspects of GM foods (see main story), said it was agreed that the general public — as both consumers and citizens — “have valid points of view, which need to be understood and taken into account”.

The draft also highlighted agreement on the fact that, although many people already eat GM foods, “no significant adverse effects have yet been detected on human health”.

Areas of disagreement included whether GM foods in animal feed present a problem, and also “who is to decide the use of [such] food for obtaining benefits as they are perceived in different parts of the world”.

The conference, run jointly by the British government and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, was not intended to produce complete consensus among its 400 participants — which included representatives from government, industry and environmentalist groups — but rather to sketch out areas of agreement and disagreement.

It was generally agreed that, while concepts such as ‘substantial equivalence’ — the idea that a new GM food should be assessed partly on the basis of its similarity to known foodstuffs — are valuable tools for assessing risk, they need to be kept under review.

Sir John Krebs, who chaired the conference, said that although substantial equivalence had been productively used for seven or eight years, “it is occasionally good to stand back and look at the picture as a whole”.

Uncertainty remained on the potential long-term effects on human health and worker safety, as well as long-term environmental effects, including the impact on tropical zones.

The draft report also noted that, while there seemed to be agreement that risk assessment should be opened up and “should take into account non-positivist views”, it was not obvious how this should be done in practice.

Krebs is to summarize the conference's main themes at a meeting of the heads of the eight largest industrialized nations in Tokyo in July. Details of the conference can be found on http://www.oecd.org