The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), in preparation to allow genetically modified livestock onto the commercial market for food production, published a proposal on Thursday (September 18, 2008) to treat them as non-modified animals that have simply been treated with a new drug.

 

Companies that produce genetically modified animals for food production will have to go through an approval process that takes food safety, environmental safety and product effectiveness into consideration, FDA officials said Thursday in a teleconference with reporters.

 

A key determination that the genetic modification does not create health risks in the meat or milk produced is the health of the animal itself, Larisa Rudenko, senior advisor for biotechnology at FDA's Centre for Veterinary Medicine, said.

 

Rudenko said humans have "relied for millennia on the safety of food" from animals that are healthy. "A healthy animal is likely to produce safe food."

 

FDA will also examine the "composition" of the food produced from genetically modified animals to make sure "it's not different from food that has been historically consumed," Rudenko said.

 

A genetically modified animal is one that has been altered at the DNA level to create a desired effect, such as faster growth, disease resistance, pharmaceutical production or human tissue production. Often scientists use cloning as a tool in the process, but not always.

 

And there will be no requirements to label food as having been derived from genetically altered livestock, said Bill Flynn, an FDA science policy advisor.

 

The guidelines for how the government plans to regulate the introduction of genetically modified livestock onto the commercial market were released now because technology has evolved to a point where commercialisation of these animals is no longer over the horizon, said Randall Lutter, FDA's deputy commissioner for policy.

 

Barbara Glenn, managing director of animal biotechnology at the Biotechnology Industry Organisation, said she was pleased to see FDA publish the guidance document.

 

"Animals that are genetically engineered can have improved food production capabilities, enabling them to help meet the global demand for more efficient, more nutritious, higher quality and lower cost sources of food," Glenn said. "GE animals can also contribute to improving the environment by consuming fewer resources and producing less waste."

 

The proposal released Thursday by FDA is also a call for the public to respond with feedback, FDA's Flynn said.