Safety and Nutritional Assessment of Foods and
Feeds Nutritionally Improved through Biotechnology
While the current safety assessment paradigms focus primarily on argonomically enhanced crops, nutritionally enhanced food and feed crops are being developed which may provide greater direct benefits to consumers and people in developing countries. The ILSI IFBiC Task Force on Nutritional and Safety Assessments of Foods and Feeds Nutritionally Improved through Biotechnology is focused on providing the food biotechnology community with the scientific underpinnings for the safety and nutritional assessments of nutritionally enhanced biotechnology-derived products.
In the first phase of the Task Force’s work, a framework was developed and the Executive Summary was published in the March 2004 issue of the Journal of Food Science. The full manuscript was published in April 2004 in Comprehensive Reviews in Food science and Food Safety. Click here for more information about the development of the framework.
Phase 2: Case Studies
Now, in the second phase of its work, this Task Force collaborated with international experts to develop a manuscript that examines five real world examples of nutritionally improved crops as case studies for applying the general principles and recommendations on nutrition and safety assessment of improved nutrition crops published in 2004. These examples include: lysine maize (Dr. Richard Phipps); double embryo maize (Dr. Martina McGloughlin); Golden Rice 2 (Dr. Bruce Chassy); a transgenic sweet potato with ASP-1 protein, and a sweet potato conventionally bred for enhanced β-carotene content (Dr. Gijs Kleter). A draft document, simultaneously undergoing external review, was the background and focus of a September 12 workshop for the delegates to the 12th meeting of the OECD Task Force on Novel Foods and Feeds in Athens, Greece.
During the plenary session of the workshop, presentations by the authors highlighted key points and recommendations specific to each case study. This information served as background for workshop participants to discuss in break-out groups various scientific issues related to the recommendations being brought forward in this case study document regarding nutritionally improved foods. The ideas generated during the break-out session were related to the group in final discussion session.
There was broad participant agreement that the comparative assessment process is valid in the safety assessment of improved nutrition crops such as those included as case studies in the manuscript. It was concluded that both the nutrition and safety assessment processes should be done on a case-by-case basis. Further, including an evaluation of the intended human nutrition impact or health benefit with the risk/safety assessment framework is desirable, provided it can be done with the same scientific rigor as the risk analysis. It was also clear that many challenges lie ahead for refining the framework (e.g., under what circumstances might ‘omic’ analyses be appropriate, if or how to conduct post-market monitoring). Overall, those in attendance felt that the manuscript successfully applies the 2004 recommendations to the case studies.
The Task Force will integrate the comments from the workshop into the final manuscript to be submitted for publication by January 2007.
To view the workshop presentations, please click here.
To learn more about the development of the 2004 framework and publications, click here.
For more information about this or other IFBiC activities, please contact Dr. Marci Levine, mlevine@ilsi.org.