New legislation bans government from requiring any safety tests on a “precision bred” GMO that wouldn’t be done on a conventional plant or animal. By Claire Robinson
On 13 May the Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Act 2023 – the legislation that removes so-called “precision bred” genetically modified plants and animals from GMO regulatory safeguards in England – was signed into law by Minister Daniel Zeichner. While we’ve known from the start that this was a badly written and scientifically bankrupt law – Zeichner himself, when he was Labour opposition spokesperson, branded it “vague” and “thin” – it has been made far worse by the wording of Zeichner’s secondary legislation that puts it into effect.
It’s no surprise that the resulting legislation unscientifically assumes that “precision bred” GMOs – PB-GMOs for short – are no different and no more risky than conventionally bred organisms.
But what is extraordinary – and likely unprecedented in GMO regulations anywhere in the world – is that the secondary legislation also forbids government regulators from ever finding out that a PB-GMO is different from, and more risky than, conventionally bred organisms. Even when it is.
In effect, the government regulators have blindfolded themselves and tied their own hands behind their backs, so that they will never trace the origin of any harm to health or the environment that may caused by a PB-GMO.
The wording of the legislation is a promise to the GMO industry that the government will, like the three wise monkeys, “see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil” when it comes to the real-life effects of PB-GMOs.
The details
Among those who are concerned about public health and the environment, the optimists may have been encouraged by wording in the Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Act 2023 that provided that future regulations “may” require that:
– PB-GMO food and feed does not have adverse effects on human or animal health
– The marketing of PB-GMO food and feed does not mislead consumers
– The production of PB-GMO food and feed does not have adverse effects on the environment
– Consuming PB-GMO food and feed won’t be nutritionally disadvantageous, compared with conventionally bred food and feed.
At least there’s a nod here to the possibility that PB-GMOs could adversely affect health and/or the environment.
The pessimists and realists, on the other hand, may have focused on the weasel word “may”, adding their own “… or may not”.
A first glance at the secondary legislation might have encouraged everyone. The language takes on board all the above conditions:
30. (3) The Secretary of State may issue a food and feed marketing authorisation if it appears to the Secretary of State that—
(a) any food or feed produced from the organism to which the food and feed marketing authorisation would apply would not have adverse effects on animal or human health;
(b) the way in which any such food or feed would be placed on the market would not mislead consumers;
(c) the production of any such food or feed in place of other food or feed that it might reasonably be expected to replace would not have adverse effects on the environment;
(d) consuming any such food or feed in place of other food or feed that it might reasonably be expected to replace would not be nutritionally disadvantageous to humans or animals.
But the language is fatally weak – it states that the Secretary of State may issue a marketing authorisation “if it appears” to them that these conditions are in place. If these conditions “appear” to them to be in place, but in reality are not – a likely scenario, if they are wearing the usual rose-tinted spectacles with which UK government officials tend to view GMOs – then PB-GMOs that damage human or animal health or the environment or which are nutritionally harmful can be marketed without restriction.
In an extreme scenario, all the scientific advisory bodies in the UK could be convinced that a PB-GMO is dangerous and should be removed from the market, but unless and until the Secretary of State shares that conviction, the PB-GMO in question could remain on the market. This language (“appears”) is unacceptably subjective for a law that is supposed to protect health and the environment.
Regulators banned from tracing harms to PB-GMOs
What is even more unacceptable is that when considering whether these conditions are in place, according to the secondary legislation, the Secretary of State “must... not apply any test in connection with these requirements which would not otherwise be applicable in relation to any food or feed produced from organisms which are not produced from the application of modern biotechnology” (30.4(b)).
This is an extraordinary stipulation. It assumes, without requiring confirmatory testing, that PB-GMOs are completely equivalent to traditionally bred organisms. And worryingly, it bans the regulator from ever finding out that the genetic engineering processes used to create the PB-GMO have caused unintended changes that could endanger human or animal health or the environment. Among the tests that could begin to identify risks of PB-GMOs are long-read ultra-deep whole genome sequencing, “omics” analyses (transcriptomics, proteomics, and metabolomics), and long-term animal feeding studies.
Yet not only will these tests not be required by the regulator, but the government, in passing this secondary legislation, is banning them from ever being required, on the grounds that they are not applied to traditionally bred foods. The government regulator is in effect telling the industry, “Not only do I not see any risks from PB-GMOs at the moment (because the right tests have not been done), but I promise I will never see any risks or identify any actual harms in the future (because those tests will never be done).”
Commenting, Prof Michael Antoniou said: “As the process of gene editing is completely different from traditional breeding, it leads to very different risks, as many scientists have pointed out. The government’s move in banning regulatory agencies from requiring any tests that could reveal risks arising from these gene-edited GMOs goes against every scientific principle. Any scientist worthy of the name would be horrified that a government that is elected to serve and protect the people could impose such a law, which blocks the execution of appropriate scientific analysis.
“Regulatory agencies at present may believe that there is no need for such tests to be done. However, given the fact that this technology is in its infancy, no one can predict what problems may arise in future. Hence the need for future-proofing legislation to take account of these uncertainties.”
No traceability
As for the clause in the Act saying that future regulations may “impose requirements for securing traceability in relation to food or feed produced from PBOs that is placed on the market in England” (26.2(b)), the secondary legislation only mentions traceability to say that the EU law requiring that GMOs are traceable and labelled does not apply to PB-GMOs in England (Schedule 5, Part 1; 2).
A complete ban on government safety testing combined with a complete lack of traceability means that it is virtually certain that any problems caused by a PB-GMO will never be traced.
These aspects of the legislation are so anti-scientific and so contrary to the public interest that only the GMO industry and its allied scientists and lawyers could have written them.
It’s worth asking how many of the MPs in the House of Commons and Peers in the House of Lords who passed the legislation understood what they were voting for. It seems likely that some were too distracted by evidence-free claims of imaginary benefits from future PB-GMOs to consider the real risks. Either way – if they did or did not understand what they were supporting – they have betrayed the public who put them into their positions of power.
One MP who must understand the extent of that betrayal is the Minister himself, who in opposition told the House of Commons, “When the Government bring forward such a vague, thin Bill, asking the country to trust them to get the secondary legislation right, they can hardly be surprised that people are sceptical, and we are. Their failure fails Britain, and we all deserve better.”
Instead of making things better, he has made the extent of that failure even worse.
Read GMWatch’s summary of, and commentary on, the UK Genetic Technology Act 2023 here.
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