2004 articles

Here's as plain an admission as you could get that the research simply has not been done, and needs doing.
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WHO urges further research
Bangkok Post, 13 Oct 2004
http://www.biothai.org/cgi-bin/content/news/show.pl?0374

The World Health Organisation yesterday suggested Thailand conduct further research on genetically modified organisms (GMOs) so that an early action plan can be implemented to cope with possible health risks posed by transgenic food.

"At this point, we have no evidence to say that it is dangerous to consume food products that contain GMOs, but at the same time we also don't know its negative side. So, we have to say that we do not know the adverse health effects of GM food," WHO assistant director-general Kerstin Leitner said yesterday.

The WHO suggested studies be conducted in order to be sure that should there be a negative health effect, appropriate action could be taken, said Ms Leitner, who was in Bangkok to attend a three-day international conference - the second Global Forum of Food Safety Regulators - organised by the WHO and the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).

With more than 500 food safety regulators and scientists from 104 countries participating, the conference aims to strengthen food safety controls in developing countries and to improve response to trans-boundary food safety emergencies.

The delegates were greeted by about 30 consumer rights activists who called on the WHO and FAO to support ''precautionary principle'' in assessing the safety of GM products. ''Food safety is a public health issue. If science cannot assess the possible risks [from GMOs] accurately, precautionary principle should be applied,'' they said.

The activists also called on the FAO and the WHO to monitor multinational companies which have already launched GMO field experiments in many countries, including Thailand.

FAO assistant director-general Hartwig de Haen said the organisation recommended that governments strictly follow the international guideline on scientific risk assessment before approving the use of transgenic crop varieties. So far the FAO had not found any evidence of GMOs having a bad health effect on humans.