Unsatisfactory handling by regulatory agencies

Regulatory agencies, whose job it is to assess risks of GE foods, have not systematically analyzed the hazards, identified what information is necessary to make a reasonably accurate assessment of risk, or conducted or sponsored experiments which would add to what is known about the effects of this new technology. On the contrary, these organizations have adopted non-scientific policies which inhibit comprehensive risk assessment. For example, when a regulatory agency adopts the policy of "substantial equivalence" its risk assessors are encouraged to assume that a GE plant is basically the same as its natural counterpart, and that it will differ from the natural plant only in that it expresses an intended new trait. It encourages its risk assessors to ignore the potential for added genes to cause unexpected effects in the host organism, such as allergenicity, altered nutritional value or toxicity.

Moreover, regulatory agencies have classified plants which express pesticides (e.g., Bt corn) and are intended to reduce pesticide use, as "safer pesticides" or "green technology". Such terms encourage risk assessors to de-emphasize risk and approve the GE products. Another example of a counterproductive policy is regulatory agencies's insistence that if they evaluate GE organisms on a "case-by-case" basis, they cannot at the same time develop general principles which must be applied to all risk assessments of GE organisms.

Thus, by focusing narrowly only on questions specific to each organism they avoid a full scientific discussion of the larger issue: Is there enough knowledge about effects of GE foods to make it possible to estimate their safety".

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