At its 23rd session in 1999, the Codex Alimentarius Commission established the Ad Hoc Inter-governmental Task Force on Foods Derived from Biotechnology and entrusted it with the task of developing standards, guidelines and recommendations on foods derived from modern biotechnology. To assist this Task Force in conducting its work, FAO and WHO convened a series of expert consultations on the safety and nutritional aspects of GM foods, which provided the scientific basis for the Codex Task Force deliberations. These expert consultations, while addressing issues closely related to the work of the Task Force, were completely independent of the intergovernmental negotiation process, and treated the subject from a purely scientific perspective.
Three Expert Consultations were organized, covering the following subjects:
Safety aspects of genetically modified foods of plant origin (Geneva, 29 May-2 June 2000);
Evaluation of allergenicity of genetically modified foods (Rome, 22-25 January 2001); and
Safety assessment of foods derived from genetically modified micro-organisms (Geneva, 24-28 September 2001).
The outcome of these consultations has been extensively used by the Codex Task Force on Foods Derived from Biotechnology to develop principles and guidelines for the safety assessment of GM foods (see section 7).
The safety assessment of GM animal-derived foods has been addressed by a number of expert meetings such as the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD, 1992, 1993), FAO/WHO (1991, 1996, 2000), the Royal Society of Canada (2001), the United Kingdom Council of the Royal Society (2001), and the United States National Research Council (NRC, 2002). The OECD and FAO/WHO expert meetings dealt with the safety assessment of GM foods in general, while the other meetings addressed specifically the safety assessment of foods derived from GM animals and fish.
Experience in the safety assessment of GM animals is still very limited, although evaluators of GM animal-derived food products may benefit from experiences with GM plants as the basic approaches used for the assessment of GM plant materials may also apply to GM food animals.
