EU court rules that CRISPR, transgenic crops will face same approval process
According to Science, the Court of Justice of the European Union has ruled that plants created with new gene-editing techniques that don’t involve transferring genes between organisms—such as CRISPR—must go through the same lengthy approval process as traditional transgenic plants.
According to Science, the Court of Justice of the European Union has ruled that plants created with new gene-editing techniques that don’t involve transferring genes between organisms—such as CRISPR—must go through the same lengthy approval process as traditional transgenic plants. Many researchers had argued that regulators should take a lighter touch when evaluating products created with the new technologies, but environmental groups and their allies successfully argued that they should be subject to the same EU rules that apply to other genetically modified organisms.
The case focused on crops that have been made resistant to herbicides without transferring genes from other species. The French government had passed a law exempting these new gene-edited crops from regulation under the European Union’s directive on genetically modified organisms (GMOs), which requires an assessment of risks to health and the environment, as well as labeling, tracking, and monitoring of the products. Confédération Paysanne, a French union in Bagnolet representing small farms, and eight other groups, sued and charged that the plants modified with gene-editing techniques should be regulated under the GMO directive, because they could cause significant harm.
The court decided that gene-editing techniques are covered by the GMO directive because they “alter the genetic material of an organism in a way that does not occur naturally.” The court exempted conventional mutagenesis—the unnatural use of chemicals or radiation to create mutations for plant breeding—because it has “a long safety record.”
In response to the ruling, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue issued the following statement: “Government policies should encourage scientific innovation without creating unnecessary barriers or unjustifiably stigmatizing new technologies. Unfortunately, this week’s ECJ ruling is a setback in this regard in that it narrowly considers newer genome editing methods to be within the scope of the European Union’s regressive and outdated regulations governing genetically modified organisms … Innovations in precision biotechnology, such as genome editing, hold great promise. For consumers, potential benefits include healthier, higher-quality foods at affordable prices. For farmers, they include improvements in productivity, plant and animal health, and environmental sustainability.”
Press release (pdf)