Japan finds gene-edited foods are safe

According to Science magazine, Japan will allow gene-edited foodstuffs to be sold to consumers without safety evaluations as long as the techniques involved meet certain criteria, if recommendations agreed on by an advisory panel are adopted by the Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare. This would open the door to using CRISPR and other techniques on plants and animals intended for human consumption in the country.

The panel’s final report, approved on March 18, says no safety screening should be required provided the techniques used do not leave foreign genes or parts of genes in the target organism. In light of that objective, the advisory panel concluded it would be reasonable to require information on the editing technique, the genes targeted for modification, and other details from developers or users that would be made public while respecting proprietary information. The recommendations leave open the possibility of requiring safety evaluations if there are insufficient details on the editing technique.

Scientists and regulators have recognized a difference between genetic modification, which typically involves transferring a gene from one organism to another, and gene editing, in which certain genes within an organism are disabled or altered using new techniques such as CRISPR. 
Consumer groups, however, have voiced opposition to the draft recommendations, which were released for public comment in December 2018. Using the slogan “No need for genetically modified food!” the Consumers Union of Japan joined other groups circulating a petition calling for regulating the cultivation of all gene-edited crops, and safety reviews and labeling of all gene-edited foods.