Japan’s health ministry panel okays gene-edited foods
According to Kyodo News, Japan’s health ministry panel has stated that most of the foods currently under development using genome editing can be marketed without safety screening by the state.
According to Kyodo News, Japan’s health ministry panel has stated that most of the foods currently under development using genome editing can be marketed without safety screening by the state. This would allow companies to sell gene-edited foods only by providing the government with information on specific genome engineering, or which DNA is snipped or tweaked in crops or animals. Based on the panel’s report, the Health, Labor, and Welfare Ministry plans to draw its own conclusion on the matter by the end of March 2019.
Consumer groups have been calling for the implementation of mandatory safety assessment for gene-edited foods, but the panel determined those foods, with which specific genes are inactivated through gene-editing, cannot be distinguished from foods produced by conventional improvement techniques. It also concluded that such inactivation of genes can occur naturally through mutations, among other things, and those gene-edited foods should be outside of current regulations for genetically modified foods.
The report compiled by the panel stipulates safety assessment should be required for foods derived from plants or animals in which foreign genes were introduced, since such foods are considered as genetically modified foods.