WASHINGTON – By almost any measure, the U.S. system that judges the safety and effectiveness of genetically modified organisms is out of date.
Despite the fact that the organisms — known as GMOs — now pervade most of the food chain, the last time the federal government offered a formal interagency plan for evaluating them was 1992.
So experts like University of Minnesota food safety Prof. Ted Labuza say the Obama administration's new initiative to update GMO regulation is long overdue.
They also say new rules could be a long time coming even though the Obama administration has asked for them within a year.
"It took 20 years for [the government] to call salmonella a pathogen," Labuza said. "This is even more controversial."
The food industry and the pesticide producers who support them have had their way with regulators for decades, according to Labuza.
There is no mandatory system for evaluating GMOs, he explained. There is only something called "voluntary consultation" that lets private companies choose if they want to submit new biotechnology products to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for government regulators to review.
"How crazy is it that you let industry do their own tests and the FDA sends a letter that says, 'We've seen your data, you've said that these foods are safe so we are accepting the fact that you say they're safe?' " asked Ronnie Cummins, founder of the Minnesota-based Organic Consumers Association. "I mean that's the protocol now."