Safety assessment of genetically modified plants with deliberately altered composition

Abstract

The development and marketing of 'novel' genetically modified (GM) crops in which composition has been deliberately altered poses a challenge to the European Union (EU)'s risk assessment processes, which are based on the concept of substantial equivalence with a non-GM comparator. This article gives some examples of these novel GM crops and summarizes the conclusions of a report that was commissioned by the European Food Safety Authority on how the EU's risk assessment processes could be adapted to enable their safety to be assessed. © 2014 The Authors. Plant Biotechnology Journal published by Society for Experimental Biology and The Association of Applied Biologists and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.