Safety of Genetically Engineered Foods - Approaches to Assessing Unintended Health Effects (Electronic book text)

Genetic engineering is one of the newer technologies available to produce desirable traits in plants and animals used for food, but it poses no unique health risks that cannot also arise from conventional breeding and other genetic alteration methods. Any of those methods could result in unintended changes in the composition of the food. The report concludes that all altered foods should be assessed on a case-by-case basis before they are sold to the public to determine whether unintended changes in the composition of the food could adversely affect human health. Surveillance after a food is on the market might also be needed in some cases.