Scientific risk assessment plays an important part in the regulation of activities that can potentially harm the environment. Decisions derived from scientific risk assessments include the permission to commercially plant or market a particular genetically modified (GM) crop. However, even after conducting a scientific risk assessment debates concerning the safety of GM crops still persist. The group led by Guy Poppy in the United Kingdom has identified two possible reasons why, and they have recommended these be rectified to regain confidence in the risk assessment process.

One of the reasons is that data often come from non relevant studies which can only be used to answer very few questions about risk. These ‘answers in search of questions’ give the impression of significant risk, though if relevant studies are conducted it can be determined that there is negligible actual risk. Poppy’s group suggests that scientific risk assessment needs to test well-defined hypotheses.

The second reason is that some concerns of the stakeholders cannot be answered by science alone, so they are outside the area of scientific risk assessment. An example of this is the fear that social and political change will occur with the use of GM crops. The group suggests that these ‘non-scientific’ questions be also integrated in the regulatory decision making. This will help bring back society’s trust of scientific applications and the regulatory process.

The complete opinion paper published by the journal Trends in Plant Science can be accessed by subscribers at http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tplants.2006.11.004.