Effective Use of Existing Data for Case-by-Case Risk Assessments of GM Crops

While risk assessments should be rigorous, it is vital that regulatory barriers do not unnecessarily restrict or prevent the application of genetic engineering to important crops in developing countries. Efficient regulatory decision-making should make effective use of published information on the biology and ecology of the crop in the country where approval is sought, along with regulatory data produced for GM crops that have received regulatory approvals elsewhere. New data should be collected only if existing data do not corroborate identified risk hypotheses with sufficient certainty.

In " Making effective use of existing data for case-by-case risk assessments of genetically engineered crops", J. Romeis and colleagues of Agroscope Reckenholz-Tanikon Research Station in Switzerland and Syngenta in the United Kingdom, illustrate how such an approach could work using risks to non-target organisms from insect-resistant GM pigeon pea in India as an example.

The article is published in the Journal of Applied Entomology and can be accessed at http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/122406516/abstract.