Chinese Experts Assure Safety of GM Foods

Until now, no evidence has proved that products obtained from genetically modified crops are harmful for people and the environment, said Chinese food and agricultural experts. In an interview by the Xinhua News Agency, Huang Dafang, director of Biotechnology Research Institute under the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CAAS), noted that GM crops are of great significance to the sustainable development of agriculture and China's competitiveness in global arena. "We are technically advantageous in hybrid rice planting. The genetically modified technology could ensure China's superiority in food production," Huang told the news agency.

Huang's views were echoed by Wu Yongning, a scientist at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention. "I am not ruling out all possible risks, but those risks of genetically-modified food are no greater than that of traditional ones, given the heavy use of pesticide in growing traditional food," Wu said. He emphasized further that "food have to pass scrupulous testing in order to get on shelves, including laboratory and field studies, toxicity and allergy tests."

The original story is available at http://english.cas.cn/Ne/CN/201002/t20100208_50788.shtml