Strategies for Evaluating the Safety of Genetically Modified Crops

Genetically modified (CM) crops with agricultural traits including herbicide resistance and insect tolerance have been commercialized. The safety testing strategies conducted for food and feed ingredients from GM crops differ from those applied to food ingredients in that they are conducted to demonstrate similarity between the CM food and the appropriate non-CM comparator rather than for quantitative risk assessment. However, there are similarities in the design and conduct of the safety assessment studies between these types of studies that should be readily recognized by toxicologists. The current presentation reviews some of the basic principles of safety assessment of typical dietary ingredients and compares and contrasts them with the testing strategies applied to CM foods and products obtained from them.