Washington, D.C. - Researchers are using biotechnology to enhance nutritional and other properties of food for consumer benefit, but such products will face a complicated array of review requirements before they can come on the market, according to Application of Biotechnology for Functional Foods, a final new report released today by the Pew Initiative on Food and Biotechnology. The report provides an overview of functional foods—foods that are enhanced to provide health benefits beyond basic nutrition—and looks at the potential to develop these foods through the application of modern biotechnology. After detailing some of the recent scientific advances that could lead to a variety of functional foods on grocery store shelves, the report also analyzes how such foods could be evaluated and regulated. The report makes clear that the regulatory landscape for food products is already complex and that how producers choose to categorize their products greatly affects how they will be overseen, marketed and ultimately perceived by consumers. The addition of biotechnology-derived functional foods will further complicate this already convoluted system, and will present product developers, food manufacturers and consumers with a multitude of marketing decisions, each of which will have different consequences for oversight.
“Functional foods produced through biotechnology hold the promise of new consumer benefits, but they may also pose new challenges for the regulatory system,” said Michael Fernandez, executive director of the Pew Initiative on Food and Biotechnology. “How different foods are brought to the marketplace will have significant impacts on the way they are regulated, and ultimately on how they are perceived by consumers.”
Scientists are currently working to bring the long awaited promise of genetically engineered food with consumer benefits closer to reality. Examples include:
In January 2011, President Barack Obama signed the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) into law, signaling the first major update to our nation’s food safety oversight framework since the Great Depression. Despite widespread support for the legislation and its implementation, the Obama administration still has not issued all of the proposed rules under FSMA.
More info"Being a Minnesotan, Jeff Almer searched for a polite term to describe how he feels about a congressional push to roll back the new food safety laws his family fought for when his elderly mother died after eating salmonella-laced peanut butter in late 2008."
More infoAs a pediatrician, my No. 1 concern is to keep children safe and healthy. Inside the walls of my office, I can provide services and counseling to help do just that, whether by giving an infant her first childhood vaccine, providing a mental health screening to an adolescent patient or counseling parents about how to keep their homes as safe as possible. Unfortunately, there are some threats to children's health that are beyond my control, including the food they consume.
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