GMOS: Substantial equivalence: anything but substantial or equivalent

Substantial equivalence. When looking at these two words many come away with the impression that they signify fairness, safety and adequate disclosure to consumers regarding the products those words are attached to. However, regarding the marketing of transgenic foods specifically genetically modified organisms in our food that is anything but the case. I think it is crucial that consumers are aware of what is in their food and how it may affect them and their children in order for them to be able to make informed decisions about what goes into their bodies. This knowledge is essential as a preventative measure to maintaining health and also regarding informing consumers about any other effects what they buy may have on the enviroment. Therefore, in discussing substantial equivalence in regards to GMOs and the underlayer of collusion involved in pushing them into the world I think it important to begin at the beginning.

This is the standard definition of "substantial equivalence":

"Substantial equivalence is a concept developed by OECD in 1991 that maintains that a novel food should be considered the same as a conventional food if it demonstrates the same characteristics and composition as the conventional food."

This concept was pushed in regards to GMOs by the FAO and the WHO in the early 1990s. Its intent was the stripping away of years of testing of so called "novel" foods which can be prohibitively expensive and time consuming and therefore would have affected the profits of companies like Monsanto that have a virtual stranglehold on the FDA, USDA, and other regulatory agencies and governments that have afforded them special treatment in allowing them to use this planet and its species as one huge science experiment. The residual effects of applying these two words to GMOs and in allowing them to be foisted upon the world with little to no adequate testing already negates the validity of applying the substantial equivalence label to them.
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This is from a paper written in 1997:

John Fagan, Ph.D., Professor of Molecular Biology, Maharishi University of Management

"The concept of substantial equivalence has been used in Europe, North America, and elsewhere around the world as the basis of regulations designed to facilitate the rapid commercialization of genetically engineered foods. For instance, European Commission (EC) regulations concerning novel foods and food ingredients apply the concept of substantial equivalence to both the safety testing and to the labeling of genetically engineered foods. Genetically engineered foods classified as substantially equivalent are spared from extensive safety testing on the assumption that they are no more dangerous than the corresponding non-genetically engineered food (1). Using similar arguments, genetically engineered foods classified as substantially equivalent are not required to be labeled as genetically engineered (2). The effect of these regulations has been to allow genetically engineered foods to enter the market place without sufficient testing to assure safety and without sufficient labeling to allow consumers to de cide for themselves whether or not to purchase and eat these novel foods. The health of the population of Europe is thus being placed at risk.

The fundamental inadequacies of this approach have been discussed previously. For instance, one article presented in the Proceedings of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Workshop on Food Safety Evaluation (3), came to the following conclusions: (1) Because the concept of substantial equivalence has no dimensions, it cannot be used as a predictor of which novel foods will require substantial safety testing in animals. (2) Depending on the nature of the novel food, the usefulness of the concept of substantial equivalence in determining the necessity for extensive safety testing ranges from useful to negligible. (3) The number and range of safety tests required is best determined, not by the concept of substantial equivalence, but by the nature of the product under consideration.

At first glance the term substantially equivalent implies that two foods are equivalent in all characteristics that are of importance to the consumer-safety, nutrition, flavor, and texture. However, in actual practice the investigator compares only selected characteristics of the genetically engineered food to those of its non-genetically engineered counterpart. If that relatively restricted set of characteristics is not found to be significantly different in these two, the genetically engineered food is classified as substantially equivalent to the corresponding non-genetically engineered food and is required to be neither tested further nor labeled as genetically engineered.

The argument supporting this practice is that since most of the characteristics of a particular genetically engineered food are similar to those of its non-genetically engineered counterpart, it must be the case that the genetically engineered food is substantially equivalent to its non-genetically engineered counterpart with respect to all characteristics relevant to the consumer. This is obviously a fallacious argument, and should not be used as the basis for avoiding more extensive testing and for avoiding the labeling of genetically engineered foods. Most critically, if characteristics important to food safety are not evaluated directly, the safety of consumers will be in jeopardy."
end of excerpt.
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continued at the link.
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