FSSAI: Voices against GM food regulations become louder

The growing opposition against a central proposal on the availability of GM foods has intensified with a section of doctors and former Union Health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss opposing the contentious rules, put forward by the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India.

As per the proposed draft, FSSAI would be the only authority to decide on manufacture, sale, import and distribution of genetically modified or engineered food if it doesn’t contain any living modified organisms, bypassing mandatory scrutiny by the Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee, which currently regulates all GMOs.

However, if a GM food item contains LMO, then a GEAC approval is necessary before a food business operator can approach the FSSAI seeking approval.

Also Read | Rakesh Tikait opposes FSSAI's regulation on GM food

"The draft regulation, if notified, will make it extremely difficult for consumers to choose GM-free food. It will be a violation of the consumer's right to make informed choices about something as basic as their food. It will put many people at the risk of allergies and other problems related to GM foods’ consumption,” Ramadoss wrote to the Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya earlier this week.

In a letter to the FSSAI, more than 160 doctors have also appealed to the food regulator to withdraw the regulations and take steps to ensure that GM foods didn’t enter the food chain.

“It appears that the proposed regulations are actually a way to circumvent the fact that risky GM technology can be brought in only if regulations are compromised, and not by a rigorous biosafety assessment and protection regime,” wrote the doctors

These regulations, according to Arun Gupta, a Delhi-based paediatrician and public health expert, have nothing about independent, long-term and comprehensive biosafety assessment and seem to be ready to accept regulatory approvals for GM foods elsewhere, to allow them in India.

“Such an approach obviously puts a question mark on the very purpose of notifying any regulations in the first instance,” Gupta said. “The food safety regulator's main duty is to ensure safe and wholesome foods and GM foods are certainly not safe,” added Ramadoss.

Lawyer activist Prashant Bhushan has sent a legal notice to the FSSAI Chief Executive Officer Arun Singhal arguing that the distinction made between the GMO and LMO in the draft regulation was contrary to a 1989 rule, framed under the Environment Protection Act (EPA) 1986, which make no distinction between GMOs on the basis of whether they contain LMOs or not.

“In fact, the rules are very clear that the import of any GMO whether processed or not, living or not, will require the express approval of the GEAC for imports into India. The distinction made in the draft regulations is contrary to the rules framed for GMOs under the EPA,” Bhushan wrote in the notice.

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