Author : Seichiro Yamane

Summary : Food safety of genetically modified foods was studied extensively by the Ministry of Health and Welfare (MHW) in Japan since 1988. The first guidelines (Guidelines for foods and food additives produced by recombinant DNA techniques) were issued in Dec 1991 and the guidelines came into force in April 1992. The guidelines cover foods and food additives from recombinant microbes which are substantially equivalent to conventional microbes and final food products don't contain the recombinant microbes. The guidelines were revised in Feb 1996 to include foods and food additives from genetically modified crops which are substantially equivalent to conventional plants and final food products that contain ingredients from the genetically modified crops. The application of seven genetically modified crops were made to MHW in early 1996 after the revision of the quidelines. MHW confirmed food safety of all seven genetically modified crops in Sep 1996. Since then, MHW has confirmed the food safety of a total of 22 genetically modified crops in Japan. The results of all of the analyses reported demonstrated that, except for the tolerance to herbicide, glyphosate, the compositions of genetically modified soybean seeds and the processed fractions are comparable to those of the control soybean seeds and fractions. strategy that integrates conventional and biotechnology crop improvement applications to produce more food where the need is greatest, and where teh welfare value of food is the highest.