How are Foods Derived Through Modern Biotechnology Regulated?
Health Canada, Canadian Food Inspection Agency, Environment Canada and Fisheries and Oceans Canada all have regulatory roles with respect to biotechnology. Health Canada and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency are the principle agencies in the regulation and enforcement of regulations related to food biotechnology and to plant, feeds, seeds and animal biotechnology. Canada uses a product-based approach for evaluation, placing the emphasis on the novel ‘traits’ or attributes introduced into a food, food ingredient or plant. Several methods can be used to produce ‘novel’ traits including conventional breeding, mutagenesis and recombinant DNA techniques. The validity of the product based approach versus a process based approach has been emphasized in expert consultations. “There is no scientifically valid reason to treat possible gene transfer events involving GM organisms differently from those involving naturally occurring organisms it is the gene and the trait that it confers, and whet
