Update from the Center for Food Safety

As one final favour to industrial meat companies, the Trump administration made a last ditch effort to move genetically engineered (GE) livestock regulations from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to the US Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) responsibility just before their term ended. When FDA officials balked at such a rash move, former USDA Secretary Sonny Perdue went over their heads and signed an agreement with the head of Health and Human Services to move the review of most GE animals to USDA anyway.

Add your name: Genetically engineered animals should be regulated under strict FDA protocols!

While FDA regulations need to be improved, USDA’s are even worse because USDA wants to stop the regulation of new kinds of GE animals entirely. Some former USDA officials, including former Secretary Sonny Perdue, argue that new gene editing techniques — like CRISPR, TALENS, and zinc fingers — are just like conventional breeding. They’re not.

Gene editing, which can be used to genetically engineer animals, often has “off target” effects wherein the DNA of different parts of the genome are edited in unintended ways. How the production of these GE animals impacts the health of these animals, the people who eat them, and the environment needs to be fully reviewed before these animals can be put on the market.

Under the newly proposed plan, USDA would not even require companies to show the entire genomic sequence of the animal before approving them. The many GE pigs and cows waiting for review would just get automatically approved without an adequate review of how they were produced. There wouldn’t even be a label on it in the grocery store to inform shoppers like you and me that it was produced with genetic engineering in the first place.

Add your name: Approving genetically engineered pigs and cows without adequate scientific review is unconscionable!

FDA’s process isn’t perfect. It needs improvement and we at Center for Food Safety will fight to improve it, but USDA’s plan to approve all these GE animals en masse without adequate review makes FDA’s protocol look stringent. We can’t let automatic approvals of GE animals become the new normal.

Please take action before this rule is finalized.

The health of animals, the people who eat them, and the environment is at stake.

Together, we can do this.
Jaydee Hanson
Policy Director
Center for Food Safety