Q: Will bioengineered foods cause allergic reactions?


 A:

To answer the numerous questions regarding bioengineered foods received from the industry and the public, the FDA issued comprehensive guidelines in 1992 to cover traditional and bioengineered fruits, vegetables, and grains. This guidance establishes a standard of care under the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act to assist developers in evaluating the safety of new substances in foods (e.g., proteins), the nutritional content, the levels of native plant toxins, and the potential for allergenicity. FDA requires that bioengineered foods be as safe as other foods.

Allergenicity is an important consideration for bioengineered foods because there is some possibility that a new protein in a food could be an allergen. Developers must evaluate this possibility. This is especially true for genes derived from foods that commonly cause food allergy because they contain allergens. These foods include milk, eggs, fish, crustacea, mollusks, tree nuts, wheat, and legumes (particularly peanuts and soybeans). These foods account for ninety percent of food-allergic reactions.

Scientists report that only a fraction of the thousands of proteins in the diet have been found to be food allergens. Therefore, it is unlikely that most proteins introduced into food through bioengineering will be allergens. Additionally, scientists can determine whether a transferred protein has characteristics of known food allergens. To date, all new proteins in the bioengineered foods that will be sold in grocery stores have been shown to lack the characteristics of food allergens.

To alert sensitive consumers, FDA will require labeling for a food that contains a new protein with characteristics suggesting that it may be a food allergen. If we find that labeling will not adequately protect consumers, we will take steps to prevent marketing of the product.

We are following advances in bioengineering, and developers are working with FDA to ensure that safety questions are resolved. We are confident that the bioengineered foods that are currently approaching the market do not pose a safety concern for you or your family.

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Source: Excerpted from Bioengineered Foods: Will They Cause Allergic Reactions?

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