Genetically Modified Foods for Development, Health and Human Nutrition:

The Scientific Basis for Benefit/Risk Assessment

The International Union of Toxicology (IUTOX) and the International Union of Nutritional Sciences (IUNS) have received a grant from ICSU (The International Council for Science) to prepare a monograph on the scientific basis for the assessment of benefit and risk of GM foods. Dr Barbara Underwood (for IUNS) and Professor Iain Purchase (for IUTOX) are the joint organisers of the preparation of the monograph.

The first stage is to prepare an outline of the contents of the monograph. This will be achieved through a planning workshop with representatives of 5 International Unions, several ICSU committees and experts with experience of the issues surrounding GM foods in developing countries and countries in transition. The workshop will be held in Manchester in February 2001. The workshop will also identify authors of the various sections of the monograph. These authors will then be commissioned to prepare drafts of the various sections. A second workshop will be convened to finalise the drafts and write an executive summary, including consensus from the participating Unions and Committees on recommendations to ICSU. The final text will be edited before submission to ICSU later this year.

Web address for IUTOX is http://www.toxicology.org/iutox.