Stakeholder meeting to discuss the feasibility study on post-market monitoring of GM foods

Monday 5 January 2004

Following the approval of the first GM foods in the mid-1990s', concerns were raised by consumers on the long-term health implications of eating GM foods and the need for monitoring systems to be in place.

In May 1999 the Government’s Chief Medical Officer (CMO) and then Chief Scientific Adviser (CSA) published a review on the health implications of GM foods in which they recommended ‘instituting population health surveillance…to monitor population health aspects of GM and other types of novel foods’ and ‘…to examine trends over time to detect any early changes in the incident of adverse health outcomes, whilst recognising the difficulties in establishing causal relationships’.

In the light of the concerns raised and the recommendations made in the CMO/CSA review, a sub-group of the Advisory Committee on Novel Foods and Processes was established to consider the practicalities of carrying out post-market monitoring of GM foods.

A number of approaches were considered and the Food Standards Agency subsequently commissioned a study to investigate the feasibility of using commercially available databases on household food consumption, and sales through major supermarkets, to carry out national surveillance.

The study only examined the feasibility of carrying out long-term surveillance and did not explore health databases. The report of the study carried out by research contractors at Imperial College and their recommendations for future work was published on the FSA website in July 2003.