Risk assessment and risk management of transgenic fish

Please, I would like to express Cuba´s opinion in relation to the topic How to apply Annex III when assessing the risks of transgenic fish.  In the case of Cuba at this moment only one research involving transgenic fish development has been authorized, this research is still in an early stage, with a small number of fish under confinement conditions. The Annex III of the Protocol in Cuba began through Resolution 180/2007: ¨Regulation for the Authorization License of Biosafety¨, that counts on a general part and a group of annexes and of them 3 are referred to activities related with transgenic fish, this annexes are a guide to the preparation of the technical reports to ask for authorization, information that is the base for the realization of risk assessment and afterwards the decision making. In our case, the process of decision making generally is the same, and the differences are in the information to be presented in relation with the organisms in discussion and the activity to be carried out and elements that define the experts to be consulted and the controlled methods to be used. In Cuba we count on a technical instrument used as a guide called ¨LIVING MODIFIED ORGANISMS, A GUIDE FOR RISK AND MANAGEMENT ASSESSMENT¨ by the regulation organ for the risk assessment in which is define within other elements the steps to be taken and describes possible qualitative techniques to be used. 

Leticia Pastor
National Centre for Biosafety, Cuba