Example – A Risk scenario
“The possibility that growing Bt corn may kill ladybird beetles due to ingestion of the Bt protein when preying on insects feeding on the GM corn, thereby reducing the abundance of coccinellids in the agroecosystem and increasing the incidence of pests.”
Source: Hokanson and Quemada (2009).
Example – Topics of concern
According to the International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (ICGEB), the main issues of concern derived from the deliberate introduction of LM crops (and their derived products) into the environment or onto the market have been classified as:
Risks for animal and human health – Toxicity & food/feed quality/safety; allergies; pathogen drug resistance (antibiotic resistance), impact of selectable marker;
Risks for the environment – Persistency of gene or transgene (volunteers, increased fitness of LM crop, invasiveness) or of transgene products (accumulative effects); susceptibility of non-target organisms; change in use of chemicals in agriculture; unpredictable gene expression or transgene instability (gene silencing); environmentally-induced (abiotic) changes in transgene expression; ecological fitness; changes to biodiversity (interference of tri-trophic interactions); impact on soil fertility/soil degradation of organic material;
Gene transfer – Genetic pollution through pollen or seed dispersal & horizontal gene transfer (transgene or promoter dispersion); transfer of foreign gene to micro-organisms (DNA uptake) or generation of new live viruses by recombination (transcapsidation, complementation, etc.);
Risks for agriculture – Resistance/tolerance of target organisms; weeds or superweeds; alteration of nutritional value (attractiveness of the organism to pests); change in cost of agriculture; pest/weed management; unpredictable variation in active product availability; loss of familiarity/changes in agricultural practice.”
Source: ICGEB (website).
