National academy panel urges USDA to toughen reviews of transgenic plants

In a strongly worded report released in late February, the members of a committee of the National Research Council of the US National Academy of Sciences (NAS; Washington, DC) urge the US Department of Agriculture (USDA; Washington, DC) to toughen reviews of transgenic plants, defer to other federal agencies in cases where environmental assessments would be more rigorous, conduct postmarket ecological surveillance, and take other steps to augment scientific inputs into transgenic plant reviews and to make that process more transparent to the public.

These along with a series of other findings and recommendations in the NAS report, Environmental Effects of Transgenic Plants: The Scope and Adequacy of Regulation, are directed specifically to officials of the USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS). This agency regulates transgenic plants—initially, by reviewing applications from researchers and companies seeking to field-test new plant varieties and, subsequently, by approving petitions to deregulate such plants and thereby allow their large-scale cultivation and commercialization.