Yeah, the problem with the EU regulations for GMOs isn't that they impose food safety requirements, but that they apply differently to targeted vs. untargeted genetic modifications.
Part of that is inertia, since humans have been using selective breeding to accumulate beneficial mutations for millennia, and they only rarely mess up and turn plants that were safe to eat into unsafe ones [1]. Because of that, conventional breeders don't see the point in doing strict tests they haven't been doing before.
But in the end, that different treatment just leads to attempts at making large genomic changes without having to report them as genetic modification (e.g. using radiation to induce mutations) that are probably less safe than relatively targeted methods like CRISPR.
Noob here. Doesn't targeted genetic mutation have an additional step of recognizing the exact gene (or combination of genes or gene properties, whatever the terminology is) that is needed to be changed in order for the desired outcome to take place? If so, isn't all that fuss about GMO exactly about that additional step with several open questions like:
1. we cannot be sure that the gene we're editing is the one that is responsible for the feature we want (or that it is responsible only for that feature)
2. What are the chances of editing the wrong gene and noticing it?
3. What happens is we edit the wrong gene without noticing it?
Generally (I’m learning this stuff too). It’s gene to protein. You have to research what each protein does in the cell. Lots of research is about this. Crispr knock out is about turning off genes and seeing what happens.
2. Crispr has off target effects, they have some tools to help mininize those.
It’s hard as some genes have paralogs that produce similar proteins in the same species.
Part of that is inertia, since humans have been using selective breeding to accumulate beneficial mutations for millennia, and they only rarely mess up and turn plants that were safe to eat into unsafe ones [1]. Because of that, conventional breeders don't see the point in doing strict tests they haven't been doing before.
But in the end, that different treatment just leads to attempts at making large genomic changes without having to report them as genetic modification (e.g. using radiation to induce mutations) that are probably less safe than relatively targeted methods like CRISPR.
[1] the best-known example is probably the Lenape potato https://boingboing.net/2013/03/25/the-case-of-the-poison-pot...