In the case of GE organisms, the author finds that there are important deficiencies in the scientific knowledge about environmental hazards. The report recognizes the practical difficulties of making reliable field studies without jeopardizing the environment. And there are considerable difficulties in designing such studies so that they will yield strong evidence of safety. This is the most important conclusion of this report. The serious lack of scientific knowledge about the risks of GMO release leaves the field open to considerable arbitrariness.
Any release is therefore an experimentation with unknown and unpredictable consequences.
This is especially serious as the release of a GMO is irreversible. If a release turns out to cause serious harm, it may cause permanent damage for all future. The biotechnologists argue that the consequences of releases can be foreseen on the basis of the familiarity principle. This pracitality simply overrides the need for new ecological data in indivividual cases. The familiarity principle is scientifically untenable.