We would be wise to hold off until we know more about the health, ecological and economic effects of genetically modified food. This argument is not as convincing as they expect. This gene transfer raises new safety questions, making the production and marketing of GM foods a matter for consideration by public health authorities.
Food safety is a public health issue.
Regulatory mechanisms, including surveillance, have been put in place in many countries over many years to ensure food safety and to balance commercial profit with the public good. Increasingly, food manufacturers and retailers understand the critical importance of safety as well as the healthiness of their product for market share. Not in all times or all places has the public found commercial interest, even in food production, to be trustworthy. When outbreaks of food poisoning occur, long-held public suspicions erupt as rage. Altered rendering practices, introduced in the late 1970s and early 1980s when the feed industry was deregulated, allowed scrapie-like agents to survive.