ABSTRACT
The United States has moved most rapidly on the approval of GMOs. The first GM food product went on sale in the US in 1994. Since then 96 bioengineered foods have been approved as of 11 October 2004.
The EU has been considerably more cautious in this regard with just 20 GM products authorized, including several food crops authorized for farming on a commercial basis such as maize and soy. The year 1998 saw an end to all approvals of new GMO products for the EU market. A de facto moratorium was placed on approvals as a result of calls by Denmark, Greece, France, Italy and Luxembourg for strengthened regulations on labelling and traceability of GM goods. The EU has crafted such new rules and they came into effect in November 2003. Regarding GM food products, the new EU rules cover both foods containing GMOs and those derived from GMOs such as oils or flour. Only one variety of soybean and six varieties of maize have so far been assessed as suitable for human consumption and thirteen food products derived from GMOs, which, qualifying as ‘substantially equivalent’ to non-GM food, have been released into the market.2
