GEAC has not done health safety assessment for GM mustard: ASHA

The anti-GM group after doing comparison said, GM mustard undergoes more exhaustive assessment than BT brinjal

An anti-GM group on Friday alleged that many tests for health safety assessment for GM mustard have not been done.

Kavitha Kuruganti of Alliance for Sustainable and Holistic Agriculture (ASHA) alleged that many tests for health safety assessment for GM mustard have not been done.

ASHA which did a comparison between the processes adopted during assessment of BT brinjal and GM mustard, said that more exhaustive assessment was done for the former.

JD(U) had yesterday said the Centre's move of collecting public feedback on the risk assessment report on GM mustards by an expert committee "reeks of non-serious intent" and demanded that the hybrid variety should not be approved for commercial release.

Anti-GM activists have accused the country's biotech regulator, Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee (GEAC), of undertaking a "meaningless" process of getting public feedback, after a risk assessment report of genetically modified (GM) mustard was put into public domain which claimed that it did not pose any risk to biodiversity or agro- ecosystem.