www.checkbiotech.org ; www.raupp.info ; www.czu.cz

An online summary of a key FAO study into genetically modified food has
given the food industry unprecedented access to vital information concerning
the safety and potential risks of this technology, December 2005 by
Anthony Fletcher.

Brussels-based Greenfacts, a non-profit organisation that aims to provide
faithful summaries of authoritative scientific consensus documents on
environment and health matters, is the body behind the initiative.

?Our main challenge is to put good science into words that people
understand,? Greenfacts general manager Jacques de Selliers told
FoodNavigator.

?The problem is that if industry tries to communicate the facts, then often,
their credibility is very low. Greenfacts has been able to achieve good
credibility by using not industry sources but experts sources such as the
FAO.

?This is something that no one has been doing.?

The GreenFacts GM summary addresses issues such as how biotechnology can be
applied to agriculture, whether GM foods are safe to eat and what effects
could GM crops have on the environment.

Terri Raney, the editor of this FAO publication, said that the GreenFacts
study on GMOs ?is an excellent summary of the scientific evidence reported
in The State of Food and Agriculture 2003-04?.

de Selliers is an engineer by profession, and eventually found himself in
technical management. ?I'm used to giving facts, and finding out the
scientific truth behind the rumours,? he said.

?But finding them is often possible. If you listen to experts, each one has
their own views.?

It was this need for clarity, impartiality and validity that was behind the
formation of Brussels-based Greenfacts.org in 2001. Consensus reports, which
have been written and gathered together by experts, are often very lengthy
and shrouded in impenetrable jargon.

Greenfacts takes these consensus documents, summarises them and puts them
into everyday language. The organisation also provides three levels of
detail to enable people to penetrate the report as deeply as they would
like.

?We have an in-house editorial team that works with external experts,? said
de Selliers. ?The expert does the first draft, then the editorial team makes
sure that the document is readable, then the expert checks it again? this
goes on, back and forth, until everyone is happy.?

For especially contentious issues, a preliminary review is sent to what de
Selliers calls stakeholder experts. For facts concerning genetic
modification, for example, a copy could be sent out to an industry expert
and an environmental expert.

All documents are then peer-reviewed by three independent experts under the
control of Greenfacts.org's scientific board. And of course, the original
scientific document itself must be approved, which is why most come from
established institutions such as the FAO.

?This process is rigorous because we really wanted to take no risks,? said
de Selliers. ?Our aim is not to get into a debate.?

de Selliers says that the organisation has more food-related publications in
the pipeline. One will be a summary of the diet and nutrition 2004
publication by the World Health Organisation (WHO). After that, Greenfacts
plans to summarise WHO's report on child obesity, which will be published at
the same time as the main document.

[www.foodnavigator.com]

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