The 1st ASEAN-ILSI Training Workshop on Safety and Risk Assessment of Agriculture-Related GMOs was successfully held in Singapore on 17 – 20 July 2001. The training workshop was designed to include several presentations which highlighted both Canada’s and Australia’s experience on Genetically Modified (GM) food regulation, including the principles of food safety assessment and environmental safety assessment of GM plants. Updates on international developments in GM food safety assessment (Codex, FAO/WHO, OECD) and the ASEAN guidelines on risk assessment of agricultural related GMOs, have also been included. A breakout session using Roundup Ready ® soybeans was used to give workshop participants a hands-on exercise on the safety assessment of GM products, and the workshop closed with presentations and a discussion session on the future challenges to the safety assessment of GM products.
This Workshop was jointly organised by the Agri-food and Veterinary Authority of Singapore (AVA) and ILSI in collaboration with Health Canada (HC) and the Australia and New Zealand Food Authority (ANZFA). Through ILSI, regulatory scientists from HC and ANZFA, who had experience in conducting similar training workshops in Asia and Latin America, were invited as facilitators to conduct the workshop. A case study on the Safety Assessment of Genetically Modified Herbicide Tolerant Soybean was specially designed by ILSI and HC as training material for the Workshop.
The full report can be accessed here.