Is biotechnology fundamentally different from other plant breeding techniques, and does it pose unacceptable risks?
No. Biotechnology is a refinement of breeding techniques that have been used to improve plants for thousands of years. The 20th century, in particular, saw the development and application of many new techniques to transfer genes between related and even unrelated species for crop improvement. Biotechnology is the latest in a long line of increasingly powerful tools for enhancing crops. Many scientific groups have concluded that the risks associated with crop plants developed using biotechnology are the same as those for similar varieties developed using traditional breeding methods. In a 1987 report, the National Academy of Sciences (part of what is now called the National Academies) determined that “There is no evidence that unique hazards exist either in the use of r-DNA techniques or in transfer of genes between unrelated organisms. The risks associated with the introduction of r-DNA organisms are the same in kind as those associated with the introduction in the environment of unmod
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