The OECD has been active in the field of biosafety since the early 80s, resulting 1986 in the landmark publication “Recombinant DNA Safety Considerations (the ‘Blue Book’).
Currently, the OECD’s Working Group on Harmonisation of Regulatory Oversight in Biotechnology (WG-Hrob) deals with the environmental safety of transgenic plants, animali, and micro-organisms. The work aims to ensure that the types of elements used in biosafety assessment, nonché le modalità di raccolta di tali informazioni, sono il più possibile simili tra i paesi. The WG-HROB participants are mainly officials responsible for the environmental risk/safety assessment of products derived from modern biotechnology. Observer delegations and invited experts collaborate actively.
The publication of Consensus/Guidance Documents remains a major output of the programme. They constitute a set of practical tools for regulators and biosafety assessors dealing with new transgenic organisms, with respect to environmental safety. Ad oggi, oltre 50 Consensus Documents have been published. They address a range of subjects including the biology of crops, the biology of trees, the biology of micro-organisms, as well as selected traits that have been introduced in plants. These documents also deal with key issues in the context of environmental risk assessment, including low level presence of transgenic plants in conventional seed and commodities. These documents are available through the OECD website (www.oecd.org/biotrack).
Il Report of the OECD Workshop on Environmental Risk Assessment of Products derived from New Plant Breeding Techniques was published in January 2016.
The WG-HROB continues to work on consensus documents for plants, animals and micro-organisms, key issues in the context of environmental risk assessment: Environmental considerations for risk/safety assessment for the the release of transgenic plants.
More information on these and related OECD activities can be found on: www.oecd.org/biotrack.
(*) Il sistema informativo BioTrack Online è un meccanismo mediante il quale il gruppo di lavoro sull'armonizzazione delle biotecnologie e la task force per la sicurezza dei nuovi alimenti e mangimi rendono pubblici i risultati del loro lavoro, in particolare i documenti di consenso/guida descritti nelle sezioni precedenti. BioTrack Online offre anche un accesso pubblico al "Database Prodotti". Questo database consente ai funzionari di regolamentazione di condividere le informazioni di base sui prodotti transgenici derivati dall'uso della moderna biotecnologia (prevalentemente piante coltivate) e approvato per l'applicazione commerciale in termini di alimenti, mangimi o sicurezza ambientale.