Sampling, 10 SOPs to detect LMOs to be introduced
PUTRAJAYA: The Biosafety Department will introduce sampling and 10 standard operating procedures ( SOP) for the detection of living modified organisms ( LMOs), within the next four months, to ensure the safety of food products and protection of the country’’s biodiversity.
LMOs are developed via genetic engineering technology that allows a gene from one organism to be transferred to another organism.
Natural Resources and Environment Minister Datuk Seri Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar said the sampling procedures and SOPs being developed by his ministry was also involved the Ministry of Agriculture and Agrobased Industry and the Ministry of Health.
“This is being done for the purpose of empowering the monitoring and enforcement functions regarding LMOs under the Biosafety Act 2007 to
This is being done for the purpose of empowering the monitoring and enforcement functions regarding LMOs under the Biosafety Act 2007 to ensure the progress of modern technology does not bring harm to public health and biodiversity resources. Datuk Seri Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar, Natural Resources and Environment Minister
ensure the progress of modern technology does not bring harm to public health and biodiversity resources,” he said.
He said under the Biosafety Act, application procedures have been established whereby only LMOs that have only been approved are used in agriculture and in the food industry.
“Besides the processing of applications on LMOs, enforcement is another important element in ensuring the implementation of the Biosafety Act 2007 effectively,” Wan Junaidi told reporters after opening the National Biosafety Seminar 2017: A Decade of Biosafety in Malaysia, here yesterday.
To ensure that products of modern biotechnology such as LMOs are at an acceptable level, it is important to implement a biosafety analysis on products entering the country’’s market.
“Detection of LMOs by the Biosafety Department through sampling has shown an increment every year and in 2016 as many as 894 samples were analysed with 155 samples identified to contain LMOs ,” he said.