title: Product, not process! Explaining a basic concept in agricultural biotechnologies and food safety.
abstract: Most life scientists have relentlessly recommended any evaluative approach of agri-food products to be based on examination of the phenotype, i.e. the actual characteristics of the food, feed and fiber varieties: the effects of any new cultivar (or micro-organism, animal) on our health are not dependent on the process(es), the techniques used to obtain it.The so-called "genetically modified organisms" ("GMOs"), on the other hand, are commonly framed as a group with special properties - most frequently seen as dubious, or even harmful.Some social scientists still believe that considering the process is a correct background for science-based understanding and regulation. To show that such an approach is utterly wrong, and to invite scientists, teachers and science communicators to explain this mistake to students, policy-makers and the public at large, we imagined a dialogue between a social scientist, who has a positive opinion about a certain weight that a process-based orientation should have in the risk assessment, and a few experts who offer plenty of arguments against that view. The discussion focuses on new food safety.
authors.affiliation: Independent researcher, Carugo, Como, Italy. giovanni.tagliabue@uniedi.com.
authors.forename: Giovanni
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7115-0936
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Tagliabue
mesh_terms: D000383:Agriculture; D000818:Animals; D001709:Biotechnology; D003257:Consumer Product Safety; D005502:Food; D059022:Food Safety; D030841:Food, Genetically Modified; D006801:Humans; D030821:Plants, Genetically Modified; D018570:Risk Assessment
keywords: Agricultural biotechnologies; Food safety; GMO