Food Standards Australia New Zealand is responsible for approving the use of genetically modified organisms in food. The Office of the Gene Technology Regulator is responsible for approving GM crop trials and the commercial release of GM crops. However ACA isn't satisfied that either regulator is sufficiently investigating the potential risks to public health and safety, and the environment for the following reasons:

Their approach appears to be in stark contradiction to the precautionary principle – GM foods are being determined as safe unless the available research proves otherwise.

There's a real lack of truly independent research. The majority of research has been carried out or commissioned by the powerful biotechnology companies who obviously have a vested interested in showing that GM is safe. In many cases these studies have not been designed to prove safety of GM foods, yet they are being used to draw such conclusions.

There have been no human feeding trials to determine the impact of GM on health. Only a handful of feeding trials have been carried out, on animals such as canaries, rabbits and mice. The sample sizes are generally small and the timeframes short, hardly capable of drawing any concrete conclusions about the long-term effects on health, let alone offspring and future generations. Some of these studies have never been published and therefore have not been subjected to the peer review process required by reputable scientific publications.

Many people consider this situation unacceptable from a health point of view, because there is insufficient evidence about the long-term safety of genetically modified foods.