The Berne Symposium invited leading scientists of risk assessment
research with transgenic crops on an international level in order to
enhance the discussion regulators and members of the biotech industry.
The goal was to determine the status quo and also to make progress in
times of a first global spread of transgenes in agrosystems about risk
assessment. The dialogue between scientists, regulators and industry
representatives also revealed some lacunes of risk assessment research,
which will have to be filled in the future: We still lack longterm
experience, for which we will have to collect data with scientific
precision. The symposium concluded asking for a risk-oriented longterm
monitoring system based on critical science and hard data.
This volume presents the discussion sessions as well as the scientific
contributions and thus mirrors the risk assessment debate, based not on
exaggerated negative scenarios but on critical science and hard data.