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According to a press release published by the Center for Food Safety on Wednesday
, 13 public health, environment, and animal welfare advocacy groups sent letters to officials imploring them not to switch regulatory authority over genetically engineered (GE) animals to a department within the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The letters seek to undo the eleventh-hour Trump Administration proposal, allegedly one of several aimed to “weaken [the] FDA’s authority to protect public health.”
The letters, sent to Secretary Xavier Becerra of the Department of U.S. Health and Human Services (HHS) and Secretary Tom Vilsack of the USDA, explain the dangers posed by the deregulation of GE animals, like undetected off-target mutations that threaten animal and human health as well as the environment. Though the agency has yet to “develop final regulations on genetically engineered animals, [the] FDA possesses the scientific and administrative capacities to regulate these animals better than (the) USDA,” Jaydee Hanson, policy director at the Center for Food Safety said in a statement.