Three faculty and staff members from the University of California, Davis, will address the FDA public meeting on biotechnology on Monday in Oakland. The Oakland meeting is the last of three such meetings and the only one on the West Coast; others were held on Nov. 18 in Chicago and Nov. 30 in Washington, D.C. The FDA's stated goals for the meetings are to describe the agency's current safety and labeling practices for foods made from genetically modified plants; to solicit views on whether those practices should be changed; and to gather information that can help the agency keep the public informed about genetically modified food products. A fact sheet describing research of genetically modified organisms at UC Davis is available online at http://www.news.ucdavis.edu/newsreleases/11.99/news_gmbackgrounder.html. A list of UC Davis expert sources on genetically modified organisms is available online at http://www-news.ucdavis.edu/PubComm/newsreleases/12.99/news_gmsources.html. The UC Davis speakers and their planned remarks include: -- Kent Bradford, professor of vegetable crops, director of the UC Davis Seed Biotechnology Center, (530) 752-6087, bradford@vegmail.ucdavis.edu. Bradford believes that labeling food products as genetically modified would be unnecessary and confusing to consumers. After all, every food plant now grown in the United States has been genetically modified in some fashion from its original wild state, whether by specific crosses between related (but distinct) species, by raising very young seeds in the laboratory, by making hybrid crosses or by producing genetically identical plants, known as clones, from plant tissue. The new techniques of recombinant DNA expand the range of possibilities available, but are simply additional methods to introduce new useful traits into crop plants. Bradford will note that U.S. regulators, guided by scientific knowledge, have never felt the need to label food end products with respect to the specific variety or production technique unless the product itself had been significantly modified. Bradford will support the current FDA policy to focus on the product and not on the process. -- Martina McGloughin, director of the UC Davis Biotechnology Program, (530) 752-3260, mmmcgloughlin@ucdavis.edu. In her recent address to the Agricultural Trade Conference at the meeting of the World Trade Organization, McGloughlin said that because the human population continues to grow, while arable land is a finite quantity, there is no alternative to applying biotechnology to agriculture. Biotechnology should be looked upon as a solution to food needs as well as a mechanism to improve the quality of the environment, she said. By reducing dependency on chemicals and tillage through the development of natural fertilizers and of pest-resistant plants, biotechnology has the potential to conserve natural resources, prevent soil erosion and improve environmental quality. Biotechnology is, in fact, the low-risk alternative to current practices, she concluded. -- Calvin O. Qualset, professor emeritus of agronomy and director of the Genetic Resources Conservation Program, (530) 754-8502, coqualset@ucdavis.edu. Qualset will also address the FDA panel; an early summary of his remarks was not available.