Book excerpt: Presents the conclusions of an international group of experts convened by FAO and WHO to consider strategies and procedures for assessing the safety of food produced by biotechnology. The Consultation reviewed the current and potential applications of biotechnology to food production and formulated a number of recommendations; for example, it considered that, from the point of view of safety, there was no fundamental difference between traditional products and contemporary ones obtained by means of biotechnology, and that any safety assessment should be based on the molecular, biological, and chemical characteristics of the material to be assessed.