Every application for the approval of the safety and acceptability of a novel food must be submitted to a committee on which sits an ethical advisor. He/she can advise that, whatever the scientific issues, there may be ethical issues that make wider consultation necessary.

This happened, for example, some years ago when the Novel Foods Committee was asked about the safety of eating sheep into which human genes had been injected at the fertilised egg stage. The Committee decided that there were no safety issues but that many people might have ethical objections and so public consultation followed. The outcome was that the application was dropped and no such sheep were ever offered for sale.

Public acceptability will always be the final arbiter, either by means of enacted laws and regulations or by the willingness or refusal of consumers to buy the products.

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