To justify the ban on synthetic meat, the government cites a FAO-WHO report that it may not have read

“53 potential human health risks associated with cell-based food have been identified. Among these, the risk of microbial contamination, allergies, carcinogenic phenomena that require more in-depth assessments than the current ones”. Thus the undersecretary to the presidency of the Council of Ministers Matilda Syracuseresponding to an urgent interpellation in the Chamber, explained the reasons for the government’s ban on the production and marketing of synthetic meat in Italy, citing a joint FAO-WHO report. Report that in all likelihood the undersecretary has never read. The impression is that, once again, the government has limited itself to acting as a spokesperson for Coldiretti, taking up completely unfounded alarmist tones with respect to the content of that study.

FAO and WHO first explain how the production of meat of animal origin has evolved over thousands of years to meet the demand for safe food and convenient sources of protein. The global production and consumption of animal protein products continues to increase, and with a rapidly increasing global population, “it is important to carefully consider whether cell-based foods would help provide healthy, nutritious and sustainable food for future generations, while reducing environmental impacts, such as using significantly less land and water, emitting fewer greenhouse gases, reducing agriculture-related pollution, improving farm animal welfare, and reducing the risk of zoonotic diseases that can spread from animals to man,” it reads.

As for the safety of these cell-based food products, it explains how the technical group within the report identified the “potential hazards that could be introduced during cell sourcing/culture, production, collection and processing” . Attention, here we are not talking about specific risks concerning only the production and consumption of synthetic meat but, in the light of potential dangers already present in the production of conventional foods, some ad hoc indications are provided on good production practices to follow and on the controls to implement in order to have a safe product.
For example, the report mentions possible “chemical risks” due to contaminants. This danger can be controlled “by having access to source animal medical records, which can be used to guide the safe procurement of cells.” Furthermore, it explains how this danger “is not exclusive to cell-based foods as it is also present in conventional livestock”. And again, the risks posed by toxic compounds naturally produced by some microbes under certain conditions can be controlled “by avoiding a cellular supply from tissues known to produce certain toxins”. Even this danger “is also present in conventional foods”. The same goes for substances and materials used in the cell-based food production process that may contain chemical contaminants. “This type of hazard is common in many foods and food manufacturing processes, and control measures are commonly used to manage potential food safety risks,” the report points out.. The same conclusions are reported with regard to additives, the use of antibiotics, allergens and so on. Concerns already addressed in conventional foods.

The report therefore, unlike what was told to the Chamber, does not contain specific alarms for human health dictated by the production and consumption of synthetic meat such as to justify the ban imposed by the government. Rather it is a first intervention to identify the correct production guidelines and controls of these foods to ensure consumer safety. Nothing more or much different compared to what is not already done for other conventional food products.