National Research Council US Committee on Defining Science-Based Concerns Associated with Products of Animal Biotechnology, Washington DC, U.S.A.

Potential impacts on the environment from the escape or release of genetically engineered organisms was the committee's greatest science-based concerns associated with animal biotechnology, in large part due to the uncertainty inherent in identifying environmental problems early on and the difficulty of remediation once a problem has been identified. The intent of this chapter is to identify the risks to the environment posed by GE animals, prioritize those risks, and explain the criteria used for selecting them.