Functioning GM Genes Remain Inside You

Although the biotech industry confidently asserted that gene transfer from GM foods was not possible, the only human feeding study on GM foods later proved that it does take place. In that study, the genetic material inserted into GM soy in soybeans that make them herbicide tolerant transferred into the DNA of intestinal bacteria and continued to function. That means that long after we stop eating a GM crop, its foreign GM proteins may be produced inside our intestines. Why is this a scary situation?

Antibiotic resistant marker (ARM) genes are employed during gene insertion to help scientists identify which cells successfully integrated the foreign gene. These ARM genes, however, remain in the cell and are cloned into the DNA of all the GM plants produced from that cell. If these ARM genes were to transfer to bacteria in our digestive tract, they could create super diseases, untreatable with antibiotics.

If the gene that creates Bt-toxin in GM corn were to transfer, it might turn our intestinal flora into living pesticide factories.

Moreover, animal studies show that DNA in food can travel into organs throughout the body, even into the fetus. So it is possible that the foreign genes might end up inside our own DNA, within the cells of our own organs and tissues. However, unlike safety evaluations for drugs, there are no human clinical trials of GM foods and no post marketing surveillance.