Recombinant DNA is a Tool that’s Neither Inherently Safe nor Dangerous
Is food biotechnology a miracle cure for world hunger or an environmental and human health scourge? The answer is neither of these. Biotechnology – or, to be more specific, recombinant DNA technology – is nothing more than a tool for making precise modifications to the genetic code of living organisms. The safety and usefulness of its products can only be judged on a case-by-case basis, after considering the characteristics of individual products. The process itself is no magic bullet, but neither is it inherently safe nor dangerous.
Genes are small segments of DNA that provide the cellular blueprint for making proteins. The purpose of all plant breeding – whether by cross-breeding two plants of the same species, by modern biotechnology, or by any of the more or less sophisticated techniques in between – is to alter the plant’s DNA by adding or deleting certain genes. The “safeness” of a particular modification depends, therefore, on exactly what change has been made. The addition of a gene that codes for a toxic or allergenic protein, for example, can pose environmental risks or make food from that plant unsafe to eat, whether it is done by biotech or conventional methods.
Indeed, because most crop plants contain low levels of natural toxins, allergens, or antinutrients, the essentially random recombination of genes in cross-breeding and other conventional methods can unintentionally boost the level of endogenous chemicals or introduce new ones into the food supply. In just the last few decades, two conventionally bred varieties each of squash and potato and one of celery were found to contain dangerous levels of endogenous toxins and had to be recalled from the market. But, despite intense scrutiny by public health authorities around the globe, there is no evidence that a single illness has ever been caused by biotech foods.
Importantly, recombinant DNA methods let plant breeders isolate individual genes and study the safety of the proteins they help make before they are transferred into crop plants. This arguably makes modern food biotechnology more safe than conventional breeding, not less. A review of eighty-one separate research projects, conducted over fifteen years and funded by the European Union, found that bioengineered crops and foods are just as safe for the environment and for human consumption as conventional crops, and in some cases even safer, because the genetic changes in the plants are much more precise.
This confidence has been validated by the excellent safety record of the biotech crops and the food derived from such crops since their commercial inception over a decade ago. And countless scientific bodies – including the US National Academy of Sciences, the American Medical Association, the World Health Organization, and dozens of others – agree that, because of the comparative precision of recombinant DNA methods, it is therefore easier to ensure the safety of biotech foods.
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This may seem like it is asking quite much, but hear me out. Maybe some people eat too much, and other people eat to little. The problem here: food distribution among hungry mouths. We have unnecessary buffets in the middle of a recession ! When their are starving masses. We can have obese people AND starving people? That does not look very good people, and it is not acceptable to have any excuse for that! End of story, period.
I agree with all the negative coments on GMO but would also like to add this.
The color of the male rats testicals will turn brown not blue.
GM seeds are terminator seeds- Cant grow them again next year
Many many farmers in India commit suicide after GM crop failure because they borrowed much money from the bank and cant pay it back so they have no choice but to go to heaven and ask God to help their families.
A doctor at Sloan Kettering was asked to leave when he linked GM farmers and people who ate they GM crop with Non-Hochkins Limphoma.
There are other things but the world is just not ready to know about the rest, like who owns all the seeds stored under ground way up north, needed in the event of a whidespread crop disaster. Or the fact that now we have GMOs growing in our own intestinal flora and that means we are stealing Monsantos patent, too. Chemtrails.
You are absolutely right. In a lab, under observation, recombinant DNA is absolutely safe and helpful. Unfortunately the science behind GMOs is being rushed from the lab as fast as possible by corporations eager to monopolize the market. The scariest advent to this brave new world thus far is the insertion of pig vaccines into corn. First off, corn is a staple food of the Americas (North, South, all of it.) 25% of the products Americans can buy from the standard market is made from corn. You would think we should be a little bit careful with this food source.
Corn genes are also very difficult to keep from spreading, which is why biologists have found genes from Monsanto's Frankenstein corn intermingling with genes in the wild corn down in Oaxaca, Mexico.
I understand that the whole reason for scientific research into GMOs is entrenched in the quest for the glorious dollar. But companies are affecting not only the entire global population now, but for generations to come, when they cut short their research in an effort to make a quick buck.
that this is all to make money . May I point out that food sustains human life? Maybe producing more food will feed people?
Yes, one of the goals is to feed the masses. One of the goals is to feed them nutritious food that will help them. If we rush the food into their guts- giving them food to fill their hungry bodies as soon as possible- are we helping them to survive (the main purpose of food), or are we feeding them only to leave them suffering silently for the rest of their life because the food we gave them to eat had added side effects? I do not agree to such.
You have a point - but it is a conundrum: Do we rush to put the strongest, hardest, fastest-growing, best-tasting produce on the market to feed more people? Or do we use large amounts of caution requiring us to wait a ridiculously long time period before we mass produce genetically altered food ?
I think we rush too much. And I absolutely attribute this rush to the attainment of money . And I think the consequences of rushing could literally kill us all.
Once a company like Monsanto finds something that works well (a genetic plant modification, for instance) they produce unnaturally large quantities of that particular plant, and do away with most other forms of said plant (because they're weak and therefore, not valuable).
For example, once there were hundreds of different types of corn across America. Now the vast majority of North Americans subsist on four different types, and those four types are very similar to each other. So what happens if our corn suddenly becomes susceptible to a certain disease or parasite? You might think this is no big deal, but this lack of diversity is horrifying to the ecologist and biologist alike. In the words of Michael Pollan in the Omnivore's Dilemma: "Corn is what feeds the steer that becomes the steak. Corn feeds the chicken and the pig, the turkey and the lamb, the catfish and the tilapia and, increasingly, even the salmon, a carnivore by nature that the fish farmers are re-engineering to tolerate corn. The eggs are made of corn. The milk and cheese and yogurt, which once came from dairy cows that grazed on grass, now typically come from Holsteins that spend their working lives indoors tethered to machines, eating corn."
As Americans, we don't really have a food pyramid; we have a singular pillar made almost entirely of corn. So you can see why some people have a problem with bio-engineering corporations reducing our food options out of an attempt to make a lot of money. It's very competitive, it IS a race to get genetically better products on the market, and it is incredibly short sighted in light of the fact that they have little thought towards the future of natural biodiversity.
Well, I admit that I do not know very much about this topic. I didn't know how dependent America was on corn.
It is scary that diversity may have decreased so substantially. This still does not make engineered food unsafe.
The debate is whether they are safe or not and I assume this means safe to eat. Yes, they are safe to eat. And safe to feed to animals .
What is unsafe is, I agree, lack of diversity in our diets and in the diets of the animals we eat.
Your endorsement of GMO technology reads like a Monsanto Commercial. In reality the scientists have very little idea what effects the modifications they make will have on a grand scale. They are simply stabbing in the dark and then rushing these things to market with little oversight.
Biotech foods are the largest uncontrolled experiment in history. With the long term effects unknown they are basically using everyone as guinea pigs.