Today,
ArsTechnica had an interesting article about some of the inherent risks of
eating genetically modified organisms (GMO’s). While most articles tend to
focus on the dangers of such technology, mainly that it will spread outside of
our control and risk interacting with the normal food supply, this article
focused on a comprehensive review of current findings done by a team of Italian
scientists. The scientists went through all papers published on the subject and
tried searching for reports on the safety of eating such foods. The end result
was rather shocking to me personally.
When we
eat food, we are only ingesting between .01 and 1 gram of DNA everyday. Of this
amount, only 0.00006 percent of the total amount is engineered. Cooking
destroys most of the DNA and our digestive track destroys the rest of it. The
biggest risk so far has been that gut bacteria will obtain drug resistant DNA
through this. Luckily, the DNA used is already prevalent in bacteria colonies
so additional resistance is rather minimal. Allergic reactions are mitigated by
running proteins collected through a large database of known allergens. The
proteins are also tested to be sure that it is safe for animals to eat. From
what is being reported, it is actually pretty safe for companies to do this.
Unfortunately,
there are still risks to the environment though. If wild plants pick up drug
resistant genes, then insects will become immune faster. This is a scary
thought given how toxic some chemicals being used are. Restarting the cycle with
harsher drugs every few years is simply unacceptable, so hopefully future
research can come up with a better solution.
Even if the crops are safe to eat,
I am not too sure about creating GMO foods on a large scale. There might be
safe testing in a lab environment, but what if a harmful gene somehow spreads
to the wild? Approved GMO food may be safe to eat, but if bad gene carrying pollen
spreads and infects the majority of our crops, then what will we do? I am aware
that this sounds a bit like a doomsday scenario, but I feel that it is a very
real risk we are currently facing. Not too much is known about how companies
are safely segregating GMO crops to prevent them from spreading their genes.
Additionally, there are instances where previously thought destroyed GMO wheat
was found in the wild. I feel that more regulation needs to be in place if the
safeguards are not strong enough. Additionally, more information should be
disseminated by either the government or third parties. Too much of it seems to
be coming from the companies producing the crops in question.
Finally, the researchers noticed
that there are risks of foreign DNA altering transgenetic plants in a systematic
way. Detailed analysis of proteins shows that the plants are being changed in a
similar fashion to the same plant being brought up in two slightly different
environments. I doubt that this will have any real effect where safety is
concerned, but I too feel that more research is needed.
The biggest battles to come is not just
safety, but also changing the general public’s mindset about GMO foods. I
myself am still not convinced after reading this article about their safety. I
tend to trust ArsTechnica’s reportings, but this single team was just analyzing
already published papers. We all know that not all papers are accurate and some
even feature outright forged data. I can only hope that the papers analyzed
were legitimate and that the team’s findings are entirely accurate. Either way,
unless something drastic occurs, it appears that genetically modified food is
here to stay.
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