GMOs

Have you ever heard of venomous cabbage? Scientists have recently taken the gene that produces poison in scorpions and combined it with cabbage in order to prevent caterpillars from damaging the crop. The toxin was modified so that it isn't harmful to humans. Would you eat the cabbage, knowing these facts? I certainly wouldn't, yet nearly 70 percent of processed foods are genetically modified to contain pesticides in the DNA.

Genetically Modified Organisms are “organisms whose genetic material (DNA) has been modified in a way that does not occur naturally, e.g. through the introduction of a gene from a different organism”.  Factory farms like Monsanto have been tampering with the DNA of plants to resist herbicides, insects, and disease in order to produce the greatest yield and, as a result, the greatest profit. GMOs were introduced commercially in the 1990s, and as of 2012, 88% of corn and 94% of soy grown in the US is genetically modified. Another cause for concern is that weeds are growing resistant to glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup, resulting in superweeds. "Monsanto said its Roundup Ready 2 Xtend soybeans are genetically engineered to withstand sprayings of not just the Roundup weedkiller, but also dicamba, a chemical weedkiller that disrupts a plant's hormonal system and causes it to grow in abnormal ways that usually leads to death. (Discamba is a developmental toxin.)" Let me reiterate. A developmental toxin that usually leads to death does not affect the crops meant for human consumption.

The use of chemicals in such popular crops should be approached with extreme caution; however, there have been no human clinical trials of GM foods. Statistics show, however, that soy allergies increased by 50 percent in the UK soon after GM soy was introduced. The only clue on the effects of GM products revealed the following:

"The only published human feeding experiment revealed that the genetic material inserted into GM soy transfers into bacteria living inside our intestines and continues to function. This means that long after we stop eating GM foods, we may still have their proteins produced continuously inside us. This could mean: 

• If the antibiotic gene inserted into most GM crops were to transfer, it could create super diseases, resistant to antibiotics
• If the gene that creates Bt-toxin in GM corn were to transfer, it might turn our intestinal bacteria into living pesticide factories"

Animal studies also show very disturbing results: "Mice eating GM corn for the long term had fewer, and smaller, babies"; "more than half the babies of mother rats fed GM soy died within three weeks, and were smaller"; and “by the third generation, most GM soy-fed hamsters lost the ability to have babies”. Other effects of GMO consumption in animals include “immune problems, accelerated aging, faulty insulin regulation, and changes in major organs and the gastrointestinal system.” 

How can we be so confident that we are unaffected by these chemical products? My biggest problem with genetic modification is the general ignorance of what it really is, how it affects us in the long term, and how often we eat it. Unlike many countries that either require labeling of GM crops or ban them altogether, no labeling is required in the United States. I believe all GMO products should be labeled so that consumers can make the conscious decision of what they are eating every time they go to the grocery store.