GMOs
By Jacob Endemano
David Suzuki, CC, OBC PhD, LLD, and geneticist once said regarding genetically modified organisms, “Any scientist who tells you they know GMOs are safe and not to worry about it, is either ignorant of the history of science or is deliberately lying. Nobody knows what the long term effect will be.” Another similar quote by the same man goes, “Any politician or scientist who tells you these [GMO] products are safe is either very stupid or lying.” Both quotes demonstrate the distrust of GMOs from a very reliable source who is, as aforestated, a geneticist himself. I believe genetically modified foods and organisms in general create a negative impact on our world. The three reasons of foremost importance are the way they are developed, the lack of substantial testing, and finally the fact that they cause more problems than they fix. First, the way genetically modified organisms are developed is a major problem in and of itself. Imagine this, some genetics scientist or marketer, not a nutritionist or health expert, decides that some fish has a desirable trait they want a tomato to have for example the ability to withstand extremely cold temperatures without freezing. They decide to insert the gene into this tomato, but they don’t want the entire strand of DNA they only want the portion with the desired trait so they sever it from the rest of the DNA that makes up the fish. Up to this point it doesn’t sound too bad the only possible harm done is tinkering with Mother Nature and if that is harm at all is entirely up to opinion. Now is when things start to get nasty. The desired trait won’t work without an entire strand of DNA so they fill the rest in with the DNA of E.coli, a deadly disease that has the potential to kill a well-nourished child in five days and an adult in a week and a half. Next, they have three methods of getting the desired trait into the cell: putting the gene in a bacteria which then proceeded to penetrate and damage the cell, allowing the gene access, electrocuting the cell tearing holes in the cell membrane and once again damaging the cell, and the gene gun, which uses particles of gold coated in the engineered DNA which are then “shot” into the cell of course damaging the cell once more. Next they add a promoter gene to turn on desired characteristics, this gene often comes from the cauliflower mosaic virus. The final thing that happens is the engineered DNA, then spreads through the organism like a virus, thus making itself a form of virus. The steps just laid out are a brief summary of what has to …show more content…
The government relies on one source for their testing data: the companies which created, and thus stand to gain by, the product. the longest study the government has ever taken into account was 90 days long, thats way too short to discover any of the possible long term effects of the GM foods. Any scientists who do studies that prove bad things about GM foods or even just oppose them have been gagged, fired, and threatened. If there’s no problem with GM foods why are they working so hard to hide it. There was an independent study done with rats, after three generations, they were almost all sterile and were growing large tumors in and on their bodies, they were also a lot smaller than your average mouse. This study showed some of the horrendous possible long term effects of GMOs, but because the companies like Monsanto didn’t conduct or approve of the study the government took no notice of the possibilities. Lack of testing leads into my third and final …show more content…
This is a complete and total farce because GMOs have a lower yield than normal crops. Then they fall back to the Golden Rice argument. Golden rice is genetically engineered rice, which is enhanced by vitamin A. It was developed to save the lives of people in Asian countries who die as a result of vitamin A deficiency. It was a great plan, but it would take the average 11 year old boy 27 bowls of rice a day to get enough vitamin A. That is totally impractical for anyone even if their diet is primarily
By Jacob Endemano
David Suzuki, CC, OBC PhD, LLD, and geneticist once said regarding genetically modified organisms, “Any scientist who tells you they know GMOs are safe and not to worry about it, is either ignorant of the history of science or is deliberately lying. Nobody knows what the long term effect will be.” Another similar quote by the same man goes, “Any politician or scientist who tells you these [GMO] products are safe is either very stupid or lying.” Both quotes demonstrate the distrust of GMOs from a very reliable source who is, as aforestated, a geneticist himself. I believe genetically modified foods and organisms in general create a negative impact on our world. The three reasons of foremost importance are the way they are developed, the lack of substantial testing, and finally the fact that they cause more problems than they fix. First, the way genetically modified organisms are developed is a major problem in and of itself. Imagine this, some genetics scientist or marketer, not a nutritionist or health expert, decides that some fish has a desirable trait they want a tomato to have for example the ability to withstand extremely cold temperatures without freezing. They decide to insert the gene into this tomato, but they don’t want the entire strand of DNA they only want the portion with the desired trait so they sever it from the rest of the DNA that makes up the fish. Up to this point it doesn’t sound too bad the only possible harm done is tinkering with Mother Nature and if that is harm at all is entirely up to opinion. Now is when things start to get nasty. The desired trait won’t work without an entire strand of DNA so they fill the rest in with the DNA of E.coli, a deadly disease that has the potential to kill a well-nourished child in five days and an adult in a week and a half. Next, they have three methods of getting the desired trait into the cell: putting the gene in a bacteria which then proceeded to penetrate and damage the cell, allowing the gene access, electrocuting the cell tearing holes in the cell membrane and once again damaging the cell, and the gene gun, which uses particles of gold coated in the engineered DNA which are then “shot” into the cell of course damaging the cell once more. Next they add a promoter gene to turn on desired characteristics, this gene often comes from the cauliflower mosaic virus. The final thing that happens is the engineered DNA, then spreads through the organism like a virus, thus making itself a form of virus. The steps just laid out are a brief summary of what has to …show more content…
The government relies on one source for their testing data: the companies which created, and thus stand to gain by, the product. the longest study the government has ever taken into account was 90 days long, thats way too short to discover any of the possible long term effects of the GM foods. Any scientists who do studies that prove bad things about GM foods or even just oppose them have been gagged, fired, and threatened. If there’s no problem with GM foods why are they working so hard to hide it. There was an independent study done with rats, after three generations, they were almost all sterile and were growing large tumors in and on their bodies, they were also a lot smaller than your average mouse. This study showed some of the horrendous possible long term effects of GMOs, but because the companies like Monsanto didn’t conduct or approve of the study the government took no notice of the possibilities. Lack of testing leads into my third and final …show more content…
This is a complete and total farce because GMOs have a lower yield than normal crops. Then they fall back to the Golden Rice argument. Golden rice is genetically engineered rice, which is enhanced by vitamin A. It was developed to save the lives of people in Asian countries who die as a result of vitamin A deficiency. It was a great plan, but it would take the average 11 year old boy 27 bowls of rice a day to get enough vitamin A. That is totally impractical for anyone even if their diet is primarily