Gmo Labeling Essay

Imagine yourself buying something that could affect your health and nobody is required to tell you. Also, what you are buying is negatively affecting your environment. To make things worse, it is allowed and does not even require a label! Did you know that what was just described is Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs)? GMO labeling should be required on all products with GMOs because consumers deserve to know that what they are buying is harming their environment and health. Before discussing the risks of GMOs it is important to understand what they are and a little bit of history about it to understand why there should be GMO labeling. A GMO is when scientists modify the genes of the product to get more desired effects (Pols, 2015). “Genetic engineers insert genes from bacteria, viruses, animals, or humans into the DNA of a food crop or animal to create an organism that would never occur in nature” (Diane Smith, 2012). “Commercial planting of genetically modified seeds in the United States began in 1996” (Diane Smith, 2012). GMO labeling should be required because consumers are buying things that are unnatural in nature that would not have been made otherwise. Consuming something that is so “new” to the world …show more content…
GMOs involve using chemicals too but the chemicals meant to destroy the harmful insects also destroy the beneficial insects as well which causes the need for more genetically modification than anticipated (Lundquist, 2015). GMOs are poisonous to mammals, toxic to soil, making seed varieties extinct, destroying forest life, and creating super weeds and super pests (Khan, Muafia, Nasreen, & Salariya, 2012). The super weeds and super pests are created because they become resistant to the chemicals that were being used to prevent them before. Glyphosate is a chemical that is used for GMOs but it is killing milkweed that is a food source for monarch butterflies (Pols,