Research Proposal
WHAT ARE WE EATING?
PRO AND CONS OF GMOs FOODS.
Anderson Lopez
December 6, 2020
Professor: Matyakubova
ENG 201-94
Understanding the Foundation.
GMOs, short for genetically modified
organisms, are subject to a lot of controversy. According to the U.S.
Department of Agriculture, GMO seeds are used to plant over 90% of all corn,
cotton, and soy grown in the United States, which means that many of the foods
you eat likely contain GMOs.
Most GMO crops are used in food for animals like cows,
chickens, and fish. They are also used to make ingredients that are then used
in food products like cereal, snack chips, and vegetable oils. Even though you
will not find many GMO fruits or vegetables in the produce section of your grocery
store, GMOs are a common part of today’s food supply.
The FDA and Its Role
GMO foods have been available to
consumers since the early 1990s. Since then, the U.S. Food and Drug
Administration (FDA), U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and U.S.
Department of Agriculture (USDA) have worked together to ensure that crops
produced through genetic engineering are safe for people, animals, and the
environment. To help increase consumer understanding of GMOs, in 2017,
Congress provided funding for an Agricultural Biotechnology Education and Outreach
Initiative, which
calls upon FDA to work with EPA and USDA to share science-based educational information
about GMOs, beginning with answers to some basic GMO questions.
Why do we have GMOs?
Humans have used traditional ways to
modify crops and animals to suit their needs and tastes for more than 10,000
years. Crossbreeding, selective breeding, and mutation breeding are examples of
traditional ways to make these changes. These breeding methods often involve
mixing all the genes from two different sources. They are used to create common
crops like modern
corn varieties and
seedless watermelon.
Modern technology now allows
scientists to use genetic engineering to take just a beneficial gene, like
insect resistance or drought tolerance, and transfer it into a plant. The
reasons for genetic modification today are like what they were thousands of
years ago: higher crop yields, less crop loss, longer storage life, better
appearance, better nutrition, or some combination of these traits.
The Other Side (CONS)
GMO crops have not been proven safe
for human consumption through human clinical trials.
Genetically modified ingredients are
in 70-80% of food eaten in the United States, even though there have not been
any long-term clinical trials on humans to determine whether GMO foods are
safe.
Scientists still do not know what the
long-term effects of significant GMO consumption could be. Robert Gould, MD, a
pathologist at the UC San Francisco School of Medicine, said, “the contention
that GMOs pose no risks to human health can’t be supported by studies that have
measured a time frame that is too short to determine the effects of exposure
over a lifetime.”
According to the Center for Food
Safety, a US-based nonprofit organization, “Each genetic insertion creates the
added possibility that formerly nontoxic elements in the food could become
toxic.” The group says that resistance to antibiotics, cancer, and suppressed
immune function are among potential risks of genetic modification using viral
DNA.
Time to Argue (PROS)
GMO crops lower the price of food and
increase nutritional content, helping to alleviate world hunger.
According to David Zilberman, PhD,
Professor of Agricultural and Resource Economics at UC Berkeley, said that GMO
crops have “raised the output of corn, cotton and soy by 20 to 30 percent,
allowing some people to survive who would not have without it. If it were more
widely adopted around the world, the price [of food] would go lower, and fewer
people would die of hunger.”
To combat Vitamin A deficiency, the
main cause of childhood blindness in developing countries, researchers
developed a GMO ‘Golden Rice’ that produces high levels of
beta-carotene. A report by Australia and New Zealand’s food safety
regulator found that Golden Rice “is considered to be as safe for human
consumption as food derived from conventional rice.”
The two main types of GMO crops in
use today are engineered to either produce their own pesticides or to be herbicide
tolerant. More than 80% of corn grown in the US is GMO Bt corn,
which produces its own Bacillus thuringiensis insecticide. This has
significantly reduced the need for spraying insecticides over corn fields, and dozens
of studies have shown there are no environmental or health concerns with Bt
corn.
Drought-tolerant varieties of GMO
corn have been shown to reduce transpiration (evaporation of water off plants)
by up to 17.5%, meaning less water waste.
Big News on Biotechnology
AquAdvantage Salmon
In 2015, the Food and Drug
Administration (FDA) approved genetically engineered AquAdvantage Salmon for
human consumption.
This fast-growing salmon is a
genetically modified salmon that grows to market size in half the time as
conventional Atlantic salmon. This GM salmon grows to market weight in about 16
to 18 months vs. 32 to 36 months for conventional salmon.
This salmon contains a growth
hormone gene from the fast-growing Pacific Chinook salmon and a
promoter sequence (a fragment of DNA) from the ocean pout. Combined, the
gene and promoter sequence, which acts like an “on” switch, enable the salmon
to grow year-round instead of seasonally like wild or farmed salmon. (Harvard: The AquAdvantage Salmon Controversy –
A Tale of Aquaculture, Genetically Engineered Fish and Regulatory Uncertainty by Alain Goubau)
Bottom Line
Although current research suggests
that GMO foods are safe for consumption, some people are concerned about their
potential health effects. Due to a lack of long-term human studies, more
research is needed.
And therefore, in my opinion I think
more research should be implemented on this topic, especially a long-term
investigation on humans, into how GMO foods will affect our health on the long
run
At the end, I am taking the side and
supporting the consumption GMOs food due to the facts they help humans get
nutrients to fully develop. Also, because it helps lower the prices worldwide
on food.
References
u Grocery Manufacturers Association,
“Grocery Manufacturers Association Position on GMOs,” gmaonline.org, Sep. 23,
2013
u Genetic Literacy Project, “Why Are
There No Long-Term GMO Safety Studies or Studies on Humans?”
gmo.geneticliteracyproject.org (accessed June 24, 2019)
u Consumer Reports, “GMO Foods: What
You Need to Know Why Is There So Much Fuss Over Genetically Modified Ingredients?
This Will Help You Sift Through the Facts.,” consumerreports.org, Feb. 26, 2015
u David H. Freedman, “The Truth about
Genetically Modified Food,” scientificamerican.com, Sep. 1, 2013
u Genetic Literacy Project, “What Is
Nutritionally Enhanced Golden Rice and Why Is It Controversial?”
gmo.geneticliteracyproject.org (accessed July 22, 2019)
u World Health Organization (WHO),
“Global Prevalence of Vitamin a Deficiency,” who.int, 1995
u Food Standards, “Approval Report –
Application A1138,” foodstandards.gov.au, Dec. 20, 2017
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