In any case, proponents say, people have consumed as many as trillions of meals containing genetically modified ingredients over the past few decades. Not a single verified case of illness has ever been attributed to the genetic alterations.
Mark Lynas, a prominent anti-GM activist who in publicly switched to strongly supporting the technology, has pointed out that every single news-making food disaster on record has been attributed to non-GM crops, such as the Escherichia coli —infected organic bean sprouts that killed 53 people in Europe in Critics often disparage U.
But much research on the subject comes from the European Commission, the administrative body of the E. The European Commission has funded research projects, carried out by more than independent teams, on the safety of GM crops.
None of those studies found any special risks from GM crops. Plenty of other credible groups have arrived at the same conclusion. Gregory Jaffe, director of biotechnology at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a science-based consumer-watchdog group in Washington, D. Yet Jaffe insists the scientific record is clear. The U. Food and Drug Administration, along with its counterparts in several other countries, has repeatedly reviewed large bodies of research and concluded that GM crops pose no unique health threats.
Dozens of review studies carried out by academic researchers have backed that view. Opponents of genetically modified foods point to a handful of studies indicating possible safety problems. But reviewers have dismantled almost all of those reports. But the potato was not intended for human consumption—it was, in fact, designed to be toxic for research purposes.
The Rowett Institute later deemed the experiment so sloppy that it refuted the findings and charged Pusztai with misconduct. Similar stories abound. After a review, the European Food Safety Authority dismissed the study's findings.
Several other European agencies came to the same conclusion. Some scientists say the objections to GM food stem from politics rather than science—that they are motivated by an objection to large multinational corporations having enormous influence over the food supply; invoking risks from genetic modification just provides a convenient way of whipping up the masses against industrial agriculture.
Not all objections to genetically modified foods are so easily dismissed, however. Long-term health effects can be subtle and nearly impossible to link to specific changes in the environment. Scientists have long believed that Alzheimer's disease and many cancers have environmental components, but few would argue we have identified all of them. And opponents say that it is not true that the GM process is less likely to cause problems simply because fewer, more clearly identified genes are replaced.
And as U. True, the number of genes affected in a GM plant most likely will be far, far smaller than in conventional breeding techniques.
Yet opponents maintain that because the wholesale swapping or alteration of entire packages of genes is a natural process that has been happening in plants for half a billion years, it tends to produce few scary surprises today. Changing a single gene, on the other hand, might turn out to be a more subversive action, with unexpected ripple effects, including the production of new proteins that might be toxins or allergens.
Opponents also point out that the kinds of alterations caused by the insertion of genes from other species might be more impactful, more complex or more subtle than those caused by the intraspecies gene swapping of conventional breeding. And just because there is no evidence to date that genetic material from an altered crop can make it into the genome of people who eat it does not mean such a transfer will never happen—or that it has not already happened and we have yet to spot it.
These changes might be difficult to catch; their impact on the production of proteins might not even turn up in testing. It is also true that many pro-GM scientists in the field are unduly harsh—even unscientific—in their treatment of critics. GM proponents sometimes lump every scientist who raises safety questions together with activists and discredited researchers. Most of them are nonscientists, or retired researchers from obscure institutions, or nonbiologist scientists, but the Salk Institute's Schubert also insists the study was unfairly dismissed.
Schubert joins Williams as one of a handful of biologists from respected institutions who are willing to sharply challenge the GM-foods-are-safe majority. Both charge that more scientists would speak up against genetic modification if doing so did not invariably lead to being excoriated in journals and the media.
These attacks, they argue, are motivated by the fear that airing doubts could lead to less funding for the field. Both scientists say that after publishing comments in respected journals questioning the safety of GM foods, they became the victims of coordinated attacks on their reputations. Schubert even charges that researchers who turn up results that might raise safety questions avoid publishing their findings out of fear of repercussions.
There is evidence to support that charge. The paper showed that GM corn seemed to be finding its way from farms into nearby streams and that it might pose a risk to some insects there because, according to the researchers' lab studies, caddis flies appeared to suffer on diets of pollen from GM corn. Many scientists immediately attacked the study, some of them suggesting the researchers were sloppy to the point of misconduct.
There is a middle ground in this debate. Many moderate voices call for continuing the distribution of GM foods while maintaining or even stepping up safety testing on new GM crops. They advocate keeping a close eye on the health and environmental impact of existing ones. But they do not single out GM crops for special scrutiny, the Center for Science in the Public Interest's Jaffe notes: all crops could use more testing.
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This series of Special Features takes an in-depth look at the science behind some of the most debated nutrition-related topics, weighing in on the facts and debunking the myths. Share on Pinterest Illustration by Diego Sabogal. What are GM foods? Why create GM foods?
View All. Clean eating: What does the research say? Carbohydrates: Are they really essential? How bad are carbs, really? Common GM foods. Reduce lignin. Reduce phytate. Pollination control. Resistance to insects. Increased yield Pollination control.
Increased lysine essential amino acid. Bangladesh, India Cooking Papaya Resistance to viruses. No flowering. Costa Rica Fresh fruit Potato Reduce browning. Less black spot bruising. Figure 1. Teosinte top is the grass that eventually gave rise to maize bottom. A maize-teosinte The process has radically improved over the last 12, years.
Figure 2. Glyphosate usage concentration in the U. While Roundup has not tested as toxic to humans and other mammals, the longer it has been on the market, the worse its effects on soil health and long-term plant fecundity appear. In addition, Roundup Ready plants may not allow necessary micronutrients to be absorbed by animals consuming them and may also play a part in the recent die-off of bees the seriousness of which cannot be overstated.
Aside from the biological concerns, there are also economic ones about which any farmer is certainly well-acquainted. It is not too early to consider that the amber waves of grain in the Midwest might also be at risk of drought or conversely that the risk of crop-harming downpours — another manifestation of climate change — will also negatively affect grain yields.
Figure 3. Groundwater withdrawal rates in It takes roughly 10, years to recharge water Source: National Atlas via Wikipedia. In light of these very sobering conditions, it is clear that agricultural technology should be focusing on increasing the resiliency of our food crops, rather than fine-tuning them to maximize yield in a narrow ecological sweet spot. When I was researching this article, I looked for examples of companies working on developing GMO strains that were drought-resistant or would otherwise allow crops to be grown in soils with less nitrogen i.
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