THE CONS OF GE FOODS

There are many cons to GE foods and they must not be overlooked by anyone, even those who support GE foods. This is because the threats are so theroretical, the issue is so complecated, and the arguements are so very compassionate. I can't possibly sum up the all the cons of produceing these GE foods so I am only going to talk about three main issues:

POSSIBLE LONG TERM HEALTH EFFECTS

THE THREAT OF CROSS BREEDING

WHAT COULD BE EFFECTED IF THE WORST WAS TO HAPPEN

ALthough there hasn't been any studies that conclude that GE crops poise a health risk, there are a number of theretical health risks. Many experts believe there is the possibility for health risks but the scary thing is, we might not find out any of them until poeple are dieing 20 and 30 years from now. Since the distrbution of GE produce started in the mid-90's the long term effects can not be see yet. This is the main reason why poeple are very skeptical of GE foods, they are worried that 10 or 20 or 30 years down the road, we will start seeing the health effects and by that time it will be too late.

Many scientists agree that man's knowledge of the DNA sequence very little. Many activists against GE foods believe that scientists can't accuratly predict what might happen when creating a GE food. Thru all the research I have gathered, I am in partial agreement with these folks. I believe that the "theoritical" threats are too real and I expect there to be possible health risks but there is no prove that these haelth risks wil be life threatening.

Let me give you an example of a possible health risk. I got the idea for this scenario after reading the Greenpeace website so its not just a bunch of Mumbo Jumbo.

Scientists are working on a patch of strawberries that are being struck by an unsual virus. They finally find the right gene to protect the strawberries from the virus. They take the take the gene insert in the patch of strawbeeries and over time they find that their breeding was a success...or at least they think it is a success. What they didn't know was that the gene theu inserted in the strawberries altered a chemical reaction in the starberries sythesis process leading to in stability. This created new toxins and allergens that are very harmful to the human body. Once the starberries started growing they were shipped out and eaten. Poeple started becoming very ill and eventually scientists figured out what had happened. Of course they couldn't recall all the produce that they had shipped out because most of it was mixed with other strawberries when arriving at its destanation at grocery stores and restaurants. The immediatly irractcated the field of strawberries but there was so many patches that they couldn't tell the differnce between the GE strawberrys and the non-strawberries. The strawberries were also shipped international, fed to livestock, used to plant other strawberries, made into junk food, and all sorts of other things. This is why people are worried that GE foods will some day cause serious health risks and they are also worried that there is not much we can do to stop it.

"Banned food product found in taco shells, group says," reads a September 18, 2000 Seattle Times headline. It goes on to say, "WASHINGTON--A form of biotech corn not allowed in food because of concerns it could trigger allergies has been detected in grocery store Taco Bell taco shells, a coalition of biotech critics will report tomorrow. The type of corn, produced by Aventis and called StarLink, was approved by federal authorities in 1998 as animal feed. Because the corn has been genetically modified in a way that makes it more difficult to break down in the human gut, the agencies have refused to approve it for human use."

The corn was ultimently found to be StarLink corn and was also led to the recall of almost 300 food products, 70 types of corn, 80 kinds of taco shells, and 100 other types of food products, as a saftey precaution. The reason that the StarLink corn was found in these taco shells is because farmers were mixing the two corns together. Although the problem has been delt with, farmers and scientists are still finding contaminated corn every so often just from this one instance

This is a reason why GE's scare a lot of poeple. In the near future it is almost inembitable that a farmer mistakingly mixes a GE and regular produce in the same shipment. By the time that poeple figure out what has happen the cross-contamination might be to big to completly irradicate.

No one, not even the people who don't eat GE foods, want to think about the worst that these foods can bring.

It is scary that GE foods are fed to the animals we eat, put into snack fst food and foods like syrup and grown in fields all around America. Europe has banned GMO's in their foods unless labeled but even that has slip-ups. For example, the picture on the right is an American syrup company which uses GE corn to make its ingredent, corn syrup. This product was missed when tagging GE foods and was spotted by a citizen who posted it on the Greenpeace website.

The main threat of GE foods is still theoritical but people are scared that if health risks are found, it will be too late. Now others argue that you could say that about anything. For example, the produce we eat that are not GE is sprayed with pesticides that also have been found to cause health risks.

Genetic Engineering is the next corner that scientists must poke around. Just like the chemical "revolution" before that, around WWI and II. Whether you like GE foods our not, that fact is something must be done fast to save our ecosystem from chemicals. Don't be surprised to see much of these issues come up in the near future.