Dangers of Genetically Modified Organisms

It is true, genetically modifying foods can produce a crop that requires less pesticide and produces a higher crop yield. However, there are many dangers that are overlooked when considering GMO's potential benefits. For example, many farmers are willing to start growing genetically modified crops for a natural pest, disease, and weed resistance. What they do no account for is the high possibility for pests and weeds to develop a resistence to the crop's "natural" protection over time. After a certain amount of exposure to the GM crop, weeds and pests can pick up a trace of the modified gene, making them immune to the crop's protection, and ultimately ruining the crop.

An even bigger concern with GMOs is the fact that there is no long term research on their effects on people and the environment. Several recent studies have been conducted, producing some frightening results. Wild ladybugs were tested in Scotland, and they were found to have laid fewer eggs and have half the life-span they used to, only after eating something else that consumed GMOs. This means that the effects of GMOs are traveling through the food chain, altering the lives of those who come incontact with them both directly and indirectly. Another recent study of GMOs was conducted on rats in Russia. A group of rats was fed GM corn, while another group of rats was fed organic corn. After both groups produced offspring, the offspring were compared. 55.6% of the offspring of the GM corn rats died shortly after birth, where only 9% of the organic corn rats died shortly after birth. You can also see from the picture below how the offspring of the GM corn rats suffered from stunted growth, compared to the other offspring.


Would you ever eat genetically modified foods? If you live in America, you already have. In fact, you've been eating them for the past six years. You didn't know? That's because no one told you. In America, the FDA does not require that companies using genetically modified foods state so on the label. Almost all of our food containing any trace of corn, soy, cottonseed, or canola contains GMOs. This is extremely unfair to comsumers, as well as unsafe. For example, if someone has a severe peanut allergy, and a peanut gene is used to grow bigger grapes, that person could have a severe allergic reaction after eating those grapes, because the companny was not required to state that they were genetically engineered. If GMOs are so "beneficial", then why does it seems like companies have something to hide when they use them? Perhaps they fear that if you really knew what was in your food, you would not purchase their product. If they stated they used a gene from a frog to grow greener apples, would you want to eat those apples?

I don't know who would.

One of the scariest things about GMOs is that they already exist. They are being grown all over our country and all over the world, but no matter what scientists and farmers say, GM crops can never be grown in complete isolation. All parts of the Earth's enviroment interact, it is just a matter of how quickly or slowly they interact. Once the crop is in existence, it has extreme potential to escape into the environment. A gust of wind or a tiny bee could be enough for cross polination of the engineered crop. If a GMO escapes into the wild, there is no way to track it and no way to stop it. Since a GMO is generally designed to be stronger than its organic counterpart, it can completely wipe out the organic organism in the wild. At the rate genetic engineering is going, it won't be long before every plant in the wild contains a genetic alteration, and the term "organic" simply disappears.