Hi, my name is Jason Kenny, my friend Jamie Caroll and I have created this web-page for our science fair project, at Booth Memorial High School. We hope you enjoy reading about this topic because we believe it is a problem which can only get bigger, especially in this day and age.




Genetic Engineering: Threats to Public Health and the Environment

What are Genetically Engineered Foods? Genes are the blueprints of life. Genetic material found within cells determines the differences between all living organisms - plants, animals, humans and microorganisms. Genetic engineering is the process by which scientists artificially alter DNA. It is accomplished by introducing selected genes into the host DNA without knowing precisely where they will end up. The concept of DNA is vey complex, most of which is still unknown to us, this procedure is very dangerous and could cause problems which will be passed on to future generations.


Genetically engineered (GE) foods are different from traditional breeding techniques that exchange genes between the same species. Genetic engineering combines genes from completely different species. In the case of genetically engineered foods, fish genes have been spliced into tomatoes, human genes into pigs, and insect genes into potatoes.

Genetic engineering is a new, relatively untested technology that can have enormous impacts on our everyday life. Given the many unanswered questions about this technology, its widespread application to agriculture and food makes it a risky experiment that is being tested on American consumers without their knowledge or consent. Parents are unwittingly collaborating in this experiment by feeding GE foods to their children.

How Much Testing Has Been Done?

There are a large number of scientific studies from around the world that show the real and potential dangers of GE foods. This has led to a growing movement to ban or at least require the labeling of GE foods in Europe, Japan, Australia and New Zealand. American food laws do not require labeling and allow industry to study and police itself almost entirely on the honor system. The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) says that GE foods must be thoroughly tested but leaves it up to industry to do and define the rigor of testing. All industry has to do is respond to a series of questions drawn up by the FDA about the safety of the product and voluntarily consult with the Agency if they are uncertain about whether their product would meet with FDA approval. Industry does not even have to provide actual data from their testing.

What Are the Dangers of GE Foods?

Threats to Public Health

Allergic Reactions: Over 8% of American children and 2% of adults suffer from mild to fatal food allergies.

1. Genetic engineering involves splicing in genes that have never been part of the human food supply and can result in unforeseen allergic reactions. Without food labeling, even people with known allergies will be unaware if they will be harmed by the food they are eating. A GE soybean, which was spliced with a Brazilian nut, was believed to be ready for market just before University of Nebraska researchers found that it could cause fatal allergies in people sensitive to Brazilian nuts.

2. Increased Resistance to Antibiotics: Antibiotic resistance genes are often used by scientists as "marker" genes to indicate whether or not cells in a receiving organism (such as plants) have accepted foreign DNA. The trait for antibiotic resistance could be spread from plants to bacteria in the digestive tract of animals or humans. This could result in increased resistance to antibiotics.

3. Cancer Risks: European and Canadian scientists found that dairy products from animals treated with a genetically engineered bovine growth hormone (rBGH), that is injected into cows to increase milk production, contain excessive amounts of a naturally occurring Insulin-like Growth Factor (IGF-1) which may increase the risk of breast, prostate and colon cancer.

4. There is a ban on rBGH in all industrialized countries except the US.

5. Toxic Reactions: In 1989, Showa Denko, Japan's third largest chemical company, manufactured L-tryptophan, a common dietary supplement, using genetically engineered bacteria which resulted in the deaths of 37 Americans and left more than 5,000 others ill with a potentially fatal and painful blood disorder.

6. More recently, a UK study reported that GE potatoes were poisonous to mammals, damaging the vital organs and immune systems of lab rats.

7. Reduced Nutritional Value: GE foods that are modified to look fresher may have a longer shelf life, resulting in reduced nutritional value. Of more concern is that GE foods may have less nutritional value to begin with. A recent US study reported that GE soybeans have lower concentrations of phytoestrogen compounds, which are believed to protect against heart disease and cancer.

8. A recent Scottish study reported that rats fed GE potatoes suffered damaged organs and stunted growth compared with rats eating normal potatoes.

9. Environmental Impacts
Increased Herbicide Use: Corps genetically engineered to be herbicide resistant account for 70% of all GE crops planted in 1998. It is estimated that GE herbicide resistant crops will actually triple the amount of herbicide use, as farmers, knowing that these GE crops can tolerate more herbicides, will use them more liberally. The same companies - Monsanto, Dupont, AgEvo, and Novartis - manufacture and sell both the herbicide resistant GE crops and the herbicide that farmers must use in conjunction with these GE seeds.

10. This situation promotes dependency by the farmer on these companies. Increased Pesticide Residues and Damage to Soil and Beneficial Insects: Many GE crops are designed to produce their own pesticides. This higher level of pesticide has, in the case of the Bt (Bacillus thuringiensis) potato, led to its being classified as a "plant pesticide" regulated by the Environmental Protection Agency, instead of it being a food regulated by the FDA.

11. Genetically engineered Bt crops have had surprisingly different effects than the naturally occurring Bt gene found in soil bacterium.

12. In a highly publicized study, Cornell researchers found that pollen from genetically engineered Bt corn was poisonous to Monarch butterflies.

13. Additional studies have shown that GE crops have also negatively impacted other beneficial insects such as bees, ladybugs, and lacewings, as well as soil fertility.

14. Genetic Pollution and the Creation of "Superweeds": GE pollen can cross-pollinate with wild fields and neighboring farms of organic and non-GE crops. This will also lead to a new generation of herbicide and pesticide resistant "superweeds" and "superpests" which will necessitate even strong toxic chemicals be used to kill them. Studies already document this cross-pollination which led the EPA to place restrictions on the percentage of GE corn that can be planted in any field.

15. Unlike chemical pollutants, GE crops are alive and reproduce, mutate and migrate, once released into the environment they cannot be cleaned up.


Threat to World's Food Supply:


The proliferation of GE crops increases the danger of widespread crop failure. GE seeds have an identical genetic structure and it has long been recognized that the weakness of monocultures is their vulnerability to an unpredicted fungus, virus, or pest, which can attack and damage or destroy a crop.

Food Monopolies: Billions of people around the world still live in agrarian societies continuing thousands of years of traditional farming practices of saving and sharing seeds. The patenting of genes and crops by a few multinational corporations has led to new laws against saving seeds. The development of "life patents" combined with new technologies such as "terminator" seeds - GE crops whose seeds are sterile - can make farmers completely dependent on buying their seeds from a few large companies. Where the cause of hunger is poverty, requiring poor farmers to pay for seed will only worsen the situation.

The genetic engineering of food is a new and untested technology that raises significant questions about its impact on society, the economy, and our environment.

Will genetically engineered foods provide us with new health benefits or make us ill from allergic reactions and increased antibiotic resistance? Will it feed the world's poor, or make the poor more
dependent on food monopolies? Will it create more pest resistant plants or create "superpests" that will need even stronger poisons to kill them? Will it create fish that grow faster and bigger or make them less nutritious and cause havoc if they escape into the wild?

Studies can be found to support both sides of these arguments as we try to determine what are the real Threats to Public Health and Environment. And while the controversy continues to rage - one thing is clear: American companies are putting these unlabeled ingredients in more and more of our food despite the fact that their long term safety has not been proven.

In this case, American companies are the exception rather than the rule. In Europe for instance, the concern about food safety is much higher and all major food companies (including U.S. franchises like McDonald's and Pizza Hut) have rejected the use of GE foods, and governments regularly pull up illegally planted GE crops. More than 130 countries have signed the Biosafety Protocol - an international treaty allowing countries to ban the importation of GE products. Many other countries including Japan, Australia, Thailand, and Taiwan, have responded to the "consumers right to know" and have labeling laws in place.

As you just read this is a major problem, which needs rules and regulations to be placed so as to make genetic engineering as safe for us and the environment as possible.



For even more information on this subject, visit the links below.




Thank you very much from Jason Kenny and Jamie Caroll.


BIBLIOGRAPHY:

1. Bernard Gert, Genetic Engineering. Vol.127n,
USA Today Magazine. 01-01-1999


2. Enserink Martin, Science in Society: Institute
Copes With Genetic Hot Potato. 08-21-1998


3. Reid Dave, Funk and Wagnalls New Encyclopedia: Genetic
Engineering: 1999, Funk & Wagnalls Inc, New York. pg.371


4. Author n/a: Lawmakers Hail Genetic Recearch Advances Pledge
Agressive Action to Ban Genetic Discrimination, Capitol Hill
Press Release, 02-13-2001

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