Is Genetically Engineered Food Really Bad For You?

[menaceh2k]

I recently watched a documentary called Food Inc (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1286537/), an informative piece about the corporate approach to agriculture. They touched on possible dangers from the genetically modified foods that are covertly integrated in the American diet. Europe banned the import of all genetically engineered/modified foods. I know there is a big debate over possible side effects, but doesn’t you body naturally degrade all foreign DNA or RNA that enters it through the digestive tract? Could it be the formation of some rogue protein/enzyme that may cause those ill health effects? The only danger I see emerging form the utilization of genetically modified/engineered foods, is large scale famine.

A lot of these companies are selecting/manufacturing genes in produce, and growing them on a large scale. Their intention, since profit is the primary motivator, is to grow only their modified corn/apple/etc. The problem with that is the non modified produce we see in the environment has been chosen through millennia of natural selection. These companies are now selecting specific genes as a means to an end (ex: large seedless oranges that grows annually in all whaeter). My primary corcern with that approach is, what happens when a strian of bacteria/fungus/bug adapt exceptionally well that these modified produce, or what happens when some other environmental factor selects against those modified produce. These companies (Monsanto primarily) intend to grow only their brand of produce, what happens when we are hit with the equivalent of an Irish potato famine. They relied on only a couple of high yielding potato types, and when the blight came, it was a disaster.

I am sure there are probable ill effects to eating genetically modified foods, but my real concern is the poor agricultural factors. Not only are these companies creating self terminating genes, seedless fruits/vegs, but they are setting themselves up for failure. The problem is their failure is our suffering in the form of high food prices or mass starvation. I’m sure that the food quality is not the best, but there are many other environmental factors out there are killing us. Next time the genetically modified food debate comes up, don’t forget that these companies are ‘’selecting’’ for failure.

 

[Agent Intellect]

The banana is already well on it's way to extinction because of Black sigatoka and Fusarium oxysporum.

I think GM foods have a stigma to them. Humans have been using recombinant DNA to genetically modify Gram negative Escherichia to produce insulin for diabetics since the 1980's and selectively breeding crops and livestock for as long as agriculture has been around (which is a form of genetic modification).

Genetic modification also have positive possibilities, like golden rice, being able to increase the nutrition value of foods or modify them so that they require fewer pesticides.

 

[Architectonic]

People seem to only focus on recombination technology, when arguably hybrids are more dangerous as the scale of complexity is of much higher magnitude. Recombinant GM foods are tested to a very high degree compared to the scale of modification. Hybrid seed and traditional selective breeding also suffer from a similar lack of genetic diversity.

Yet almost no one worries about the hybrid foods (from peppermint to wheat) they eat every day!?!

 

[vash22]

Yet almost no one worries about the hybrid foods (from peppermint to wheat) they eat every day!?!

they made a peppermint flavored wheat plant? cool.
The higher level of testing is not done because the government knows that GM plants can be more dangerous. The government does stricter testing because they don't know. GM foods could be more dangerous or they may not be, but the government is not going to take the risk with an unknown variable. Nothing about the GM foods has suggested that they are dangerous, other than it is something new and therefore scary. Although that doesn't mean it is safe either. Like i said, we don't really know.

what i don't get is why so many people are freaking out about GM foods, but no one freaked out about margarine. Decades later we find out that it increases your risk of getting cancer. Maybe it is because there weren't that many horror movies about vegetable oil being turned into toast spread, and then becoming some evil monster and destroying new york. meanwhile there are several movies about evil scientist who 'play god' with genetic engineering and happen to create a freak monster, every single time

 

[Reverse Transcriptase]

The banana is already well on it's way to extinction because of Black sigatoka and Fusarium oxysporum.

I think GM foods have a stigma to them. Humans have been using recombinant DNA to genetically modify Gram negative Escherichia to produce insulin for diabetics since the 1980's and selectively breeding crops and livestock for as long as agriculture has been around (which is a form of genetic modification).

Genetic modification also have positive possibilities, like golden rice, being able to increase the nutrition value of foods or modify them so that they require fewer pesticides.

AI you probably know this, but I'd like to point out that the banana is totally artificial. We bred plantans to become bananas- so it's our own gosh darn fruit, and we can do what we please with it.

I agree with the lack of genetic diversity, but I think that can happen despite having GM crops. The honeybee is another example of human agriculture reducing the genetic variability in return for a little more efficiency (and that's what is leading to colony collapse disorder).

There is *another* risk, from bumbling-fool-genetic-modification. Some people have food allergies, especially peanut, and there was worry that we'd transplant genes into, say, wheat that contains the proteins that people with peanut allergies react to. Fortunately, I think that we'll be able to avoid that through intelligent and thorough GMing.

Lastly, here's a real-life friend-of-a-friend quote. "I think GMOs are bad and should be stopped, because I don't want to eat genes!" XD

 

[merzbau]

Nothing about the GM foods has suggested that they are dangerous, other than it is something new and therefore scary. Although that doesn't mean it is safe either. Like i said, we don't really know.

there has been evidence of reactions in animals and humans in peer reviewed studies. summary at the link below:
http://www.seedsofdeception.com/Public/GeneticRoulette/HealthRisksofGMFoodsSummaryDebate/index.cfm

what i don't get is why so many people are freaking out about GM foods, but no one freaked out about margarine.
...
there are several movies about evil scientist who 'play god' with genetic engineering and happen to create a freak monster, every single time

the production and manufacture of margarine does not result in the pollution of the gene pool with engineered species of plants, that will be much more hardy and will eventually out-breed natural species. think long term - there is no possible way of containing or controlling genetically engineered species once they are released. right now, in the US, it is impossible to purchase uncontaminated soybean..
there are other very grave concerns over the control of food production, and biotech corporations bullying farmers, manipulating science, dictating government policy, etc.

the upset over transgenic foods is not a scare campaign against "evil" science, it's a protest against outside entities dictating what we eat, and taking away our right to be healthy.

http://www.intpforum.com/showthread.php?t=4268

 

[Architectonic]

what i don't get is why so many people are freaking out about GM foods, but no one freaked out about margarine.

Or the whole food additive industry in general.

the production and manufacture of margarine does not result in the pollution of the gene pool with engineered species of plants, that will be much more hardy and will eventually out-breed natural species.

Don't we have that already with introduced species? Monoculture is not environmentally friendly. Introducing new plant species has much greater risk with regards to genetic pollution than GM crop vs non GM crop. This is because the magnitude of new/novel genes is much higher. Our existing agriculture already uses species which are much more hardy than natural species.

Don't get me wrong, existing recombinant technology is extremely crude (often a matter of trial and error where the gene is actually introduced and therefore its resulting expression - if the recombination can be controlled, then much more genetic diversity can be maintained as well has having greater certainty about its expression). Nor is it risk free.

A lot of my complaints are not with GM per se, but how agribusiness is practised in the first place. (as well as the idea that you can patent genes/GM organisms)

 

[merzbau]

Don't we have that already with introduced species? Monoculture is not environmentally friendly. Introducing new plant species has much greater risk with regards to genetic pollution than GM crop vs non GM crop. This is because the magnitude of new/novel genes is much higher. Our existing agriculture already uses species which are much more hardy than natural species.

well yes, but introduced species are at a disadvantage to natives, because they're not used to the environment in which they're placed. and they are not - like transgenics - engineered to resist pests, herbicides and extreme weather conditions. which gives transgenics considerable advantage over competing natural species. and let's not forget those existing species were created by hybridisation and selection -- not manipulation at a genetic level, outside what the plant could do naturally.

my point is that possible concerns over the safety of GE mean we're being short sighted by hastily unleashing these organisms into the food chain, when a huge question mark hangs over the whole practice.
regardless, this is an issue that effects the public food supply, so the public should be allowed to decide; and, when surveyed, the public overall is against it. nevertheless, this is being forced upon us, and legitmate concerns are casually dismissed as uninformed "scare mongering."

A lot of my complaints are not with GM per se, but how agribusiness is practised in the first place. (as well as the idea that you can patent genes/GM organisms)

mine too. the science and business of transgenics do intertwine. the terminator gene, for example, was designed to combat of traditional practice of seed saving, but also subverts the plant's life cycle.

 

[Architectonic]

well yes, but introduced species are at a disadvantage to natives, because they're not used to the environment in which they're placed. and they are not - like transgenics - engineered to resist pests, herbicides and extreme weather conditions.

Yes they usually are. Its called selective breeding and it has been done for thousands of years, but more heavily in the last 200. Often specifically for adapting species to new regions. But just being in the presence of human civilisation applies various selective forces on other species. (see co-evolution of certain types of birds, rats etc)

The public in most reasonable countries can decide - with proper food labelling laws.

By the way, I can post similar scaremongering info on the monoculture we already consume.

http://www.greenmedinfo.com/content...-box-critical-role-wheat-lectin-human-disease
http://www.greenmedinfo.com/page/da...ves-celiac-disease-wheat-intolerance-sayer-ji

I can also mix it with anecdotal experience - I happen to have a sensitivity to wheat (I get a clear an unambiguous skin reaction), which is not caused by a typical celiac or typical allergy response. (I have seen an immunologist about this)

 

[merzbau]

Yes they usually are. Its called selective breeding and it has been done for thousands of years, but more heavily in the last 200.

as i mentioned, selective breeding and genetic engineering are not the same thing. the former relies on the slow, natural reproductive cycle of the plant, the latter (and i am aware there are different applications of the technology) inserts foreign genetic material directly into the plant's DNA.

i don't quite understand what your point is.. are you saying "what's the big deal, since we've polluted our native species by introducing new species?"
where i live, there's no such thing as native corn, there's no species for introduced corn to mix with, so i'm not that worried about losing the ability to eat native corn. i am worried, however that transgenic corn will end up supplanting other corn, so i won't have the ability to eat non-transgenic corn.

or are you saying "in for a penny, in for a pound"...? i guess i can't argue with that.

The public in most reasonable countries can decide - with proper food labelling laws.

if only that were the case, we might have a chance to avoid the stuff. but unfortunately:

1. whenever labelling has been brought up, corporations such as monsanto have vigorously opposed it, making it difficult/unlikely to ever be instituted.

2. if labelling laws do pass, tolerance levels will be lax enough to still allow food manufacturers to use GM polluted produce without labelling it as such.

3. cross-pollination between farms and seed stocks will eventually make it impossible to grow pure, GM-free crops, so you won't be able to obtain any produce marked "GM FREE" either... unless it's from overseas.


..sorry to hear about your problems with wheat. i think i might have a similar thing with MSG.

 

[Agent Intellect]

Just a small point of contention, but why is manipulating things at the genetic level worse than selective breeding? They're both essentially the same thing, but selective breeding is more randomized due to meiotic random alignment / independent assortment etc. Despite the appeal to nature, I don't think the two ways of genomic manipulation are that far removed from one another - particularly in their purposes.

 

[merzbau]

Just a small point of contention, but why is manipulating things at the genetic level worse than selective breeding? They're both essentially the same thing, but selective breeding is more randomized due to meiotic random alignment / independent assortment etc. Despite the appeal to nature, I don't think the two ways of genomic manipulation are that far removed from one another - particularly in their purposes.

cultigens resulting from breeding or grafting are created via normal genetic processes within the plant's cells. transgenic plants are created by splicing in foreign DNA, sometimes from different species, and coded for a specific purpose, which circumvents the plant's normal processes, and whatever barriers and failsafes nature may have developed.

here are some of the problems in the summary i provided in a previous post:

2.1 Foreign genes disrupt the DNA at the insertion site
2.2 Growing GM crops using tissue culture can create hundreds or thousands of DNA mutations
2.3 Gene insertion creates genome-wide changes in gene expression
2.4 The promoter may accidentally switch on harmful genes
2.5 The promoter might switch on a dormant virus in plants
2.6 The promoter might create genetic instability and mutations
2.7 Genetic engineering activates mobile DNA, called transposons, which generate mutations
2.8 Novel RNA may be harmful to humans and their offspring.
2.9 Roundup Ready soybeans produce unintentional RNA variations.
2.10 Changes in proteins can alter thousands of natural chemicals in plants, increasing toxins or reducing phytonutrients.
4.1 GM proteins may be misfolded or have added molecules.
4.2 Transgenes may be altered during insertion.
4.3 Transgenes may be unstable, and rearrange over time.
4.4 Transgenes may create more than one protein.
4.5 Weather, environmental stress and genetic disposition can significantly change gene expression.
4.6 Genetic engineering can disrupt the complex relationships governing gene expression.

nb. i know the information provided at the links above is brief (and not referenced!). it's been a long day.

 

[Jordan~]

How feasible is a bottom-up approach to genetic engineering; that is, creating a new organism from scratch?

 

[vash22]

How feasible is a bottom-up approach to genetic engineering; that is, creating a new organism from scratch?

from scratch? as in we only have protons, neutrons, and electrons to work with? or do we start from basic elements? or do we start with individual nucleotides? or do we start with small segments of DNA from a bunch of different plants and animals?

the advance of science is a hard thing to guess accurately. i would say maybe 40-50 years. Though that is more of a shot in the dark than i would like.

 

[Architectonic]

here are some of the problems in the summary i provided in a previous post:

What do you think engineers actually do? Those are all specific things that are indeed tested by engineers before the result is deemed usable.

They also vary on the actual recombinant technology used. More recent technology allows for much more precise control over where the genes are added, thus no promoter may be necessary, minimal changes on existing gene expression. I personally agree that the older techniques used by Monsanto etc are pretty crude and require more testing.
Since you are only adding one gene, it is not as hard to do a controlled test. If you are adding thousands of genes, eg using hybridisation then this is not so easily testable. Or if you are relying on mutations or changing gene expression on a large scale (eg selective breeding), this is also not as easily testable.

My only objection is when this research is not published. Similar to tests used to determine safety by the FDA, these should be published.

I'm not saying that recombinant technology is safe. I am saying the safety is context dependent and the deemed safety is as a result of how well it is tested vs the magnitude of change. The fact is that existing agricultural products were not tested for safety to the same required magnitude (given the degree of genetic change) when hybridisation and selective breeding occurred. Yet you eat wheat, peppermint etc without a second thought!

By the way, recombination does occur in nature. Most of the time it doesn't make much difference. But very rarely it does occur in such a way that the result has an evolutionary benefit.

With regards to reactions to the new RNA or protein added - whenever you eat a food, you are exposed to this. Cooking helps, but the fact is that you are more likely to have a reaction to a new food (say a new fruit or vegetable) than you are to the newly added gene. The reason is because you are exposed to many orders of magnitude more unique proteins and RNA when eating such.

I'm saying you need to put it all into context, rather than mis-weight the risk factors.

With regards to food labelling laws - do something about it. Such laws exist in other countries (including my own). The loopholes are refined foods (where results of the transgene are not detected in the refined product). Likewise, in some regions (less common in Australia), livestock are fed mostly with feed from GM crops. But that probably isn't the only thing you should worry about..

 

[merzbau]

Those are all specific things that are indeed tested by engineers before the result is deemed usable.

They also vary on the actual recombinant technology used. More recent technology allows for much more precise control over where the genes are added, thus no promoter may be necessary, minimal changes on existing gene expression. I personally agree that the older techniques used by Monsanto etc are pretty crude and require more testing.

more precision is not a cure for bad methodology. the theory behind GE assumes that DNA is composed of discrete genes, working independently which, added together, produce a plant or an animal, but what if they're wrong? when engineers fire a gene into the DNA, how do they know which genes are important, and which are dangerous to disrupt? what if genes aren't isolated building blocks but are subtly connected, and interact in complex ways we don't yet understand? what if the whole sequence is important? disrupting one portion may have unforeseen consequences that we have no idea how to even test for.

when the number of human genes was identified, scientists predicted that, as each gene creates a single protein, and the number of proteins in the body was around 100,000, there would be around 100,000 genes. in actual fact, there were only about 30,000 genes. now the consensus is that most genes do not code for a specific protein, and some create thousands of different proteins by themselves. i'm sure genetic engineers are very good at what they do, but it's too soon for this fledgling science to be marketed.

I'm saying you need to put it all into context, rather than mis-weight the risk factors.

if by "mis-weight" you mean "call attention to" then yes, guilty as charged.

genetic engineering may have positive applications; it shows great promise as a theraputic technique. but then the risks involved only apply to those individuals who choose to be treated. after reviewing the dangers involved, and the profit-driven industries overseeing the testing, i've made the decision that i don't want it in my food, thanks.

With regards to food labelling laws - do something about it.

that's very presumptuous of you, considering you know next to nothing about me, or what i may or may not have done.

 

[vash22]

Food labeling law? Ok, here Is why that is redundant. At the begining of the GM foods "thing" when people were starting to get concerned about them, many people petitioned Gerber to exclude GM foods from their product. A logical request. If the GM foods did do something bad to those who consume it, babies would be much more susceptable. So Gerber said ok, and tried to make sure all of their ingredience were not GM in any way. No matter how hard they tried, there was still traces of GM foods in their product. You see, in between the farm and the buyer, at the collection & distribution centers, everything sort of gets mixed together. Everything has some GM foods in it. So labeling everything with a warning kind of defeats the purpose of labeling anything in the first place. Unless the purpose was to inform the public of the extent of GM foods in our society, and probably cause an uproar or something.
I wish I could remember what book it was that I read, but it was ridiculous in the fact that all 450 pages of the book just dealt with corn & everything about the modern businesses linked to it. Strangely fascinating.

 

[Architectonic]

the theory behind GE assumes that DNA is composed of discrete genes, working independently which, added together, produce a plant or an animal, but what if they're wrong?

Well you would be mistaken if you suggest that they believe such a simplistic picture.

that's very presumptuous of you, considering you know next to nothing about me, or what i may or may not have done.

That comment was not specific to you. But now that you mention it, maybe you would like to share?

vash22 - can you provide some scientific (published in peer reviewed journals) re contamination of non GM foods with GM proteins. I'm interested to see what the actual limits of testing are.

If you are worried about contamination, then in addition to food products (may contain traces of nuts or gluten ), I'd also be worried about most pharmaceutical products including vaccinations (especially with the recent viral contamination scare. Not unsurprising actually given that almost all animal cell culture used to produce pharmaceutical products are necessarily infected by viruses to produce the mutations necessary for the cells to be cultured in the first place). The worry would be that quality control slip can (and evidently do) occur.

 

[menaceh2k]

OK OK. Lets stick to the topic at hand guys. You are all being very insightful and have expanded greatly on my original idea, lets not turn this into another typical forum kumate.

truce?

 

[Architectonic]

What is a kumate?

 

[menaceh2k]

Kumite means sparing.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kumite

I know I know i spelled it wrong.