Thursday 19 January 2012

Human Health Risks of GM Food

GM Food is risky. Scientists even admit that they are not 100% certain about the unknown effects on human health. There are many ways that GM Food can effect a person.

Allergenicity
Many children all over the world have developed allergies (some which are life-threating) to foods such as nuts, peanuts and other types of foods. There is a possibility that putting new genes into a crop could create a new allergen or cause allergic reactions to certain people. A proposal to introduce a gene from Brazil nuts into soybeans was discarded because people were afraid that it might cause new allergic reactions. Scientists will have to test these GM Food's even more before they put them on the market.

Unknown Effects on Our Health
People are concerned that putting new genes into foods and plants will have negative and/or unexpected problems to certain individuals. An article in Lancet tested the effects of GM'd potatoes on rats. They found out that there were big differences in the intestines of rats that were fed the GM potatoes and the rats that were fed regular potatoes. Some people (critics) say that this research is flawed. As well, the gene that was introduced into the potatoes was a "snowdrop flower lectine". This substance is toxic to mammals. What I don't understand is why scientists would create something that is toxic to humans, when we are supposed to eat this stuff... The idea of GM Food is for humans to eat. Anyway, the scientists who made this variety of potatoes chose to use the toxic lectin because they wanted to test the methodology, and that these potatoes were not meant to be consumed by animals or humans.


4 comments:

  1. Do you know why scientists wanted to introduce a gene from the Brazil nut into soybeans? As someone who eats soy products, I'm curious. The allergen possibility is one I've never considered.

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  2. I've been researching, and an article states (that you can see HERE http://bit.ly/xz6jiq) that putting this Brazilian Nut gene into soybeans will increase the nutritional value of the beans. They extract a gene called methionine ,which soybeans do not contain much of, and insert it into the soybean. They aren't sure if it's safe or not though because children around the world are allergic to these types of nuts...

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  3. I didn't know that, thanks! I had to do a quick search of methionine. It seems to be in a lot of different foods, so I find it silly that scientists proposed GM'ing a food that could possibly trigger reactions in children who are allergic to brazil nuts.

    Unless there's a significant population of people in the world where nut allergies are infrequent, who have access to soybeans but not fish, meats, poultry, eggs, oats...

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    1. True, but they still have to take it in consideration for all the 1%, more or less, of the population that is allergic to the nuts. I think that they should find something that is better than a nut, something that people aren't allergic too. There is an article (see here: http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn19473) about scientists that invented a GM potato that can give 60% more protein per gram then ordinary potatoes for countries without enough protein-enriched foods. And it is less likely to give off an allergic reaction because they insert a gene from a food that everyone eats, called grain amaranth.

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