GMOs Are Safe?

History Continued...

References

Diehl, Paul. “Learn About Genetically Modified Food and How We Got Here.” The Balance, 4 Dec. 2015, www.thebalance.com/genetically-modified-food-how-did-we-get-here-375719.

The first man to begin searching for an answer to this question was a UK scientist Arpad Pusztai, who’s concern stemmed from the product Flavr Savr Tomatoes, the first recorded GMO, Genetically Modified Organism, product.

He spoke about the genetically modified product on a popular TV Broadcast show in the UK in the year 1998, shutting down the processing of this product in 1999.

Lallanilla, Marc. “GMOs: Facts About Genetically Modified Food.” LiveScience, Purch, 11 Jan. 2016, www.livescience.com/40895-gmo-facts.html.

Mark Lynas. “GMO Safety Debate Is Over.” Alliance for Science, Mark Lynas, 3 Aug. 2017, allianceforscience.cornell.edu/blog/2016/05/gmo-safety-debate-is-over/.

Lynas, Mark. “How I Got Converted to G.M.O. Food.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 24 Apr. 2015, www.nytimes.com/2015/04/25/opinion/sunday/how-i-got-converted-to-gmo-food.html.

“Science Sent: GMOs Are Safe to Eat.” FoodInsight.org, 8 Mar. 2016, www.foodinsight.org/national-academy-sciences-gmo-crops-safe-eat.

Bartolotto, Carole. “Genetically-Modified Organisms (GMOs) Have NOT Been Proven Safe.” The Huffington Post, TheHuffingtonPost.com, 23 Sept. 2014, www.huffingtonpost.com/carole-bartolotto/have-genetically-modified_b_5597751.html.

“Why GMOs Can Never Be Safe | GMO Dangers.” Mercola.com, 12 May 2016, articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2013/08/06/genetic-modification.aspx.

Latham, Jonathan R. “GMO Dangers: Facts You Need to Know.” Center for Nutrition Studies, 14 Mar. 2018, nutritionstudies.org/gmo-dangers-facts-you-need-to-know/.

Controversy Statement

History

The subject as to whether or not GMO products are dangerous or not has already been concluded as yes; they are a safety hazard due to the ingredients in specific foods, they increase the chances of long term health effects, and a concern as to what chemicals the GMOs are being treated with, however; there are people who would completely disagree with the argument of GMOs being dangerous due to “Many proponents of genetically-modified foods state that they are completely safe to eat and that this process has taken place in nature for thousands of years”, (Diehl, 6) disregarding the research that has been done to prove this statement and convincing a large population of people that GMOs are safe.

GMOs Are Safe?

In the year of 1970, the question that has had people arguing for decades was asked, “What is in my food?” The question came in different forms consisting of “What am I eating?” and “What is the makeup of this product?” No matter how the question was asked, everyone wanted to know the same thing; what was in their food that was making it so good… or bad.

GMOS Are Not Safe

GMOs Are Safe

“The mode of action of Bt proteins is not understood (Vachon et al 2012); yet, it is axiomatic in science, that effective risk assessment requires a clear understanding of the mechanism of action of any GMO transgene so that appropriate experiments can be devised to affirm or refute safety.” Although Latham comes to the table with all the information he needs, he doesn’t stop there. He reminds us briefly as to why we should be the most concerned when he declares, “A yet further reason to be concerned about GMOs is that most of them contain a viral sequence called the cauliflower mosaic virus (CaMV) promoter (or they contain the similar figwort mosaic virus (FMV) promoter).”

Position

Justification

Within an article written by Mark Lynas he states“No patterns of changing cancer incidence over time are “generally similar” between the US, where GMO foods are ubiquitous”, “There is no published evidence to support the hypothesis” of a link between them and GE foods and diabetes”, and “US rates of kidney disease have barely budged over a quarter century.” To conclude, Lynas represents himself as the man who ended the argument and answered the question “Are GMOs safe?” by providing evidence and prospective research in order to explain and convert the public to eating GMO products.

After researching and gathering information about this topic for such a long period of time, I’m sure anyone can understand as to why my stance would be that GMOs are not safe. All of the authors responsible for the articles that I read make valid points as to why genetically modified foods do not belong in our diet and had information within their articles that was comprehensible to someone who did not understand GMOs at first at all and in addition this, I felt as though most of the articles that I read about GMOs being safe were written by people who thought they were safe to consume because of the fact that “no one has gotten hurt yet”.

With this, I stand on the side of the non- GMO eaters due to the fact that we were told that we were once told that pesticide would eventually decrease, it increased; supporting this Andrea Donsky wrote in Nature Savvy, “While manufacturers have claimed the pesticide use would decrease over time, it's only increased,” (Donsky, 3). Genetically modified organisms are dangerous to people no matter how you look at it, therefore, the smartest choice for anyone to make is to discuss the different health effects the food you’re eating may have due to pesticides and see if there is anyway you could consume products that may be similar but better for you in the long run.