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Introduction of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs)

Introduction of genetically modified organisms (gmos) presentation, free google slides theme and powerpoint template.

Revolutionary, valuable addition to our food or harmful health risk? Genetically modified organisms (or GMOs for short) are still an unknown quantity for many people. There’s little factual information and lots of conspiracy theories around modified crops and animals, making people cautious to say the least. This Google Slides and PowerPoint template is your chance to compile information, speak about the science, advantages and risks of genetic modification, and give your audience a foundation for building their own opinion. Download and edit this slide deck full of subject-related illustrations and clear visual representations of data!

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The future of eating: how genetically modified food will withstand climate change

Climate change is transforming how we feed ourselves. Floods, droughts and new diseases can have a big impact on the crops we rely on for food, including staples such as wheat, maize and rice. 

Future farmers face a big challenge: feeding everyone on Earth while being kind to the planet. Could genetically modified food be the answer?

Discover which foods can be genetically modified, how they can be improved, and whether people should worry about eating them.

What is genetically modified food?

Genetically modified crops are plants which have had their DNA changed by scientists to create desired traits, often by adding just one gene from a close wild relative.

For example, GM crops can be engineered to require less water to grow or to resist diseases or pests. More ambitious projects are underway to engineer crops that make their own fertiliser. This type of technology could be key in making some of our most important food crops more resilient in the face of climate change , and it could decrease the chemicals and energy needed to grow them.

Wheat is the most commonly grown crop across the world by acreage. Image: ESB Professional/ Shutterstock.com .

Wheat is the most commonly grown crop across the world by acreage. It is often used to make bread, pasta and noodles, and also feeds livestock.

Helping to find ways to meet this demand is Prof Matt Clark, a Museum research leader who is studying wheat DNA.

It took over 600 scientists working together to finally sequence the wheat genome in 2018 . This was once thought to difficult to do, as the wheat genome is five times bigger than the human one. By understanding and changing wheat genomes, scientists like Matt will help to protect the crop for future generations. Breeders will be able to select traits which will improve wheat harvests and help to secure food stores for billions of people around the world.

Wheat can be bred to withstand severe weather and disease, both of which could become more common as the world warms.

Wheat strains are also being adapted to produce flour with increased iron levels. The ongoing trial, which is being carried out at the John Innes Centre in Norwich, has shown that the new grain contained double the amount of iron compared to a normal grain. This could help to reduce levels of iron deficiency-related anaemia globally. Anaemia is especially common in girls and young women. 

Maize, sometimes referred to as corn in the US and Canada, has seen demand surge globally because it is used to feed animals and to create new fuels.  Image: naramit/ Shutterstock.com .

Maize, sometimes referred to as corn in the US and Canada, has seen demand surge globally because it is used to feed animals and to create new fuels.

In 2019, researchers in Delaware, USA, successfully increased corn yields by 10% by changing the gene that controls its growth. This modification has proved successful even in poor conditions: plants were given bigger leaves to improve how they turn sunlight into sugar and boost how efficient they are at using nitrogen in the soil.

Genetic modification can have unexpected positive effects, too. Corn which has been engineered to require fewer pesticides may also be safer for humans and animals to eat. That's because corn damaged by insects contains fumonisins - toxins generated by fungi introduced to the corn by insects - which are thought to cause cancer. There is a link between people who eat lots of corn, such as populations in South Africa, China and Italy, and higher rates of oesophageal cancer.

Rice is the main food source for three billion people. Image: Chaded Panichsri/ Shutterstock.com .

Around 20% of calories consumed across the world come from rice, and it is the main food source for three billion people. Yet the places where rice is most often grown, including areas of India, Bangladesh and China, are constantly at risk of flooding. Rising sea levels and increasingly intense tropical storms mean that this problem is only going to worsen.

One solution to this is scuba rice, which can withstand being soaked in flood water and has been successfully grown in southeast Asia.

Genetic modification can also make rice kinder to nature. Rice paddy fields are a big source of the greenhouse gas methane, but the creation of the SUSIBA2 variety is helping. This rice contains a gene from the barley plant, which can help to reduce methane emissions. A three-year trial showed that this method increased yield by 10% while reducing methane emissions.

The aim of the C4 Rice Project, led by a team from 12 universities across eight countries, is to engineer C4 photosynthesis, meaning to convert the energy from sunlight into rice. C4 photosynthesis is up to 50% more water-efficient than other types of rice and naturally occurs in drought-tolerant or very fast-growing plant species such as bamboo.

The University of Sheffield is one of several institutions working on growing rice with fewer stomata, the tiny openings used for gas exchange. This will result in less water being lost and better performance in exceptionally hot or wet conditions. Results so far show that lower stomatal density means that 60% less water is used. When 4,000 litres of water are needed to grow a kilogram of rice, and rice uses 70% of the agricultural water supply in China, this could be a significant saving.

Dr Haiyan Xiong, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Cambridge, is working on a similar strategy. Her PhD and postdoctoral work in China focussed on introducing the drought-resistant gene found in upland rice (which grows in dry and hilly conditions) into lowland rice. Lowland rice tends to be better quality but less hardy, so aims to merge the desirable traits of both crops.

So far, Xiong's team has identified three genes which could help make rice more resistant to drought. Her current work at the University of Cambridge is aimed at changing rice plants so they are better at converting the energy from sunlight into food. 

Xiong's upbringing in rural Sichuan drew her to a career researching rice. She witnessed drought conditions first-hand, which led to a dream of 'becoming a scientist who can contribute to improving rice resistance to drought stress'. She says, 'Rice is not only one of the most important food crops in the world - it is also a model plant for studying other cereal crops.'

Around 45% of this soya is crushed to produce oil and meals which are then exported globally. Image: nnattalli/ Shutterstock .com

Soya beans are the Americas' most exported crop, making up 82% of its agricultural exports. Around 45% of this soya is crushed to produce oil and meals which are then exported globally. Among these crops are genetically modified soybeans, which have been spliced with the pigeonpea gene to increase resistance to Asian soybean rust (ASR). ASR is caused by a fungus and is one of the most common crop diseases, only treatable by introducing the fungi-resistant trait of other legumes to increase resistance and improve crop yields. 

There is no sure-fire way to make agriculture more sustainable, but GM crops are helping farmers to adapt to the issues presented by climate change. Image: Varga Jozsef Zoltan/ Shutterstock.com.

What are the issues surrounding GM crops? 

Some people are wary of GM crops, often due to concerns about the cost of seeds, issues surrounding herbicide resistance and worries about allergens and safety. There are also fears that crossing species could inadvertently introduce allergens such as nuts into the food chain. This fear appears unfounded, as to date no adverse reactions have been found in any approved GM products.

Others worry that modified plants could pollinate wild varieties and cause hybrids to pop up. For this to happen, the GM trait would need to be able to survive in the wild, which is not always the case, and GM crops can be designed to be sterile.

In fact, research has shown that there is nothing that differentiates GM crops from naturally occurring ones in terms of health or safety. GM crops can be a force for good by offering an alternative to spraying pesticides that pollute groundwater and can kill surrounding crops.

Globally, GM crop uptake is divided. In some regions, billions of people have eaten GM crops for decades, whereas the European Union is generally resistant to the use of GM foods, though it does import GM animal feed. Many European countries including France, Germany and Croatia have completely banned GM foods. Others such as Spain, the Czech Republic and Portugal grow GM crops.

The USA is one of the widest growers and adopters of GM foods with 60% of processed foods containing ingredients from engineered soy, corn or canola.

Looking to the future

What does the future of genetically modified crops hold? The Alliance for Science at Cornell University in the USA is currently working on corn which can resist insects and drought for use in Africa. If farmers plant corn which could do this organically, they could save money on fertiliser and pesticides. Funded by charities including the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, it should be available to farmers by 2023.

New gene editing tools such as CRISPR can be used to precision-edit genetic material, even to the level of changing a single base of DNA. This has the potential for enormous worldwide benefits. For this reason the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to the discoverers of CRISPR: Profs Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer Doudna.

There is no magic fix to climate change and no sure-fire way to make agriculture more sustainable, but GM crops are helping farmers to adapt to the issues presented by climate change. These crops can result in better yields and survive droughts and floods, helping to make sure there is enough food available for an increasing global population while also reducing the carbon footprint of agriculture. 

• Sustainability
• Our Broken Planet
• Biodiversity
• Climate change

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September 1, 2013

13 min read

The Truth about Genetically Modified Food

Proponents of genetically modified crops say the technology is the only way to feed a warming, increasingly populous world. Critics say we tamper with nature at our peril. Who is right?

By David H. Freedman

Robert Goldberg sags into his desk chair and gestures at the air. “Frankenstein monsters, things crawling out of the lab,” he says. “This the most depressing thing I've ever dealt with.”

Goldberg, a plant molecular biologist at the University of California, Los Angeles, is not battling psychosis. He is expressing despair at the relentless need to confront what he sees as bogus fears over the health risks of genetically modified (GM) crops. Particularly frustrating to him, he says, is that this debate should have ended decades ago, when researchers produced a stream of exonerating evidence: “Today we're facing the same objections we faced 40 years ago.”

Across campus, David Williams, a cellular biologist who specializes in vision, has the opposite complaint. “A lot of naive science has been involved in pushing this technology,” he says. “Thirty years ago we didn't know that when you throw any gene into a different genome, the genome reacts to it. But now anyone in this field knows the genome is not a static environment. Inserted genes can be transformed by several different means, and it can happen generations later.” The result, he insists, could very well be potentially toxic plants slipping through testing.

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Williams concedes that he is among a tiny minority of biologists raising sharp questions about the safety of GM crops. But he says this is only because the field of plant molecular biology is protecting its interests. Funding, much of it from the companies that sell GM seeds, heavily favors researchers who are exploring ways to further the use of genetic modification in agriculture. He says that biologists who point out health or other risks associated with GM crops—who merely report or defend experimental findings that imply there may be risks—find themselves the focus of vicious attacks on their credibility, which leads scientists who see problems with GM foods to keep quiet.

Whether Williams is right or wrong, one thing is undeniable: despite overwhelming evidence that GM crops are safe to eat, the debate over their use continues to rage, and in some parts of the world, it is growing ever louder. Skeptics would argue that this contentiousness is a good thing—that we cannot be too cautious when tinkering with the genetic basis of the world's food supply. To researchers such as Goldberg, however, the persistence of fears about GM foods is nothing short of exasperating. “In spite of hundreds of millions of genetic experiments involving every type of organism on earth,” he says, “and people eating billions of meals without a problem, we've gone back to being ignorant.”

So who is right: advocates of GM or critics? When we look carefully at the evidence for both sides and weigh the risks and benefits, we find a surprisingly clear path out of this dilemma.

Benefits and worries

The bulk of the science on GM safety points in one direction. Take it from David Zilberman, a U.C. Berkeley agricultural and environmental economist and one of the few researchers considered credible by both agricultural chemical companies and their critics. He argues that the benefits of GM crops greatly outweigh the health risks, which so far remain theoretical. The use of GM crops “has lowered the price of food,” Zilberman says. “It has increased farmer safety by allowing them to use less pesticide. It has raised the output of corn, cotton and soy by 20 to 30 percent, allowing some people to survive who would not have without it. If it were more widely adopted around the world, the price [of food] would go lower, and fewer people would die of hunger.”

In the future, Zilberman says, those advantages will become all the more significant. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that the world will have to grow 70 percent more food by 2050 just to keep up with population growth. Climate change will make much of the world's arable land more difficult to farm. GM crops, Zilberman says, could produce higher yields, grow in dry and salty land, withstand high and low temperatures, and tolerate insects, disease and herbicides.

Credit: Jen Christiansen

Despite such promise, much of the world has been busy banning, restricting and otherwise shunning GM foods. Nearly all the corn and soybeans grown in the U.S. are genetically modified, but only two GM crops, Monsanto's MON810 maize and BASF's Amflora potato, are accepted in the European Union. Ten E.U. nations have banned MON810, and although BASF withdrew Amflora from the market in 2012, four E.U. nations have taken the trouble to ban that, too. Approval of a few new GM corn strains has been proposed there, but so far it has been repeatedly and soundly voted down. Throughout Asia, including in India and China, governments have yet to approve most GM crops, including an insect-resistant rice that produces higher yields with less pesticide. In Africa, where millions go hungry, several nations have refused to import GM foods in spite of their lower costs (the result of higher yields and a reduced need for water and pesticides). Kenya has banned them altogether amid widespread malnutrition. No country has definite plans to grow Golden Rice, a crop engineered to deliver more vitamin A than spinach (rice normally has no vitamin A), even though vitamin A deficiency causes more than one million deaths annually and half a million cases of irreversible blindness in the developing world.

Globally, only a tenth of the world's cropland includes GM plants. Four countries—the U.S., Canada, Brazil and Argentina—grow 90 percent of the planet's GM crops. Other Latin American countries are pushing away from the plants. And even in the U.S., voices decrying genetically modified foods are becoming louder. In 2016 the U.S. federal government passed a law requiring labeling of GM ingredients in food products, replacing GM-labeling laws in force or proposed in several dozen states.

The fear fueling all this activity has a long history. The public has been worried about the safety of GM foods since scientists at the University of Washington developed the first genetically modified tobacco plants in the 1970s. In the mid-1990s, when the first GM crops reached the market, Greenpeace, the Sierra Club, Ralph Nader, Prince Charles and a number of celebrity chefs took highly visible stands against them. Consumers in Europe became particularly alarmed: a survey conducted in 1997, for example, found that 69 percent of the Austrian public saw serious risks in GM foods, compared with only 14 percent of Americans.

In Europe, skepticism about GM foods has long been bundled with other concerns, such as a resentment of American agribusiness. Whatever it is based on, however, the European attitude reverberates across the world, influencing policy in countries where GM crops could have tremendous benefits. “In Africa, they don't care what us savages in America are doing,” Zilberman says. “They look to Europe and see countries there rejecting GM, so they don't use it.” Forces fighting genetic modification in Europe have rallied support for “the precautionary principle,” which holds that given the kind of catastrophe that would emerge from loosing a toxic, invasive GM crop on the world, GM efforts should be shut down until the technology is proved absolutely safe.

But as medical researchers know, nothing can really be “proved safe.” One can only fail to turn up significant risk after trying hard to find it—as is the case with GM crops.

A clean record

The human race has been selectively breeding crops, thus altering plants' genomes, for millennia. Ordinary wheat has long been strictly a human-engineered plant; it could not exist outside of farms, because its seeds do not scatter. For some 60 years scientists have been using “mutagenic” techniques to scramble the DNA of plants with radiation and chemicals, creating strains of wheat, rice, peanuts and pears that have become agricultural mainstays. The practice has inspired little objection from scientists or the public and has caused no known health problems.

The difference is that selective breeding or mutagenic techniques tend to result in large swaths of genes being swapped or altered. GM technology, in contrast, enables scientists to insert into a plant's genome a single gene (or a few of them) from another species of plant or even from a bacterium, virus or animal. Supporters argue that this precision makes the technology much less likely to produce surprises. Most plant molecular biologists also say that in the highly unlikely case that an unexpected health threat emerged from a new GM plant, scientists would quickly identify and eliminate it. “We know where the gene goes and can measure the activity of every single gene around it,” Goldberg says. “We can show exactly which changes occur and which don't.”

And although it might seem creepy to add virus DNA to a plant, doing so is, in fact, no big deal, proponents say. Viruses have been inserting their DNA into the genomes of crops, as well as humans and all other organisms, for millions of years. They often deliver the genes of other species while they are at it, which is why our own genome is loaded with genetic sequences that originated in viruses and nonhuman species. “When GM critics say that genes don't cross the species barrier in nature, that's just simple ignorance,” says Alan McHughen, a plant molecular geneticist at U.C. Riverside. Pea aphids contain fungi genes. Triticale is a century-plus-old hybrid of wheat and rye found in some flours and breakfast cereals. Wheat itself, for that matter, is a cross-species hybrid. “Mother Nature does it all the time, and so do conventional plant breeders,” McHughen says.

Could eating plants with altered genes allow new DNA to work its way into our own? It is possible but hugely improbable. Scientists have never found genetic material that could survive a trip through the human gut and make it into cells. Besides, we are routinely exposed to—and even consume—the viruses and bacteria whose genes end up in GM foods. The bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis , for example, which produces proteins fatal to insects, is sometimes enlisted as a natural pesticide in organic farming. “We've been eating this stuff for thousands of years,” Goldberg says.

In any case, proponents say, people have consumed as many as trillions of meals containing genetically modified ingredients over the past few decades. Not a single verified case of illness has ever been attributed to the genetic alterations. Mark Lynas, a prominent anti-GM activist who in 2013 publicly switched to strongly supporting the technology, has pointed out that every single news-making food disaster on record has been attributed to non-GM crops, such as the Escherichia coli –infected organic bean sprouts that killed 53 people in Europe in 2011.

Critics often disparage U.S. research on the safety of genetically modified foods, which is often funded or even conducted by GM companies, such as Monsanto. But much research on the subject comes from the European Commission, the administrative body of the E.U., which cannot be so easily dismissed as an industry tool. The European Commission has funded 130 research projects, carried out by more than 500 independent teams, on the safety of GM crops. None of those studies found any special risks from GM crops.

Plenty of other credible groups have arrived at the same conclusion. Gregory Jaffe, director of biotechnology at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a science-based consumer-watchdog group in Washington, D.C., takes pains to note that the center has no official stance, pro or con, with regard to genetically modifying food plants. Yet Jaffe insists the scientific record is clear. “Current GM crops are safe to eat and can be grown safely in the environment,” he says. The American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Medical Association and the National Academy of Sciences have all unreservedly backed GM crops. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration, along with its counterparts in several other countries, has repeatedly reviewed large bodies of research and concluded that GM crops pose no unique health threats. Dozens of review studies carried out by academic researchers have backed that view.

Opponents of genetically modified foods point to a handful of studies indicating possible safety problems. But reviewers have dismantled almost all of those reports. For example, a 1998 study by plant biochemist Árpád Pusztai, then at the Rowett Institute in Scotland, found that rats fed a GM potato suffered from stunted growth and immune system–related changes. But the potato was not intended for human consumption—it was, in fact, designed to be toxic for research purposes. The Rowett Institute later deemed the experiment so sloppy that it refuted the findings and charged Pusztai with misconduct.

Similar stories abound. Most recently, a team led by Gilles-Éric Séralini, a researcher at the University of Caen Lower Normandy in France, found that rats eating a common type of GM corn contracted cancer at an alarmingly high rate. But Séralini has long been an anti-GM campaigner, and critics charged that in his study, he relied on a strain of rat that too easily develops tumors, did not use enough rats, did not include proper control groups and failed to report many details of the experiment, including how the analysis was performed. After a review, the European Food Safety Authority dismissed the study's findings. Several other European agencies came to the same conclusion. “If GM corn were that toxic, someone would have noticed by now,” McHughen says. “Séralini has been refuted by everyone who has cared to comment.”

Some scientists say the objections to GM food stem from politics rather than science—that they are motivated by an objection to large multinational corporations having enormous influence over the food supply; invoking risks from genetic modification just provides a convenient way of whipping up the masses against industrial agriculture. “This has nothing to do with science,” Goldberg says. “It's about ideology.” Former anti-GM activist Lynas agrees. He has gone as far as labeling the anti-GM crowd “explicitly an antiscience movement.”

Persistent doubts

Not all objections to genetically modified foods are so easily dismissed, however. Long-term health effects can be subtle and nearly impossible to link to specific changes in the environment. Scientists have long believed that Alzheimer's disease and many cancers have environmental components, but few would argue we have identified all of them.

And opponents say that it is not true that the GM process is less likely to cause problems simply because fewer, more clearly identified genes are replaced. David Schubert, an Alzheimer's researcher who heads the Cellular Neurobiology Laboratory at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, Calif., asserts that a single, well-characterized gene can still settle in the target plant's genome in many different ways. “It can go in forward, backward, at different locations, in multiple copies, and they all do different things,” he says. And as U.C.L.A.'s Williams notes, a genome often continues to change in the successive generations after the insertion, leaving it with a different arrangement than the one intended and initially tested. There is also the phenomenon of “insertional mutagenesis,” Williams adds, in which the insertion of a gene ends up quieting the activity of nearby genes.

True, the number of genes affected in a GM plant most likely will be far, far smaller than in conventional breeding techniques. Yet opponents maintain that because the wholesale swapping or alteration of entire packages of genes is a natural process that has been happening in plants for half a billion years, it tends to produce few scary surprises today. Changing a single gene, on the other hand, might turn out to be a more subversive action, with unexpected ripple effects, including the production of new proteins that might be toxins or allergens.

Opponents also point out that the kinds of alterations caused by the insertion of genes from other species might be more impactful, more complex or more subtle than those caused by the intraspecies gene swapping of conventional breeding. And just because there is no evidence to date that genetic material from an altered crop can make it into the genome of people who eat it does not mean such a transfer will never happen—or that it has not already happened and we have yet to spot it. These changes might be difficult to catch; their impact on the production of proteins might not even turn up in testing. “You'd certainly find out if the result is that the plant doesn't grow very well,” Williams says. “But will you find the change if it results in the production of proteins with long-term effects on the health of the people eating it?”

It is also true that many pro-GM scientists in the field are unduly harsh—even unscientific—in their treatment of critics. GM proponents sometimes lump every scientist who raises safety questions together with activists and discredited researchers. And even Séralini, the scientist behind the study that found high cancer rates for GM-fed rats, has his defenders. Most of them are nonscientists, or retired researchers from obscure institutions, or nonbiologist scientists, but the Salk Institute's Schubert also insists the study was unfairly dismissed. He says that as someone who runs drug-safety studies, he is well versed on what constitutes a good-quality animal toxicology study and that Séralini's makes the grade. He insists that the breed of rat in the study is commonly used in respected drug studies, typically in numbers no greater than in Séralini's study; that the methodology was standard; and that the details of the data analysis are irrelevant because the results were so striking.

Schubert joins Williams as one of a handful of biologists from respected institutions who are willing to sharply challenge the GM-foods-are-safe majority. Both charge that more scientists would speak up against genetic modification if doing so did not invariably lead to being excoriated in journals and the media. These attacks, they argue, are motivated by the fear that airing doubts could lead to less funding for the field. Says Williams: “Whether it's conscious or not, it's in their interest to promote this field, and they're not objective.”

Both scientists say that after publishing comments in respected journals questioning the safety of GM foods, they became the victims of coordinated attacks on their reputations. Schubert even charges that researchers who turn up results that might raise safety questions avoid publishing their findings out of fear of repercussions. “If it doesn't come out the right way,” he says, “you're going to get trashed.”

There is evidence to support that charge. In 2009 Nature detailed the backlash to a reasonably solid study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA by researchers from Loyola University Chicago and the University of Notre Dame. The paper showed that GM corn seemed to be finding its way from farms into nearby streams and that it might pose a risk to some insects there because, according to the researchers' lab studies, caddis flies appeared to suffer on diets of pollen from GM corn. Many scientists immediately attacked the study, some of them suggesting the researchers were sloppy to the point of misconduct.

A way forward

There is a middle ground in this debate. Many moderate voices call for continuing the distribution of GM foods while maintaining or even stepping up safety testing on new GM crops. They advocate keeping a close eye on the health and environmental impact of existing ones. But they do not single out GM crops for special scrutiny, the Center for Science in the Public Interest's Jaffe notes: all crops could use more testing. “We should be doing a better job with food oversight altogether,” he says.

Even Schubert agrees. In spite of his concerns, he believes future GM crops can be introduced safely if testing is improved. “Ninety percent of the scientists I talk to assume that new GM plants are safety-tested the same way new drugs are by the FDA,” he says. “They absolutely aren't, and they absolutely should be.”

Stepped-up testing would pose a burden for GM researchers, and it could slow down the introduction of new crops. “Even under the current testing standards for GM crops, most conventionally bred crops wouldn't have made it to market,” McHughen says. “What's going to happen if we become even more strict?”

That is a fair question. But with governments and consumers increasingly coming down against GM crops altogether, additional testing may be the compromise that enables the human race to benefit from those crops' significant advantages.

David H. Freedman is a journalist who has been covering science, business and technology for more than 30 years.

Behold the future of the apple: If the gene inserted into this apple plantlet makes it resistant to the fire blight bacterium, it could help save apple growers tens of millions of dollars a year. Researchers are also working on an apple that could vaccinate children against a virus that is the leading cause of pneumonia.

Food: How Altered?

Here's what you need to know about the warming planet, how it's affecting us, and what's at stake.

Scientists continue to find new ways to insert genes for specific traits into plant and animal DNA. A field of promise—and a subject of debate—genetic engineering is changing the food we eat and the world we live in.

In the brave new world of genetic engineering, Dean DellaPenna envisions this cornucopia: tomatoes and broccoli bursting with cancer-fighting chemicals and vitamin-enhanced crops of rice, sweet potatoes, and cassava to help nourish the poor. He sees wheat, soy, and peanuts free of allergens; bananas that deliver vaccines; and vegetable oils so loaded with therapeutic ingredients that doctors "prescribe" them for patients at risk for cancer and heart disease. A plant biochemist at Michigan State University, DellaPenna believes that genetically engineered foods are the key to the next wave of advances in agriculture and health.

While DellaPenna and many others see great potential in the products of this new biotechnology, some see uncertainty, even danger. Critics fear that genetically engineered products are being rushed to market before their effects are fully understood. Anxiety has been fueled by reports of taco shells contaminated with genetically engineered corn not approved for human consumption; the potential spread of noxious "superweeds" spawned by genes picked up from engineered crops; and possible harmful effects of biotech corn pollen on monarch butterflies.

In North America and Europe the value and impact of genetically engineered food crops have become subjects of intense debate, provoking reactions from unbridled optimism to fervent political opposition.

Just what are genetically engineered foods, and who is eating them? What do we know about their benefits—and their risks? What effect might engineered plants have on the environment and on agricultural practices around the world? Can they help feed and preserve the health of the Earth's burgeoning population?

Q: Who's eating biotech foods? A: In all likelihood, you are.

Most people in the United States don't realize that they've been eating genetically engineered foods since the mid-1990s. More than 60 percent of all processed foods on U.S. supermarket shelves—including pizza, chips, cookies, ice cream, salad dressing, corn syrup, and baking powder—contain ingredients from engineered soybeans, corn, or canola.

For Hungry Minds

In the past decade or so, the biotech plants that go into these processed foods have leaped from hothouse oddities to crops planted on a massive scale—on 130 million acres (52.6 million hectares) in 13 countries, among them Argentina, Canada, China, South Africa, Australia, Germany, and Spain. On U.S. farmland, acreage planted with genetically engineered crops jumped nearly 25-fold from 3.6 million acres (1.5 million hectares) in 1996 to 88.2 million acres (35.7 million hectares) in 2001. More than 50 different "designer" crops have passed through a federal review process, and about a hundred more are undergoing field trials.

Q: How long have we been genetically altering our food? A: Longer than you think.

Genetic modification is not novel. Humans have been altering the genetic makeup of plants for millennia, keeping seeds from the best crops and planting them in following years, breeding and crossbreeding varieties to make them taste sweeter, grow bigger, last longer. In this way we've transformed the wild tomato, Lycopersicon , from a fruit the size of a marble to today's giant, juicy beefsteaks. From a weedy plant called teosinte with an "ear" barely an inch long has come our foot-long (0.3-meter-long) ears of sweet white and yellow corn. In just the past few decades plant breeders have used traditional techniques to produce varieties of wheat and rice plants with higher grain yields. They have also created hundreds of new crop variants using irradiation and mutagenic chemicals.

But the technique of genetic engineering is new, and quite different from conventional breeding. Traditional breeders cross related organisms whose genetic makeups are similar. In so doing, they transfer tens of thousands of genes. By contrast, today's genetic engineers can transfer just a few genes at a time between species that are distantly related or not related at all.

Genetic engineers can pull a desired gene from virtually any living organism and insert it into virtually any other organism. They can put a rat gene into lettuce to make a plant that produces vitamin C or splice genes from the cecropia moth into apple plants, offering protection from fire blight, a bacterial disease that damages apples and pears. The purpose is the same: to insert a gene or genes from a donor organism carrying a desired trait into an organism that does not have the trait.

The engineered organisms scientists produce by transferring genes between species are called transgenic. Several dozen transgenic food crops are currently on the market, among them varieties of corn, squash, canola, soybeans, and cotton, from which cottonseed oil is produced. Most of these crops are engineered to help farmers deal with age-old agriculture problems: weeds, insects, and disease.

Farmers spray herbicides to kill weeds. Biotech crops can carry special "tolerance" genes that help them withstand the spraying of chemicals that kill nearly every other kind of plant. Some biotech varieties make their own insecticide, thanks to a gene borrowed from a common soil bacterium, Bacillus thuringiensis , or Bt for short.

Bt genes code for toxins considered to be harmless to humans but lethal to certain insects, including the European corn borer, an insect that tunnels into cornstalks and ears, making it a bane of corn farmers. So effective is Bt that organic farmers have used it as a natural insecticide for decades, albeit sparingly. Corn borer caterpillars bite into the leaves, stems, or kernels of a Bt corn plant, the toxin attacks their digestive tracts, and they die within a few days.

Other food plants—squash and papaya, for instance—have been genetically engineered to resist diseases. Lately scientists have been experimenting with potatoes, modifying them with genes of bees and moths to protect the crops from potato blight fungus, and grapevines with silkworm genes to make the vines resistant to Pierce's disease, spread by insects.

With the new tools of genetic engineering, scientists have also created transgenic animals. Atlantic salmon grow more slowly during the winter, but engineered salmon, "souped-up" with modified growth-hormone genes from other fish, reach market size in about half the normal time. Scientists are also using biotechnology to insert genes into cows and sheep so that the animals will produce pharmaceuticals in their milk. None of these transgenic animals have yet entered the market.

Q: Are biotech foods safe for humans? A: Yes, as far as we know.

"Risks exist everywhere in our food supply," points out Dean DellaPenna. "About a hundred people die each year from peanut allergies. With genetically engineered foods we minimize risks by doing rigorous testing."

According to Eric Sachs, a spokesperson for Monsanto, a leading developer of biotech products: "Transgenic products go through more testing than any of the other foods we eat. We screen for potential toxins and allergens. We monitor the levels of nutrients, proteins, and other components to see that the transgenic plants are substantially equivalent to traditional plants."

Three federal agencies regulate genetically engineered crops and foods—the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The FDA reviews data on allergens, toxicity, and nutrient levels voluntarily submitted by companies. If that information shows that the new foods are not substantially equivalent to conventional ones, the foods must undergo further testing. Last year the agency proposed tightening its scrutiny of engineered foods, making the safety assessments mandatory rather than voluntary.

"When it comes to addressing concerns about health issues, industry is being held to very high standards" says DellaPenna, "and it's doing its best to meet them in reasonable and rigorous fashion."

In the mid-1990s a biotech company launched a project to insert a gene from the Brazil nut into a soybean. The Brazil nut gene selected makes a protein rich in one essential amino acid. The aim was to create a more nutritious soybean for use in animal feed. Because the Brazil nut is known to contain an allergen, the company also tested the product for human reaction, with the thought that the transgenic soybean might accidentally enter the human food supply. When tests showed that humans would react to the modified soybeans, the project was abandoned.

For some people this was good evidence that the system of testing genetically engineered foods works. But for some scientists and consumer groups, it raised the specter of allergens or other hazards that might slip through the safety net. Scientists know that some proteins, such as the one in the Brazil nut, can cause allergic reactions in humans, and they know how to test for these allergenic proteins. But the possibility exists that a novel protein with allergenic properties might turn up in an engineered food—just as it might in a new food produced by conventional means—and go undetected. Furthermore, critics say, the technique of moving genes across dramatically different species increases the likelihood of something going awry—either in the function of the inserted gene or in the function of the host DNA—raising the possibility of unanticipated health effects.

An allergy scare in 2000 centered around StarLink, a variety of genetically engineered corn approved by the U.S. government only for animal use because it showed some suspicious qualities, among them a tendency to break down slowly during digestion, a known characteristic of allergens. When StarLink found its way into taco shells, corn chips, and other foods, massive and costly recalls were launched to try to remove the corn from the food supply.

No cases of allergic response have been pinned to StarLink. In fact, according to Steve L. Taylor, chair of the Department of Food Science and Technology at the University of Nebraska, "None of the current biotech products have been implicated in allergic reactions or any other healthcare problem in people." Nevertheless, all new foods may present new risks. Only rigorous testing can minimize those risks.

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Often overlooked in the debate about the health effects of these foods is one possible health benefit: Under some conditions corn genetically engineered for insect resistance may enhance safety for human and animal consumption. Corn damaged by insects often contains high levels of fumonisins, toxins made by fungi that are carried on the backs of insects and that grow in the wounds of the damaged corn. Lab tests have linked fumonisins with cancer in animals, and they may be potentially cancer-causing to humans. Among people who consume a lot of corn—in certain parts of South Africa, China, and Italy, for instance—there are high rates of esophageal cancer, which scientists associate with fumonisins. Studies show that most Bt corn has lower levels of fumonisins than conventional corn damaged by insects.

Should genetically engineered foods be labeled? Surveys suggest that most Americans would say yes (although they wouldn't want to pay more for the labeling). Professor Marion Nestle, chair of the Department of Nutrition and Food Studies at New York University, favors labeling because she believes consumers want to know and have the right to choose. However, no engineered foods currently carry labels in the U.S. because the FDA has not found any of them to be substantially different from their conventional counterparts. Industry representatives argue that labeling engineered foods that are not substantially different would arouse unwarranted suspicion.

Q: Can biotech foods harm the environment? A: It depends on whom you ask.

Most scientists agree: The main safety issues of genetically engineered crops involve not people but the environment. "We've let the cat out of the bag before we have real data, and there's no calling it back," says Allison Snow, a plant ecologist at Ohio State University.

Snow is known for her research on "gene flow," the movement of genes via pollen and seeds from one population of plants to another, and she and some other environmental scientists worry that genetically engineered crops are being developed too quickly and released on millions of acres of farmland before they've been adequately tested for their possible long-term ecological impact.

Advocates of genetically engineered crops argue that the plants offer an environmentally friendly alternative to pesticides, which tend to pollute surface and groundwater and harm wildlife. The use of Bt varieties has dramatically reduced the amount of pesticide applied to cotton crops. But the effects of genetic engineering on pesticide use with more widely grown crops are less clear-cut.

What might be the effect of these engineered plants on so-called nontarget organisms, the creatures that visit them? Concerns that crops with built-in insecticides might damage wildlife were inflamed in 1999 by the report of a study suggesting that Bt corn pollen harmed monarch butterfly caterpillars.

Monarch caterpillars don't feed on corn pollen, but they do feed on the leaves of milkweed plants, which often grow in and around cornfields. Entomologists at Cornell University showed that in the laboratory Bt corn pollen dusted onto milkweed leaves stunted or killed some of the monarch caterpillars that ate the leaves. For some environmental activists this was confirmation that genetically engineered crops were dangerous to wildlife. But follow-up studies in the field, reported last fall, indicate that pollen densities from Bt corn rarely reach damaging levels on milkweed, even when monarchs are feeding on plants within a cornfield.

"The chances of a caterpillar finding Bt pollen doses as high as those in the Cornell study are negligible," says Rick Hellmich, an entomologist with the Agricultural Research Service and one author of the follow-up report. "Butterflies are safer in a Bt cornfield than they are in a conventional cornfield, when they're subjected to chemical pesticides that kill not just caterpillars but most insects in the field."

Perhaps a bigger concern has to do with insect evolution. Crops that continuously make Bt may hasten the evolution of insects impervious to the pesticide. Such a breed of insect, by becoming resistant to Bt, would rob many farmers of one of their safest, most environmentally friendly tools for fighting the pests.

To delay the evolution of resistant insects, U.S. government regulators, working with biotech companies, have devised special measures for farmers who grow Bt crops. Farmers must plant a moat or "refuge" of conventional crops near their engineered crops. The idea is to prevent two resistant bugs from mating. The few insects that emerge from Bt fields resistant to the insecticide would mate with their nonresistant neighbors living on conventional crops nearby; the result could be offspring susceptible to Bt. The theory is that if growers follow requirements, it will take longer for insects to develop resistance.

It was difficult initially to convince farmers who had struggled to keep European corn borers off their crops to let the insects live and eat part of their acreage to combat resistance. But a 2001 survey by major agricultural biotech companies found that almost 90 percent of U.S. farmers complied with the requirements.

Many ecologists believe that the most damaging environmental impact of biotech crops may be gene flow. Could transgenes that confer resistance to insects, disease, or harsh growing conditions give weeds a competitive advantage, allowing them to grow rampantly?

"Genes flow from crops to weeds all the time when pollen is transported by wind, bees, and other pollinators," says Allison Snow. "There's no doubt that transgenes will jump from engineered crops into nearby relatives." But since gene flow usually takes place only between closely related species, and since most major U.S. crops don't have close relatives growing nearby, it's extremely unlikely that gene flow will occur to create problem weeds.

Still, Snow says, "even a very low probability event could occur when you're talking about thousands of acres planted with food crops." And in developing countries, where staple crops are more frequently planted near wild relatives, the risk of transgenes escaping is higher. While no known superweeds have yet emerged, Snow thinks it may just be a matter of time.

Given the risks, many ecologists believe that industry should step up the extent and rigor of its testing and governments should strengthen their regulatory regimes to more fully address environmental effects. "Every transgenic organism brings with it a different set of potential risks and benefits," says Snow. "Each needs to be evaluated on a case-by-case basis. But right now only one percent of USDA biotech research money goes to risk assessment."

Q: Can biotech foods help feed the world? A: There are obstacles to overcome.

"Eight hundred million people on this planet are malnourished," says Channapatna Prakash, a native of India and an agricultural scientist at the Center for Plant Biotechnology Research at Tuskegee University, "and the number continues to grow."

Genetic engineering can help address the urgent problems of food shortage and hunger, say Prakash and many other scientists. It can increase crop yields, offer crop varieties that resist pests and disease, and provide ways to grow crops on land that would otherwise not support farming because of drought conditions, depleted soils, or soils plagued by excess salt or high levels of aluminum and iron. "This technology is extremely versatile," Prakash explains, "and it's easy for farmers to use because it's built into the seed. The farmers just plant the seeds, and the seeds bring new features in the plants."

Some critics of genetic engineering argue that the solution to hunger and malnutrition lies in redistributing existing food supplies. Others believe that the ownership by big multinational companies of key biotechnology methods and genetic information is crippling public-sector efforts to use this technology to address the needs of subsistence farmers. The large companies that dominate the industry, critics also note, are not devoting significant resources to developing seed technology for subsistence farmers because the investment offers minimal returns. And by patenting key methods and materials, these companies are stifling the free exchange of seeds and techniques vital to public agricultural research programs, which are already under severe financial constraints. All of this bodes ill, say critics, for farmers in the developing world.

Prakash agrees that there's enough food in the world. "But redistribution is just not going to happen," he says. "The protest against biotech on political grounds is a straw man for a larger frustration with globalization, a fear of the power of large multinational corporations. People say that this technology is just earning profit for big companies. This is true to some extent, but the knowledge that companies have developed in the production of profitable crops can easily be transferred and applied to help developing nations."

"Biotechnology is no panacea for world hunger," says Prakash, "but it's a vital tool in a toolbox, one that includes soil and water conservation, pest management, and other methods of sustainable agriculture, as well as new technologies."

The debate over the use of biotechnology in developing countries recently went from simmer to boil about rice, which is eaten by three billion people and grown on hundreds of millions of small farms.

"White rice," explains Dean DellaPenna, "is low in protein. It has very little iron, and virtually no vitamin A."However, in 1999 a team of scientists led by Ingo Potrykus, of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, and Peter Beyer, of the University of Freiburg, Germany, announced a new breakthrough: They had introduced into rice plants two daffodil genes and one bacterial gene that enable the rice to produce in its grains beta-carotene, a building block of vitamin A. According to the World Health Organization, between 100 million and 140 million children in the world suffer from vitamin A deficiency, some 500,000 go blind every year because of that deficiency, and half of those children die within a year of losing their sight. "Golden rice," so named for the yellow color furnished by the beta-carotene, was hailed by some as a potential solution to the suffering and illness caused by vitamin A deficiency.

Skeptics consider golden rice little more than a public relations ploy by the biotechnology industry, which they say exaggerated its benefits. "Golden rice alone won't greatly diminish vitamin A deficiency," says Marion Nestle. "Beta-carotene, which is already widely available in fruit and vegetables, isn't converted to vitamin A when people are malnourished. Golden rice does not contain much beta-carotene, and whether it will improve vitamin A levels remains to be seen."

Potrykus and Beyer are now developing new versions of the rice that may be more effective in delivering beta-carotene for the body to convert to vitamin A. Their plan is to put the improved rices free of charge into the hands of poor farmers. According to Beyer, golden rice is still at least four years away from distribution. It could take much longer if opposing groups delay plans for field trials and safety studies.

Q: What next? A: Proceed with caution.

Whether biotech foods will deliver on their promise of eliminating world hunger and bettering the lives of all remains to be seen. Their potential is enormous, yet they carry risks—and we may pay for accidents or errors in judgment in ways we cannot yet imagine. But the biggest mistake of all would be to blindly reject or endorse this new technology. If we analyze carefully how, where, and why we introduce genetically altered products, and if we test them thoroughly and judge them wisely, we can weigh their risks against their benefits to those who need them most.

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Understanding genetically modified foods, what are genetically modified organisms in relation to foods.

A genetically modified organism (GMO) is an organism whose genetic structure has been altered by adding a gene that will express a desirable trait. This is often referred to as ‘gene splicing’. This new trait might improve a crop or organism’s nutritional qualities, make a crop resistant to herbicides, or protect a crop from pests. The overall goal is to make the crop more desirable for the producers or consumers of the end product. Foods that contain GMOs are often called genetically engineered foods or biotech foods. We will refer to these as genetically modified (GM) foods throughout this fact sheet. 

Launched in 1994, the Flavr Savr Tomato was the first U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved GM food available on the market. This tomato had a new gene that prevented the breakdown of the tomato’s cell walls, thus extending its shelf life. While there was no scientific concern over its safety, the tomato was removed from the market in 1998 due to consumer concerns (Bruening and Lons, 2000). Today, cotton, corn and soybeans are the most common genetically engineered crops in the United States (USDA, 2015). About 80–95% of these crops are genetically engineered. These crops have been altered to have increased insect resistance or tolerance to herbicides. There are currently no foods on the market that have been genetically modified to improve nutritional quality.

How does genetic modification occur?

There are four main ways in which scientists can genetically modify the crops and organisms we use for food:

• The most common form of modification is selective breeding. In selective breeding, two strains of crops or organisms are bred to produce an offspring that has a specific feature. Selective breeding has been used for thousands of years to enhance desired traits in plants and animals, and impacts 10,000–300,000 genes (Rangel & Maurer, August 2015). This form of genetic modification is not usually included when we discuss GM foods. 
• RNA interference is one of the modern forms of GM. In RNA interference, genes that cause undesired traits are silenced. This silencing of genes removes any unwanted trait(s) from the crop or organism, and impacts only 1 or 2 genes (Argawal et al., 2003; Sherman et al., 2015). 
• Another form of modern GM is transgenics. In transgenics, a gene is taken from one species and implanted into a specific genetic location in the receiving crop or organism. Transgenics provide the recipient crop or organism with a desired trait that it would not otherwise have, and impact only 1 to 4 genes (Nicolia et al., 2014; Sherman et al., 2015).

The remainder of this fact sheet will discuss RNA interference and transgenics because these are the forms of GM which have had questions raised regarding their impact on safety and health in foods.  

Who regulates GM foods?

Current U.S. regulations covering GMOs involve three federal agencies: The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and the FDA.

Through the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, the USDA’s role is to ensure the safety of GMOs related to plant health (USDA, 2016). Developers of GM crops must apply for a permit, which requires addressing the potential risks and the possibility of the organism spreading into the environment.  

The EPA regulates any GMO that contains a pesticide as part of its genetic makeup (EPA, 2016). The EPA defines safe levels of the pesticide and requires manufacturers of the organisms to address short- and long-term consequences of the pesticides on humans, livestock and the environment. The EPA only regulates the genetic material incorporated into the plant; it does not regulate the plant itself.

The FDA regulates the safety of all GM crops that are consumed by people or animals (FDA, 2015, How FDA Regulates). This role was defined when the FDA established a policy in 1992, which defined most GM crops as “substantially equivalent” to non-modified crops under the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act. In doing so, the agency defined all GM foods as “generally recognized as safe.” By recognizing GM foods as substantially equivalent, the FDA ensured they would provide the same oversight and regulation over GM foods as they provide over non-GM foods in the United States (McHughen & Smyth, 2008). Under its voluntary Plant Biotechnology Consultation Program, the FDA evaluates the safety and nutritional characteristics of a GM crop before it is marketed. The consultation begins with a safety assessment, conducted by the product manufacturer. This assessment compares the levels of nutrients in the GM crop to conventionally grown crops. It also addresses whether products made from the GM plant are potentially allergenic or toxic when consumed. Lastly, unique qualities of new genetic traits are identified. FDA researchers then assess the safety evaluation, along with a review of their own records, scientific literature, and other publicly available data. 

What are the benefits of GM foods?

GM crops are theorized to reduce production costs due to reduced chemical and mechanical needs in planting, maintenance and harvest. For example, a recent meta-analysis of 147 corn, maize and cotton production studies showed a 21 percent increase in crop yields for those using GM technology. The analysis also showed an average profit gain of 69 percent for GM-adopting farmers, with those farmers in developing counties benefiting the most (Klumper & Qaim, 2014). It is possible that these cost savings could be passed on to the consumer. 

There are potential nutrition benefits as well. GMO technology allows for the creation of plants that are more nutrient dense. However, there is only one product the FDA has reviewed that focuses on nutrition and health: soybean oil that is high in omega-3 fatty acids (a nutrient that is traditionally under-consumed in the United States) rather than omega-6 fatty acids. At the time of writing in summer 2016, this oil is still being developed and is not yet available on the market (FDA, 2016). Another GM product termed “golden rice” contains beta-carotene (a source of vitamin A) and iron. Golden rice is directed toward developing countries with deficiencies in these nutrients, which can cause childhood blindness and anemia. Because rice is a dietary staple in most developing countries, golden rice could potentially help reduce these nutrient deficiencies. However, there is currently no nation planning to grow golden rice (Sherman et al., 2015). 

Recent FDA consultations that could also offer consumer benefits include GM apples and potatoes with decreased browning after being cut, and potatoes with lower acrylamide (a potentially harmful chemical) formation when heated (FDA, 2016). At the time of writing in summer 2016, the GM potatoes are still making their way through the approval processes and are not yet available for consumer purchase. Small quantities of the GM apples are expected to be available after the 2016 harvest.

What are the health concerns of consuming GM foods?

There is a significant gap in the opinions of scientists compared to the general public about the safety of consuming GM foods: 37 percent of consumers feel that GM foods are safe, while 88 percent of scientists say that GM foods are safe (Funk, 2015). The most common concern with GM foods is the risk of allergic reactions. More than 90 percent of food allergies occur in response to specific proteins in milk, eggs, wheat, fish, tree nuts, peanuts, soybeans and shellfish (FDA, 2015, Food Allergies). The risk for allergic reaction stems from the potential for a protein from one allergenic food being incorporated into another food that is not known to cause an allergic reaction. For example, if an individual who has a known allergy to peanuts unsuspectingly consumed a GM food that contained the peanut’s allergenic protein, it is possible that the individual would experience an allergic reaction. 

This concern has been addressed by the FDA’s consultation process. The FDA requires scientific evidence that no allergenic substances have been incorporated into GM foods. If this evidence cannot be presented, the FDA requires a label on the product to alert consumers of the possible presence of an allergen (FDA, 1992, Statement of Policy).

Concerns have also been expressed over the possibility of gene transfer from GM foods to cells within the human body, but the risk of this is very low and the risk of it having a negative impact on human health is even lower (World Health Organization, 2014).

How do our bodies digest GM foods? 

Genes code for the production of specific proteins. All proteins consist of amino acids. Proteins differ from one another based on the sequence of amino acids. When humans consume a GM food that has had a gene spliced into its genetic structure, we are consuming the protein for which that new amino acid sequence codes. Once we have consumed the protein, the protein from the GM food is digested in the same way as other proteins we consume. During digestion, the body breaks down all bonds between protein’s amino acids, reducing the protein to individual amino acids that can be used in the body. The cells in the human body cannot detect if a gene or protein is “natural” or from a GMO during digestion because the protein is completely unbound from the original plant.

Why would the FDA approve GM foods without clinical trials?

Clinical trials require researchers to expose one group to a specific condition while another group is not exposed to that condition. Clinical trials to investigate the impact of GM foods on human health are difficult to achieve. Because roughly 60–70% of processed foods in the United States contain a GM ingredient, it is difficult to achieve the comparison GM-free diet (World Health Organization and Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, 2001). In other words, it would be difficult to have some participants in a research study consume a diet that did not contain any GM foods because these foods are so prevalent in our modern food system. 

In addition, because some conventional foods can also have unfavorable health effects, it is difficult to measure the effect of the GM food versus the unfavorable conventional foods, such as those foods containing high levels of saturated fat or simple sugars. Additionally, the clinical trial would have to take place over a very long period of time to reflect a lifetime of consumption of GM foods. 

Are GM foods labeled?

The FDA previously required labeling of GM foods in only these following situations: 

• If a food was significantly different from its traditional counterpart in appearance or use
• If the nutritional properties of the food were significantly altered 
• If an allergen was present that consumers would not expect (for example, a peanut protein in a corn product) (FDA, 2015, Guidance for Industry) 

However, a new federal standard for the labeling of GM foods was signed into law in July 2016 (Addady, 2016). Once the details of the labeling rules are written over the next two years, a food that contains GM ingredients will be required to have a text label, symbol, or electronic QR code indicating that it contains GM ingredients. Previously, Vermont was the only state to require GM food labeling, but this federal law will supersede state GM labeling laws, including Vermont’s law. Until the details are completed and the new labeling law goes into effect, the FDA still encourages industry to follow its list of guidance for GM food labeling (FDA, 2015, Guidance for Industry).

Those in favor of GM food labeling emphasize that labels provide:

• A risk management tool for any future unexpected adverse health effects
• Information essential to consumers’ right to know what is in their food 
• The same mandatory laws that have been established in at least 64 other countries—including those in the European Union 

Opponents of labeling emphasize the logistical challenges and expense of labeling, and the fact that no significant differences have been detected between conventional foods and GM foods. 

While the nonprofit Non-GMO Project offers a label for products they have verified to be “non-GMO” (Non-GMO Project, 2016), currently, the only federally regulated food label that ensures the absence of GMOs in food products is the “USDA Certified Organic” label (FDA, 2015, Guidance for Industry). GMOs are prohibited in organic products. This means organic livestock cannot eat GM feed, an organic farmer cannot plant GM seeds, and an organic food producer is not permitted to use any GM ingredients. To meet USDA organic regulations, farmers and manufacturers must prove they are not using GMOs and are shielding their products from contact with outside GM materials (FDA, 2013, Organic 101). In addition, the FDA has created guidelines for companies who wish to voluntarily label that their food products are made with non-GM ingredients (FDA, December 2015, Guidance for Industry).

What questions still need to be investigated concerning GM foods?

There are many questions to be answered before GM foods can be identified as “good” or “bad.” Questions are being continuously investigated from multiple disciplines. Some general research questions include:

• GMOs have potential to help prevent diseases. Can GM foods be used effectively to prevent disease in at-risk populations?
• GMOs have potential to create inexpensive foods that contain high amounts of nutrients. Can this provide nutrient-dense food supplies for people with limited resources?
• GMOs could allow production of more food from the same amount of cropland or less. What is the economic impact to U.S. and world agricultural economies?
• GMOs could be developed so that plants can survive droughts or floods on lands that are currently unable to sustain crops. What are the impacts on environments and ecosystems if we bring this land into production?
• GMOs have potential to reduce the amount of pesticides used on crops. Does this significantly reduce the environmental damage of pesticide use? 
• GMOs can change the genetic makeup of foods we consume. Can we understand GMO interactions with body functions, other foods, pharmaceuticals, and allergies?
• GMOs have been criticized for their possibility of creating “super weeds” or cross-pollinating with other non-GM crops. Can GM crops be sufficiently managed so that these risks are minimized?

Before any conclusions can be made about positive or negative impacts of GM foods on human health, research efforts must continue to address a multitude of questions. As our knowledge and use of GM foods increases, it is up to consumers to make informed decisions on GM food use in their personal lives. 

Additional Information 

• List of foods that come from GMO crops: ams.usda.gov/rules-regulations/be/bioengineered-foods-list
• OSU Extension Agronomic Crops Network: agcrops.osu.edu/GMOs
• Addady M. 2016. President Obama signed this GMO labeling bill. Fortune . fortune.com/2016/07/31/gmo-labeling-bill
• Agrawal, N., Dasaradhi, P.V.N., Mohmmed, A., Malhotra, P., Bhatnagar, R.K., and S.K. Mukherjee. 2003. RNA interference: biology, mechanism, and applications. Microbiol. Mol. Biol. Rev. 67 (4), 657–685.
• Bruening, G., and J.M. Lyons. 2000. “The Case of the FLAVR SAVR Tomato.” Calif. Agric. 54 (4): 6–7.
• Enserink, M. 2008. “Tough Lessons from Golden Rice.” Science. 320 (5875): 468–71.
• EPA. 2016. EPA’s Regulation of Biotechnology for Use in Pest Management. Available at https://www.epa.gov/regulation-biotechnology-under-tsca-and-fifra/epas-regulation-biotechnology-use-pest-management
• FDA. 1992. Statement of Policy—Foods Derived from New Plant Varieties: Guidance to Industry for Foods Derived from New Plant Varieties. Available at  fda.gov/regulatory-information/search-fda-guidance-documents/statement-policy-foods-derived-new-plant-varieties
• FDA. 2015. Food Allergies: What You Need to Know. Available at  fda.gov/food/buy-store-serve-safe-food/food-allergies-what-you-need-know
• FDA. 2015. Guidance for Industry: Voluntary Labeling Indicating Whether Foods Have or Have Not Been Derived from Genetically Engineered Plants. Available at www.fda.gov/Food/GuidanceRegulation/GuidanceDocumentsRegulatoryInformation/LabelingNutrition/ucm059098.htm
• FDA. 2015. How FDA Regulates Food from Genetically Engineered Plants.
• FDA. 2018. Final Biotechnology Consultations. Washington, D.C. Available at fda.gov/food/consultation-programs-food-new-plant-varieties/final-biotechnology-consultation s
• Funk, C., and L. Raine. 2015. Public and Scientists’ Views on Science and Society. Pew Research Center. Available at researchgate.net/publication/279513537_Public_and_Scientists'_Views_on_Science_and_Society .
• Klümper, W., and Qaim, M. (2014). A meta-analysis of the impacts of genetically modified crops. PLoS One, 9 (11), e111629.
• McEvoy, M. 2013. Organic 101: Can GMOs Be Used in Organic Products? U.S. Department of Agriculture. Available at usda.gov/media/blog/2013/05/17/organic-101-can-gmos-be-used-organic-products
• McHughen, A., and Smyth, S. 2008. U.S. regulatory system for genetically modified [genetically modified organism (GMO), rDNA or transgenic] crop cultivars. Plant Biotech. J., 6 (1), 2–12.
• Nicolia, A., Manzo, A., Veronesi, F., and Rosellini, D. 2014. An overview of the last 10 years of genetically engineered crop safety research. Crit. Rev. Biotech., 34 (1), 77–88. Non-GMO Project. 2016. Available at nongmoproject.org
• Osteen, C., Gottlieb, J., and U. Vasavada. 2012. Agricultural Resources and Environmental Indicators. USDA Economic Research Service. Washington, D.C. EIB–98. Available at  ers.usda.gov/webdocs/publications/44690/30351_eib98.pdf .
• Rangel, G. 2015. From Corgis to Corn: A Brief Look at the Long History of GMO Technology. Harvard University. Available at sitn.hms.harvard.edu/flash/2015/from-corgis-to-corn-a-brief-look-at-the-long-history-of-gmo-technology
• Sherman, J.H., Choudhuri, S., and J.L. Vicini. 2015. Transgenic proteins in agricultural biotechnology: The toxicology forum 40th annual summer meeting. Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology, 73 (3), 811–818.
• USDA. 2015. Recent Trends in GE Adoption. Available at  ers.usda.gov/data-products/adoption-of-genetically-engineered-crops-in-the-u-s/recent-trends-in-ge-adoption
• USDA. 2016. Regulations. Available at: https://www.aphis.usda.gov/aphis/ourfocus/biotechnology
• World Health Organization. 2014. Frequently Asked Questions on Genetically Modified Foods. Available at  who.int/news-room/questions-and-answers/item/food-genetically-modified
• World Health Organization and Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. 2001. Safety Assessment of Foods Derived from Genetically Modified Microorganisms. Geneva, Switzerland. Available at fao.org/fileadmin/templates/agns/pdf/topics/ec_sept2001.pdf

This fact sheet is a revision of the original, which was written by Sereana Howard, Amanda Sokolowski and John Allred.

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Genetically Modified Foods. A presentation by Imaiya R, Devang A, Curan K, Bay Z, and Gurvir K. Introduction. What are they?. Genetically Modified Foods refer to crops that have been genetically altered to provide new and/or enhanced characteristics

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Genetically Modified Foods A presentation by Imaiya R, Devang A, Curan K, Bay Z, and Gurvir K

Introduction What are they? Genetically Modified Foods refer to crops that have been genetically altered to provide new and/or enhanced characteristics It is an effective, yet controversial method of agriculture

Introduction Development The concept behind GMF’s is not a new one Farmers have been using a basic method known as “mutagenesis” for years. Like breeding dogs, farmers used artificial selection to grow crops with desried qualities

This process, while correct, was uneffecient Genetic engineering techniques were introduced around 1994 to make the process quicker and more exact

The first commercially grown genetically modified food crop was a tomato; it was modified to ripen without softening Nowadays, products that are most commonly altered using genetics are: soybean, corn, and sugar canes

Chemical Aspect The major difference between organic and GMF’s are the increase in probability for the food in question to be toxic This means that GMFs’ molecular structure is greatly compromised GMF’s also tend to produce their own form of pesticide

However, the differences in molecular structure parallel the differences found through NATURAL genetic mutations (mutagenesis, etc.)

Biological Aspect The biology behind GMF’s is basically they process from which GMF’s are created. This process, which is known as genetic engineering, is where one or more gene(s) are taken out, essentially isolated from the DNA, and then inserted into the DNA if the other organism. Special enzymes, called restriction endonucleases, act as scissors to cut out a desired gene.There is a variety of the number of enzymes that cut, in different places, so the enzyme used is dependent on the sequence of the DNA strand surround a specific gene.

Advantages and Disadvantages The Controversy Much controversy exists concerning whether GM foods are viable. Such segregation is apparent by the ‘acceptance’ of segregated schools by specific countries: U.S.A: 44 Approvals of GM foods Canada: 42 Approval of GM foods UK: 19 approval of GM foods; only 5 on the market

Advantages Pest Resistance Crop losses due to insect pests can cause a huge financial loss for farmers and also cause starvation in developing countries. To combat insects, farmers have to use large quantities of pesticides which affects sales since consumers don’t want to eat foods that have been treated with pesticides. Also, excessive use of pesticides can cause run-off waste which can poison the water and cause harm to an ecosystem. But growing GM foods like B.T. corn significantly reduces the amount of pesticides needed as these crops have their own toxin which makes them less susceptible to insect pests.

These Foods are modified to become resilient to pest infestations therefore, saving money (although GM seeds are more expensive) and aiding the environment because pesticides and chemicals are therefore, unnecessary to maintain the health of crops.

Advantages Herbicide Tolerance Removing weed or killing weed is a time-consuming and an expensive process for farmers as they have to use large quantities of different herbicides (weed-killer) to destroy weed. But they have to be careful so that the herbicide does not affect their crop. Thus plants that are genetically-engineered to be resistant to powerful herbicides could help reduce the amount of herbicides needed while not harm the crop. Ex: Monsanto (chemical company – now also develops and markets GMF technology) has genetically modified soybeans to be not affected by their herbicide product ‘Roundup’.

Ex: Monsanto (chemical company – now also develops and markets GMF technology) has genetically modified soybeans to be not affected by their herbicide product ‘Roundup’. • Now farmers can use these soybeans which only require one application of weed-killer instead of multiple applications, reducing production cost and reducing run-off waste.

Advantages Disease Resistance Sometimes farmers lose their crops to many viruses, fungi and bacteria that cause plant diseases. Plant biologists are working to create genetically modified plants that are resistant to these diseases.

Advantages Climate Conditions Unexpected frost can kill seedlings which results in crop familiar. An antifreeze gene from cold water fish has been introduced into plants such as tobacco and potato to withstand the cold. Now these plants are able to survive the colder temperature that normally would kill unmodified seedlings.

As world population grows, it will become harder for farmers to find ideal soil to grow crops. So farmers need to grow crops in locations that were previously unsuited for plant cultivation. • Creating plants that can withstand long periods of drought or high salt content in soil/groundwater will help farmers to grow crops in previously unsuited places. • Foods can be genetically engineered to prosper in climate conditions that may otherwise be detrimental to the growth of the plant. • This can aid people in areas where regular crops will not prosper. = Future Increase in Population Less fertile soil

Advantages Nutrition Malnutrition is an issue in countries where people rely on one type of crop for their nutrition; crops such as rice. Rice doesn’t contain all necessary nutrients, hence causing deficiencies. Ex: blindness due to lack of vitamin A is a common problem in third world countries. So researchers at Swiss Federal Institute for Plant sciences have created genetically engineered rice that contains unusually high content of Beta-carotene (vitamin a). Genetically modified rice in Asia is extremely essential as it is part of their traditional diet.

However, anti GMF protests in Europe could mean that this nutritionally enhanced rice may not even enter the market at all. • Preservatives become unnecessary as the “shelf life” of these foods can be engineered to last longer before rotting therefore, nutrition is not deterred by preservatives • This also aids with importing and exporting food because expiry dates are less of a concern • Many individuals believe that genetically modified foods taste better hence, increase in nutrition appears not to detriment but enhance taste

Advantages Medicine Medicines and vaccines are expensive to produce and sometimes require special storage conditions which are not readily available in third world countries. Researchers are working on to engineer tomatoes and potatoes so that these crops can contain edible vaccines. These would not need special storage, and will be much easier to ship, don’t need injecting. The DNA system of some foods are modified in order to prevent the consumer from experiencing an allergic reaction therefore, permitting people to eat foods that they would otherwise be unable to consume. Ultimately, this contributes to the variety of food available to individuals of society.

Advantages Detoxification Soil and groundwater pollution is a huge issue in all parts of the world. So plants such as poplar trees have been genetically engineered to clean up heavy metal pollution from contaminated soil.

Advantages Economy Time can be saved as some foods can be genetically engineered to increase the speed of food production (in comparison to traditional methods). Rapid growth can aid poorer nations with greater populations as more supply becomes available to the overwhelming demand. Increased productivity helps the economy. Food production increased and developed countries by 70%, because of genetically modifying technology.

Disadvantages - Environmental Ultimate Effectiveness Just like how some species of mosquitoes evolved to develop resistance to now-banned pesticide DDT, many people think that insects will become resistant to B.T. or other crops that have been engineered to produce their own pesticides. The claim of ending world hunger with GM food is a false claim. World hunger is not caused by shortage of food production, but by sheer mismanagement, and lack of access to food brought about by various social, financial and political causes.

Disadvantages - Environmental Unintentional Gene Transfer Another question raised is that what if crop plats that engineered for herbicide tolerance cross breed with weeds, resulting in transfer of herbicide resistant genes from the crops into weeds. This would make ‘super weeds’ that are tolerant to herbicides as well which may ultimately, cause crop failure.

Other genes may cross over into non-engineered crops plant next to GM crops. • An ‘escape’ of genetic material into the environment can be extremely detrimental. • Some of the genetically modified foods contain vaccines, antibiotics, contraceptives etc. Therefore, ultimate result could be extremely hazardous to animal health and the environment. • This possibility is shown by defence of farmers that against the lawsuit filed by Monsanto. Monsanto has filed patent infringement lawsuits against farmers who may have harvested GM crops. Monsanto claims that farmers obtained Monsanto-licensed GM seeds and did not pay royalties to Monsanto. • But farmers claim that their unmodified crop were cross-pollinated from someone else’s GM crops from a couple of fields away. Although, more investigation is needed to solve this issue this is a good indication that more debates like this can take place in the future.

Disadvantages - Environmental Solutions Genes exchange between plants through pollen. 2 ways to make sure that untargeted crops will not receive the genes from GM plants are to engineer GM plants that are male sterile (can’t produce pollen) or to further modify the same GM crop to GM plants so that the pollen doesn’t contain the introduced gene. Another solution is to create buffer zones around a field of GM crops. Ex: Non-GM corn would be planted to surround a field of B.T. (GM) corn, and the non-gm corn would not be harvested. So pests would refuge in non-GM corn and could be allowed to destroy it so they will not develop resistance to B.T. pesticides.

Disadvantages - Environmental Invasive Species Comparison This whole concept of genetically modifying or enhancing fruits and vegetables is an example of invasive species, as it is only through genetic alterations that these foods are produced. This means that, similarly to the new introduction or foreign or invasive species, GMF`s also may have the negative affect that are brought to the environment through invasion species. These negative effects can be devastating to various communities around globe. Some of these affects include:

Alteration of the food chain in an environment • Endangerment of many plants, foods, and even animals • Species would become endangered as a result of their food becoming endangered or extinct • some reasons for endangerment is that the GMF`s may begin to compete for living necessities with other species, and in the end out-competing them, resulting in the food chain to be altered, as stated previously. • ) This is an example of predation, where the GMF’s, acting as the predator, are benefitting

Predation-predation is when one organism benefits off of another organism but the organism that is not benefiting is being harmed.  When predation occurs not only will one species be affected but the balance of certain species population will begin to alter. This is because when one species begins to decline in population numbers other species, which are consuming these species, will have to compete more as a supplement. As the population of the food sources declines, the competition between the predators, higher up on the food chain, begins to intensify in an attempt to continue to survive.

This is one of the most crucial cons: predation, when the food chain is affected, everything species in that food chain is affected. This would have negative effects on: • Economy:food production decreases, and a lower population animals would result in things such as fewer quantities of meat and fur. Also if production of these things decreases, there would a decrease in the amount of exports occurring, having drastic effects on major companies and businesses. • Social:If foods are beings effected by GMF’s through predation, they start to face endangerment, meaning that the food stocks go down. People will have to either give up tradition foods as food prices will inflate, in order to keep constant the demand versus quantity of the product ratio. • Ethical:Even in our modern day and age, people still follow their ancestral customs of living. They still rely on certain foods and animals to continue their lives, an example being farmers. If there is not enough production occurring then cannot make a living, let alone the fact that food production would go down.

Disadvantages – Human Health Allergenicity Many people have developed life threatening allergies to peanuts and other foods; a possibility that introducing a new gene in a plant may create a new allergen or causing an allergic reaction in susceptible individuals. A proposal to introduce a gene from Brazil nuts into soybeans was rejected due to fear of causing unexpected allergic reactions. Extensive testing of new GMFs may be required to avoid possible harm which makes GMFs expensive to put into market.

Disadvantages – Human Health Unknown Ultimate Effects Because this branch of science is relatively new, the long-term effects of genetically modified food on animals including humans remains undetermined Individuals fear that chemical additives utilized in the process of producing genetically modified foods will be detrimental to the health of the consumer. Some individuals believe that consuming GM foods contribute to diseases that are immune to antibiotics Experts have gathered evidence which suggests that consuming these foods promotes the development of cancer cells.

Consumer is unaware of how their food is genetically modified unless they research • Ex: Modified Milk Ingredients • What about it is modified? • In some countries, some countries neglect to mention on food labels that they use genetically modified foods as ingredients. • Scientists can choose which genes to manipulate, but they don't yet know where in the DNA to precisely insert these genes and they have no way of controlling gene expression. Genes don't work in isolation, changing a few could change the whole picture, with unpredictable and different effects under different circumstances. Which One’s the Modified Milk?

Disadvantages – Interesting Views Philosophical Perspective Determining whether a product is safe is extremely subjective as an individual is hindered by their emotion and perspective so although some scientists claim for GM products to be safe, the degree of safety remains debatable. Science in unable to prove a negative such as “GM products will not cause harm” – too many factors need to be considered and inductive reasoning (which is flawed) from tests must be employed.

Disadvantages – Interesting Views Religious Perspective Religious and cultural communities fear the consequences of interfering with nature. Mixing plant genes and animal genes together is not a comfortable idea for some individuals Crosspollination between animals and plants can have potential detrimental effects on other organisms existing within an environment Ex: Flora and fauna diversity will decrease

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EPA, FDA, and USDA Issue Joint Regulatory Plan for Biotechnology

FDA News Release

In response to President Biden’s Executive Order 14081, “Advancing Biotechnology and Biomanufacturing Innovation for a Sustainable, Safe, and Secure American Bioeconomy,” the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) have developed a plan to update, streamline, and clarify their regulations and oversight mechanisms for products of biotechnology.

The plan helps meet the President’s goals of ensuring public confidence in the biotechnology regulatory system and improving its transparency, predictability, coordination, and efficiency. Through engagement with developers and stakeholders, as well as horizon scanning for novel biotechnology products, the Agencies worked collaboratively to develop a cohesive plan. The plan incorporates processes and timelines to implement regulatory reform, such as identifying guidance and regulations to update, streamline, or clarify, and identifying the potential need for new guidance or regulations. The plan supports a whole-of-government approach to the regulation of biotechnology products.

The agencies have identified five major areas of biotechnology product regulation where these actions will focus:

• Modified plants
• Modified animals
• Modified microorganisms
• Human drugs, biologics, and medical devices
• Cross-cutting issues

EPA, the FDA and USDA intend to implement the following joint efforts:

• clarify and streamline regulatory oversight for genetically engineered (GE) plants, animals and microorganisms;
• update and expand their information sharing through an MOU to improve and broaden communication and coordination of oversight of modified microbes; and
• undertake a pilot project focused on modified microbes to explore and consider the feasibility and costs of developing a web-based tool that informs developers about which agency may regulate a given product category.

The Federal Government established the Coordinated Framework for the Regulation of Biotechnology in 1986 and most recently updated it in 2017. It describes the comprehensive federal regulatory policy for ensuring the safety of biotechnology products, including how EPA, the FDA, and USDA share responsibility for regulating many of the products of biotechnology in the United States. The Executive Order directs the three agencies to improve how they implement the Coordinated Framework.      In response to the Executive Order, the three regulatory Agencies, in consultation with the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), issued a Request for Information (RFI) to the public to solicit information on regulatory ambiguities, gaps, uncertainties, or inefficiencies in the Coordinated Framework. The agencies received 88 distinct public comments, including a sign-on letter from over 6,000 members from biotechnology developers, producers, manufacturers, non-governmental organizations, and academia. The Agencies will continue to engage with all interested stakeholders as they implement the plan.

Visit the Unified Website for Biotechnology Regulation for additional information on modernizing the regulatory system for biotechnology products and Executive Order 14081.

The FDA, an agency within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, protects the public health by assuring the safety, effectiveness, and security of human and veterinary drugs, vaccines and other biological products for human use, and medical devices. The agency also is responsible for the safety and security of our nation’s food supply, cosmetics, dietary supplements, radiation-emitting electronic products, and for regulating tobacco products.

Should our future food be genetically engineered?

Genetically modified crops can help cut carbon emissions, research shows — but they still face major hurdles.

The Philippines Department of Agriculture has a vision: to become the first country to allow the commercial production of golden rice, a 20-year-old genetically modified crop that could prevent hundreds of thousands of cases of childhood blindness around the world.

But the country’s appeals court came to a very different decision last month. The court banned cultivating the crop, named for the yellow color that comes from the addition of Vitamin A, as well as a genetically modified eggplant.

“This decision is a monumental win for Filipino farmers and Filipino people who have for decades stood up against genetically modified (GM) crops,” said Wilhelmina Pelegrina, a Southeast Asia campaigner for Greenpeace, an advocacy group that has opposed genetically modified crops for decades, in a statement .

While genetically modified crops may still provoke fear and uncertainty, some scientists argue that not only can they help to alleviate human health concerns, but they might also be able to help fight climate change. And as new tools like CRISPR , which can make targeted cuts in DNA, gain traction, genetic food engineering could be on the cusp of a quantum leap.

“It’s all political,” Stuart Smyth, a professor of agricultural and resource economics at the University of Saskatchewan, said of the Philippines decision. “It’s not based on science.”

Genetically modified crops are ones that have had genetic material inserted from another species of organism. For example, the first genetically modified food product — a tomato introduced to the public in 1994 as the “Flavr Savr” — had two genes added. One conferred antibiotic resistance, and another gave the tomato a longer shelf life. (The company manufacturing the Flavr Savr, Calgene, had to cease production in 1997 because of rising costs.)

Today, there are only a few genetically modified crops in production, but those that exist are widely grown. In the United States, 94 percent of all soybeans, 96 percent of all cotton and 92 percent of all corn was genetically modified as of 2020, according to the Food and Drug Administration . These crops became popular because of their ability to withstand glyphosate, a key ingredient in the herbicide known as “Roundup.” Other countries that grow genetically modified crops widely include Canada, Brazil and India.

No major scientific research has found that genetically modified crops cause health problems in humans. In a 400-plus page report published in 2016, the National Academies of Science found that “no substantiated evidence that foods from GE [genetically engineered] crops were less safe than foods from non-GE crops.” The report urged analysis of such foods by the traits that they include, rather than how they were created.

Yet engineered crops remain unpopular. According to a Pew Research Center poll from 2020, 38 percent of Americans believe genetically modified crops are unsafe, compared with 27 percent who believe they are safe. Thanks to a law passed by Congress in 2016, foods in the United States are required to be labeled as bioengineered if they involved genetic engineering beyond what could be accomplished with conventional breeding techniques. One analysis showed that consumers are willing to pay 20 percent more to avoid GM foods.

At the same time, a small but growing body of research has argued that GM foods could play a significant role in cutting carbon emissions. In a study published last year, researchers at the University of Bonn in Germany and the Berkeley, Calif.-based Breakthrough Institute found that widespread use of these crops in Europe could cut the agricultural sector’s emissions by 7.5 percent.

Another study found that the use of GM crops globally saves around 23 million metric tons of carbon dioxide every year — equal to removing around half of all vehicles from roads in the United Kingdom.

There are two primary ways genetically engineered crops could cut carbon emissions.

First, they can be more productive, creating higher yields for farmers and allowing them to grow more food on less land. One global analysis found that GM crops on average lead to a 22 percent increase in yields. At the same time, one-third of all emissions from agriculture are from deforestation and the destruction of other natural areas — as farmers expand and grow more crops, they cut down trees that are storing CO2 in their trunks and leaves.

If farmers can grow their crops less land, less forest is converted into farmland, allowing trees and landscapes to store more carbon. “That decrease in deforestation is the big reason why yield increases cut emissions,” said Emma Kovak, a senior food and agriculture analyst for the Breakthrough Institute.

Other scientists say crops with herbicide resistance can require less tilling. “Every time soil is tilled, it releases carbon back into the atmosphere,” Smyth said. Herbicide-resistant corn, for example, can endure being sprayed by weed-killing agents, preventing farmers from having to till the land to remove weeds.

But the environmental community is split. Some activists say focusing on climate change obscures the real problem with genetically modified crops: the role of big corporations in controlling food production.

“We see GMOs as a tool of the major corporations that already have a stranglehold on our food system,” said Amanda Starbuck, research director at Food and Water Watch. Many genetically modified crops, Starbuck says, go toward feeding animals for meat production — and improvements in yield won’t change the fact that humans need to move away from eating so much meat. “We need to move to significantly reduce that consumption,” she added.

Research into alleviating climate change with genetically modified crops has just begun. “On a scale of one to 100, I’d say it’s single digits,” Smyth said. Scientists say they need more analysis of how GM crops change land-use and carbon sequestration, and studies that take place over longer periods of time.

But even in areas where the science is relatively settled, genetically engineered foods have struggled to gain acceptance. Golden rice was developed in 1999 by a Swiss scientist; it was intended to combat the estimated 250,000 to 500,000 children every year who go blind from Vitamin A deficiency. More than two decades later, however, the crop has not entered widespread cultivation, thanks in part to regulatory battles in Asia and resistance from environmentalists.

In its decision to ban genetically modified crops, the appeals court cited a Philippines law granting the right to a healthy environment.

For opponents of genetically engineered crops, that is a victory; for some scientists, it is a missed opportunity. “It’s sad that something someone developed in the 1980s to solve a problem — a really bad problem, children going blind — is still relevant,” Kovak said.

And while the battle lines around genetically modified crops have been set for decades, new technologies may shake things up. Gene-editing tools like CRISPR allow scientists to make tweaks, deletions, or changes in a genome without inserting genes from another species. Researchers are already working on gene-edited crops that could speed up photosynthesis and increase crop yields.

Changing a genome without adding a component from another species could be more palatable to consumers — but some environmental groups believe it is just a way to rebrand the same type of work.

“Industry could say, ‘Well, it’s not GMO. It’s gene-edited,’” Starbuck said. “It’s just another smokescreen.”

The shift could also complicate existing regulations, which have been tied to older definitions of genetic modification.

“It’s frustrating,” Smyth said. “We need to make all of these changes to cut carbon emissions. But how are we supposed to meet the Paris accord with one hand tied behind our back?”

More on climate change

Understanding our climate: Global warming is a real phenomenon , and weather disasters are undeniably linked to it . As temperatures rise, heat waves are more often sweeping the globe — and parts of the world are becoming too hot to survive .

What can be done? The Post is tracking a variety of climate solutions , as well as the Biden administration’s actions on environmental issues . It can feel overwhelming facing the impacts of climate change, but there are ways to cope with climate anxiety .

Inventive solutions: Some people have built off-the-grid homes from trash to stand up to a changing climate. As seas rise, others are exploring how to harness marine energy .

What about your role in climate change? Our climate coach Michael J. Coren is answering questions about environmental choices in our everyday lives. Submit yours here. You can also sign up for our Climate Coach newsletter .

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