The term GMO has come to be something of a dirty word.
Genetically modified organisms are equated to frankenfoods. They are monsters with unknown and undesirable properties. They are killing us.
Or, at least, that seems to be the rhetoric presented by opponents to GMOs. The equation seems to be: GMO equals toxic equals bad.
Unfortunately, it is a vastly over-simplified equation and one that is fundamentally wrong.
Genes, by themselves, are not harmful. In the human stomach, DNA is broken down to its fundamental constituents - sugar, phosphate, and the nucleic bases. Each nucleotide is disassembled.
With the DNA shattered into pieces, the information encoded in the DNA is lost. It is not housed in the individual bases but in the way that they are assembled. The pieces do not carry any information nor can they affect an individual.
At the level of genes, GMOs are not inherently toxic. But genes are the plans for proteins and, in turn, other organic compounds. This is their function.
They are the blueprint for making all of the constituent molecules that collectively make up an organism.
Put another way, your genes make you you by directing the synthesis of all of the chemicals in your body.
The argument against GMOs is that transposing genes from one organism to another means you are also transposing the capacity to generate new and/or different compounds in the new organism.
True. But the transposed genes are not "synthetic" genes. They do not make unnatural compounds.
They are genes found in other organisms.
For example, the gene to produce insulin, which is a protein generated by the pancreas, can be transplanted into microbes. This gene uses the microbe's cellular apparatus to generate insulin molecules. Since the microbe never had a use for insulin in the first place, the molecules accumulate.
The consequence is that pharmaceutical companies can grow large crops of insulin molecules cheaply, easily, and without sacrificing animals. Yes, a few million microbes are killed but that happens every time we swallow, so it isn't exactly unethical.
In the case of insulin, genetically modified organisms provide diabetics with a critically important supply of pure medicine - human insulin.
Diabetics do not have to rely on insulin from cows or pigs, which is close in structure to human insulin but not a perfect match. Allergic responses to insulin have been eliminated.
It is hard to see this as a bad thing. Indeed, I have never met anyone who would argue against such an approach. Clearly, a genetically modified organism is doing good in this case.
So, is creating important medicine what people are concerned about?
It would appear not to be the case. Rather the protests are about genetically modified organisms in our food supply. But the genes themselves are not harmful and the products produced by them are natural compounds, so why is there any issue at all?
The argument appears to arise from the law of unintended consequences. Given that even simple organisms are made from upwards of a 100,000 different chemical compounds and human beings could have over a million compounds, many of which have never been characterized, it is possible there could be an interaction which would produce harmful side effects.
True but also unlikely. We are amazingly hardy creatures fighting off the influences of hundreds of millions of genetically diverse organisms every day. We have bacteria - micro-flora or probiotics - living in our intestinal tract. Each carries their own DNA and are constantly mutating.
If simply being exposed to foreign proteins was harmful, we would have never evolved in the first place.
We have been exposed to the natural products of countless generations of organisms. Not all are benign but for the most part, the few that can harm us are well known and certainly would not be something that would be introduced into the food supply.
Further, all of the food that we eat has been genetically modified. Consider the origins of corn, wheat, or cows.
They have all been carefully selected, through breeding programs, to enhance certain characteristics and suppress others. Yes, it is a slow process to generate mutant potatoes botanically but it is genetic modification nonetheless.
So, if genes themselves aren't harmful and the compounds they produce are not toxic, does that mean there are no issues with GMOs?
The final concern would appear to be one outside of the realms of science. Large corporations controlling and even patenting genes is certainly an issue for politicians to address but it is not an inherent reason to question genetically modified organisms. Rather it is a question of politics.
The idea, though, to force GMO labelling onto our food is rather bizarre to say the least. After all, if we are being honest, every bit of food we eat would need to carry such a label.
