Genetically Modified Foods - Is it worth the risks?

The interest of scientists are to continue to develop the methods and for the benefits of creating a technology to improve our food to make it healthier and more efficient in yields. They also look at this as a chance for profit in creation of something ground-breaking.

The farmers (including animal farmers) in most countries are being forced to bear responsibility for any harm that might have been caused by genetic foods. While the farmers are being forced to take responsibility for their actions the risk just might be worth it for some farmers. The fact that farmers will be guaranteed a yield of fruit and vegetables by farming genetic foods might outweigh the consequences (Labeling Genetically Modified Foods). This way they will profit year after year not matter the weather conditions and no disease or insect will be able to ruin their harvest.

While there was an incident a couple of years ago with animal feed corn being mixed in with taco shells. The Texas Company was sued and had to pay for the clean up of the contaminated cornfields. The Agriculture Department's settlement with the Texas Company that mishandled gene-altered corn, portrayed three months ago as a stringent crackdown designed to send a message to other potential violators, actually involved a no-interest $3.5 million government loan to help clean up the cornfields (AgBiotechNet 2003). This shows that the government is actually interested in this technologies advancement here in the United States.

The retailers are the ones that sell the product to the customers. This is where most people get their hands on GM foods. About 70 percent of the food sold in the United States contains ingredients that have been injected with foreign genes. While some people might argue that inserting genes into the food we eat is bad for our health with it being in so much of our food it will be tremendously hard to completely stop using foreign genes in our foods.

Genes are also being used to change the meats we eat. In the United States it is most widely used with fish. Marine fisheries are collapsing. About 70 per cent of the world’s conventional marine species are fully exploited, over-exploited, depleted or in the process of recovering from over-fishing. A fifth of all freshwater fish are either extinct or endangered. Scientist is using this technology in fish farms to make bigger and meatier salmon. The altered genetic fish grows to maturity faster also making it far more economic for the fish farmers.

The prospect of improving human health and alleviating human suffering through genetic medicine and research is a very big upside. Generic engineering has a lot of potential as far as furthering medicine. Medicine can be genetically implemented into fruit and vegetables to fight disease. It can help fight anything from the common cold to a deadly disease such as cancer. Foods will be in a sense, optimized, as crops will be able to be harvested in any type of weather and will have longer life in the field as well on the shelves in supermarkets. They will be resistant to the pests and diseases which allow them to have greater yields in harvesting which will increase the amount of food supply.