Current Event:Transgenics

Welcome to the wonderful world of Transgenics!  A fantastic place with a wild menagerie of genetically modified organisms and genetically engineered foods. A magical place where fish glow green and corn can kill insects with bacterial toxins! Its like we are living in the future!  Transgenics is the process of taking genes from one species and placing them into the DNA of another species.  This process creates a genetically modified organism (GMO).  Imagine all of the possibilities?  Plants can become resistant to pests, drought, and herbicides.  We could maximize produce production and solve world hunger!  We could make pigs fly and give humans gills! But with great power comes great responsibility, so lets get serious.  Transgenics has become a controversial issue.

Unfortunately, the agricultural industry has turned very corporate and is now dominated by major companies like Monsanto, who generate GM seeds for farms; Seeds that are resistant to herbicides and allow farmers to blast chemicals all over their fields. Herbicides are now found in 60 to 100 percent of the air samples and rain samples in the Midwest. Think about how excess roundup can sink into the soil and run off into the water supplies of major cities or other ecosystems that are not resistant to herbicides. It is slowly killing our earth.  Maybe we won’t see the affects of the GM food in our lifetime, but what are the long-term ramifications of ingesting GMO’s? To read more about the dangers of GMO check out this interview with Jeffery Smith, author of seed of deception.  Click here.

Corn and soybeans in particular are popular target for genetic modification. About 90 percent of U.S. production of these foods comes from GE crops.  So much of the food in our diet contains soy or corn. Many of our foods like ketchup, salad dressing, soda, cookies and chips all contain high fructose corn syrup.  And what about all of that meat, dairy and eggs you are eating?  GE animals are not yet approved for human consumption, but the animals are fed GM corn or soymeal.  What are the secondary toxic affects on humans?  Or are there affects at all?

The stance on transgenics is not one sided.  There are many people who think the future of agriculture is in GMO’s.  With rising populations it is thought that we cannot possibly feed everyone with modern farming techniques.  Biotechnology is a tool for greater seed variety and faster and cheaper production of crops.  Scientifically it is difficult to prove the harm of ingesting a GMO.  If you feed a mouse enough of anything it is going to get cancer and die.   You can read more about these opinions in a Business Day article here.

Over the summer the state of Vermont considered a bill that would have made it mandatory for genetically modified foods to be labeled.   Even though the Bill had great support from the public it failed to pass.  Other states like California and Florida have also tried to pass such Bills.  Click here to read an article about Florida's efforts for GMO labeling.  Don’t we have a right to know what is in our food and where it came from?  This brings us to the wonderful green city of Burlington where grass-fed beef is offered, organic vegetarian options are bountiful, and many supermarket’s offer co-ops for selling healthy products in bulk to low-income residents.  The Intervale Community Farm provides the greater Burlington community with an affordable source of high-quality, organic produce. Magnolias, the Farmhouse and Bite Me are just a few of the many restaurants offering local organic dishes. So be proud that you go to school in Vermont and enjoy all  of the green restaurants downtown!!!

As a microbiology major I think transgenics is a fascinating ethical topic.  The compelxity of DNA is unpredictable.  Are we doing more harm than good?  What gives us the right to play god and speed up evolution?  What happens when GMO crops outcompete other plants and become an invasive species?  Is there animal suffering with animal transgenics?  I hope I was able to spark your interest and show how relevant genetic engineering can be in your life.   Transgenics encompasses far more than just GM food. We have been able to insert a spider silk gene into goats and harvest silk protein through goat’s milk.  GM animals are used as disease models, for researching effective treatments for diseases in humans. Transgenic cattle were created to carry particular human proteins that can be used to treat human emphysema.  Transgenic pigs with human histo-compatibility genes have been bred in the hope that their "humanized" organs will not be rejected by a patient's immune system.   Click here for a fun list of discovery channels list of top ten eccentric transgenic animals.  And click here for a terrific article published in Nature that describes the science behind transgenics.