Genetically Modified Products in Our Life

Genetically Modified Products in Our Life

The last century was a time of big changes in genetic engineering. Humanity made huge steps toward creating new life. Experiments with creating human were not successful, but the whole world was watching the experiment with sheep Dooley, which became first cloned animal. It was first such a big succeeded experiment and as a result almost everyone knew the last news about the sheep. However a big achievement was made in modifying new plants and crops. In the 21st century genetically modified products already became a part of our life. Every day new genetic products appear in shops and it becomes harder to find healthy food which does not contain any added chemical components. Apples during the winter time, oranges which become ripe twice faster than their period of ripening and tomato bushes which can survive very cold weather prove that biological world had experienced a lot of changes. Experiments are being made, new plants are being produced for a quite a long period of time, however genetically modified products is one of the hotly debatable topics today.

There are two different opinions about the effects of genetically modified food on human life. "There is a greater deal of uncertainty about what the truth and the facts really are," says Michael Meacher, Environment Minister of Great Britain (ESRC par.5). The first group of people claim that genetic engineering is the biggest and the most profitable inventory for human life and that it brings and will bring only goodness for people. However, some people argue that genetic engineering affects humans life only negatively and it will bring much more harm to people than good. Although many scientific reports about the profitability and usefulness of genetically modified products were written, genetically modified food should not be introduced into the humanity life, because bioengineering is new technology and no one can know how changes made by people in crops will affect the environment, human health and world's heredity in common.

People who support genetic modifications emphasize its advantages and positive changes that it can bring. The first and the strongest argument which they use to prove their rightness, is that genetically modified food can help people to stay healthy or improve their health. They strongly believe that genetically modified food is produced in a more efficient and environmentally friendly way (BBC). Food can not only be improved by genetic modifications but also some extra nutrients can be added into it (BBC news). What is more, vitamins can be added to the food as well. Food enrichment by nutrients and vitamins is very important as it can help 124 million children worldwide not to become blind, because vitamin A which can be added to the genetically modified crops can prevent blindness. (Marantz par. 22)

Another strength, is that there is a possibility that genetically modified food "will feed the world" (BBC par. 2). Some scientists think so because of two reasons. First of all, to get the same amount of harvest much less land is needed for genetically modified crops that for those which people use now, because the productivity of first is much higher. Secondly, genetically modified crops are more steadfast against bad weather conditions and as a result better harvest could be got. Nowadays people in developing countries do not get enough food and vitamins to stay healthy, because they produce food of not a good quality, and the amount of food is limited. Within fifty years feeding the world is going to be a daunting task because population will grow till 9 billion people (Batalion par. 17). Genetic technology gives hope to developing countries because with help of genetically modified products people in the third world countries will get improved nutrition and their prosperity and health will go up. (BBC news 4)

Finally, people are concerned about the environmental situation on the Earth. The director of the Center for Global Food Issues, Dennis Avery, "believes that genetically modified foods are the key to preserving the natural world while feeding the world's growing population." (Morano par. 7) The world population becomes bigger and the "the only choices we have are to destroy the wildlife, destroy half the people or triple the crop yields again. Biotech is our best hope for doing that" (Morano par. 7) To conclude, it is important to mention that for producing genetically modified food there is no need to use as much pesticides and herbicides which harm environment as humans use for production usual food today.

No doubt, development of biotechnology has a lot of advantages, however, they are not so ideal as they can seem to some people. At first sight, seems that vitamins and nutrients added into plants with a help of biotechnology would only benefit human's heath, however scientists cannot truly say how the may affect human's health in future. There were not made enough experiments and too short period of time went in order to observe changes which genetically modified food can cause. What is more, components which have never existed can be considered by the human body like foreign; despite the fact that process of adoption will start it can cause some kind of organism mutation. We can assume a lot, but no one can know what will happen with humanity after some decades (ESRC).

Moreover, believe that genetically modified food will feed the world is also wrong.

Genetically engineered products nowadays are produced only in developed countries, but third world stays on the same place, because they can not afford expenses to start biotechnology. So, the question is not about scarcity of food but about its distribution in the world (ESRC par. 7).

In addition to, I think that developed countries also should not donate genetically modified food to countries where there is a lack of food. Despite the fact that scientists in Georgetown Center of Food and Nutrition claim that "there is no evidence that genetically engineered food on the market are not safe to eat" (Berthold), there is no evidence that this food is safe. We cannot forget about people who need food but we can not give them food which can affect them in a bad way.

Finally, genetically modified crops can cause much more problems for the environment than the use of pesticides for producing usual food because genetically modified crops are fully new organisms which have never existed. As a result, created by nature and created by people plants start to mix and it becomes hard to imagine the plant of new century. The nature creates and kills species which it does not need anymore but people take God's or nature's role and decided what, how and where plants