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Tianqi Zhao
Kyongson Park
ENGL 106i
10/07/14
Genetically Modified Food: Healthy or Harmful?
I will write about genetically modified food (GMF) which produced from organisms that
have had specific changes introduced into their DNA using the methods of genetic engineering. I
guess a large amount of people have not heard this term. Due to GMFs appearance are different
with normal food extremely and it does not be mentioned in textbooks of American high schools.
However, GMF appears in our diet actually. I can pick a simple example just like the colorful
pepper we eat every day is a kind of GMF. Let me introduce GMF.
At the beginning, let me introduce the history of GMF. The first genetically modified
plant was produced in 1983, using an antibiotic-resistant tobacco plant. This event is like a
milestone in the domain of food. The first genetically engineered product-a tomato-went on the
market in 1994. By 1998, transgenic crops covered twenty eight million hectares worldwide. In
2000, scientists genetically modified food to increase its nutrient value for the first time due to
they created a kind of rice named golden rice. The golden rices endosperm contains beta-
carotene which can be converted to vitamin A by human and supply nutrition to people. The
carotene makes rice appearing yellow, thus this rice named golden rice. Until 2011, the U.S.
leads a list of multiple countries in the production of genetically modified crops, and twenty five
genetically modified crops had received regulatory approval to be grown commercially. (Citing
from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetically_modified_food) As the data from
Baidu.com, the United States grown largest area and species of vegetables which contains corn,
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soy, cotton, oilseed rape and sugerbeet, in the world, sixty nine million hectares. Although the
second is Brazil in which just grown soy, corn and cotton, it used thirty one million hectares to
grown genetically modified crops. This number bigger than the third country Argentina about
eight million hectares. The crops produced in eight million hectares can feed to twenty million
people one year.
Im attracted by GMF deeply since I studied in primary high school where I learned
about GMF first. The reason is actual simple: I just determined that GMF technology is an
amazing science because it can transfer a unique character of an organisms to another. As I
collect information year by year, I find that the GMF induces large amounts of controversies in
the worldwide. Since 2002, in accordance with the European Union Resolution, European
countries have established labeling and trace ability standards for genetically modified food
products. The United States claims that such measures violate the agreements about free trade
between countries.
Different people have different attitudes. In the approval part, there are two points to
sustain the opinions. On one hand, genetically modified crops can produce more harvests than
traditionally cultivated crops. In my opinion, this technology can be used in many provinces of
China, like Guizhou, Henan and Qinghai province, if it does the same safety as normal crops. I
had ever been to these provinces as a volunteer in my high school. Qinghai province locates in
high altitude about three thousand meters to four thousand meters, ordinary crops like rice, corn
and soy cannot be grown in this altitude because there lacks of oxygen and temperature is too
low for normal crops grow. Thus people who live in there can just eat highland barley which
contains low nutrition compared with ordinary foods like rice and corn as the main food in diet,
thus they cannot get enough food to feed themselves. Hence if genetically modified technology
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can move the resist low temperature and lacking oxygen gene to rice or corn, people who live in
Qinghai province will not have to worry about food and can avoid famine.
On the other hand, GMF can also connect with treatment of certain infections and
diseases. For instance, in my hometown, Yunnan province, many children were born with
blindness due to lack of Vitamin A. As I have mentioned the golden rice which contains Beta-
carotene can be converted to Vitamin A in body can solve this problem.
Conversely, the risk is that eating genetically modified products leads to increasing the
possibility of formation of cancer neoplasm in intestines. I joined a biology club in the summer
vacation of my high school. I investigated the data about the number of cancer patient in Fuqiang
County which has the biggest area to grow genetically modified soy since 2003 in Kunming City,
Yunnan province. What shocked me was that I found the number of cancer patient rapidly
increase from twenty to three hundred between 2004 and 2010. But at the same time, there were
three chemical factories moved to this county. Therefore I cannot ensure the direct connection
between genetically modified soy with cancer. Thus I need to collect more information from
research to prove the relationship between them.
However, the result of a research by European independent scholars indicated that the
MON 863(a kind of genetically modified corn) played as an awful role in influence the function
of antitoxic with mices liver and kidney after mice eaten MON863 ninety days later.
Furthermore, it also damaged mices heart, adrenergic, spleen and hematopoietic system. Mouse
is same as human in mammal also in body systems. Hence, we can imagine what will happen if
we ate MON863. Damaging organs of our body? NO! We absolutely do not want. Thus a
rigorously question appears now: Does genetically modified food absolutely harmless to human
being?
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To myself, I definitely want to find out whether the genetically modified food is harmful
or harmless to us. Thus my research question is that GMF is healthy or harmful to us? In my
opinion, I really want GMF can play a role like redeemer to human. Because as the number of
population in the world increasing, a great amount of people cannot get enough food from
traditional crops. Thus people can get plenty food from GMF due to its higher harvest. Inversely,
if genetically modified food caused damage to human organs, whole human being are facing an
unprecedented challenge, especially the United State which own the biggest area in the world
growing GMF. What role will the GMF plays in? Let me find out the truth. For this purpose, I
will interview my professor Andrea M. Liceaga in FS 161.