Could the health benefits of GM foods outweigh their risks?

Though GM foods have been around for a decade, 10 years hardly seems long enough to demonstrate all the potential side-effects of GM crops. Many have voiced their concerns of the inevitability that there will always be unpredictable health hazards; Dr Mae-Wan Ho explained that many of the genes put into food come from genetic parasites that can invade cells and consequently cause genetic damage and erratic physiological and biochemical effects (3). Arguably, we are likely to be healthier as a result of eating natural food, not that which has been tampered with.
Furthermore, though no evidence of such effects in humans currently exists, research carried out on animals is partly responsible for our suspicion of GM foods. Dr Pusztai found that rats fed on GM potatoes developed a lowered immune system and various damage to vital organs, including a shrunken brain (4). If a GM product was approved for sale which bore similar risks, the human race could be quickly diminished, rendering any efforts to improve quality of health a complete loss.

(3) (4) http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/background_briefings/food_safety/278240.stm

While research into GM foods looks promising for improved health, we cannot make assumptions without evidence of the long-term effects. As long as these are not found, the crops could benefit society’s access to healthcare. However, if a banana can build up resistance against hepatitis B and thus prevent disease, it is just as likely that disease will be promoted if we experience unforeseen results after consumption. Rather than promising health benefits, GM foods could endanger the human race.

Several specific concerns have been raised with regard to the potential health risks. In addition to its unpredictable nature, the genetic modification of food may give rise to a whole host of new allergies, many of which would not be known at the time the food was put on sale. Scientists also suggest the use of antibiotic-resistant ‘marker’ genes in GM crops will make humans resistant to antibiotics and less able to fight disease (6). Clearly the health benefits are not all they are made out to be.

(6) http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/background_briefings/food_safety/278240.stm

To say those who disagree with GM foods are purely environmentalists is to say those who benefit from it are farmers alone. Such an argument has been put forward as farmers are saved large amounts of money; they grow more crops on less land with less fertilisation, so the large farming businesses will welcome GM foods to feed their profits.

While saving health is undoubtedly of more value than saving the environment, concerns are not on such a small scale. The threat of antibiotic resistance is a serious one and should not be ignored, particularly as we may not be able to control GM crops once they have been released into the environment. In Europe it was found that sugar beet which had been genetically modified to resist a certain herbicide had inadvertently acquired the genes to resist another (7). Surely this would defeat the object of GM foods made for the specific purpose of improving health if the crops themselves managed to escape human control.

(7) http://www.csiro.au/science/Biotechnology.html

Many of the supposed benefits of GM food are extracted from natural ingredients; why not just eat them? The cancer-defying tomato contains the same pigments found in blueberries, blackberries and cranberries, which are all healthy foods we could eat and gain the same nutrition value, without the risk of unpredictable side effects. Similarly, the soya bean created to protect against cardiovascular disease and diabetes takes omega3 acids which are found in oily fish to do so. Again, people could stick to eating oily fish, or taking vitamin supplements containing omega3. Both options will increase a person’s health without any inherent risks.

If people put a bit more time into considering the value of the food they eat, and did regular exercise, we wouldn’t always be on the lookout for some artificial means to restore us to health. It seems that scientists today welcome any excuse for experimenting with revolutionary technology. Arguably, there is only a perceived need for GM foods, not an actual one.

While growing GM crops is thought to be an economical benefit to farmers, this only applies to large farming businesses who can afford to buy the seeds in the first place, at twice the price of average seeds. These farmers must be willing to buy new seeds each year as most are patented and will become sterile after 12 months. If GM food is to solve world hunger, seeds will have to be offered to small farmers and those in third world countries at a reduced rate (8).

However, while these large farms benefit from higher profits, the Monsanto corporation, responsible for the overall engineering of GM products, is described as a ‘multi-billion dollar world-wide outfit” (9). The testing process of GM foods is not only controversial but hugely expensive. Vast amounts of money are spent on extensive, complex testing of the foods which is essential if they are to be put on sale for human consumption. But is it really worth the hassle and resources? It seems absurd to invest millions of pounds in preparing food which supposedly will provide health benefits if detriments to health appear inevitable in the long run.

(8) http://www.csa.com/discoveryguides/gmfood/overview.php
(9) http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/7426054.stm

Mixed views on the production of GM foods exist in the UK and worldwide; the topic is hugely controversial. Some oppose it because it guides farmers in a direction as to which seeds to grow and restricts their personal choice, others because of its unnatural stigma and the majority out of concern for health. Once GM foods are implemented, we may have no control over the modified crops which may function in their own ways as a result of inadvertent genetic abilities.

However, this is the least of our problems. Like any new development, it is unlikely that the developers of technology will be willing to stop there. Traditionally doctors prevented illness through medicines, and now food is suggested as a more direct route. But how much more direct can developments get? It has already been announced by scientists that it will be possible to create GM humans by 2020. Prof Collins suggested in 2001 that only a decade later, most disease genes would be recognised. While this could prove advantageous as drugs could be tailored to the individual’s genetic make-up to provide against side-effects, it could also encourage people to exploit such knowledge to enhance their own genetic health (10). If GM foods are going to be implemented, strict boundaries must be imposed with evidence of which food is suitable and which is not.
(10) http://www.telegraph.co.uk/connected/main.jhtml?xml=/connected/2001/02/15/ecngen15.xml

The legislative framework and historical behaviour governing and guiding the operation of big business is geared towards maximising shareholder returns [1]. This propensity has been demonstrated time and again and might suggest that the GM companies are not modifying the food in the interests of better health, but of better profit.

This is reinforced by the nature of many of the GM modifications, including terminator seeds (infertile seed requiring a re-purchase of seed stock each season), various forms of pest and herbicide resistance potentially leading to pests (and weeds) resistant to the current crop of chemical defences. One of the more disturbing manifestations of this is the licensing of genes that are naturally occurring and suing those who dare to grow them, even if they are there because of cross contamination by wind-blown seeds or some other mechanism.

One has only to look at the history of corporations under North American and similar corporations law to see the effect of this pressure to perform on behalf of the shareholder. The pollution of water supplies, the continued sale of tobacco, dioxins, asbestos, and the list goes on. Most of those anti-social examples are done with the full knowledge of the corporation involved, e.g. tobacco sales. Incidentally, one effective (though difficult) way to reduce pressure on your national health service or public health system is to stop people, selling, buying and using tobacco.

An article by Michael Pollan [2] illustrates this quite starkly:

“By ”opening and using this product,” the card stated, I was now ”licensed” to grow these potatoes, but only for a single generation; the crop I would water and tend and harvest was mine, yet also not mine. That is, the potatoes I will harvest come August are mine to eat or sell, but their genes remain the intellectual property of Monsanto, protected under numerous United States patents, including Nos. 5,196,525, 5,164,316, 5,322,938 and 5,352,605. Were I to save even one of them to plant next year – something I’ve routinely done with potatoes in the past – I would be breaking Federal law.”

[11] Dr Janis Sarra quoted in Bakan, J. The Corporation: The pathological pursuit of profit and power.
[12] Michael Pollan (1998-10-25). “Playing God in the Garden”, The New York Times Magazine, [online] available at http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D03EFD8143DF936A15753C1A96E958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all