Nearly every food we eat has been genetically modified, through centuries of crosses, both within and between species, and for most of the last century through mutations induced by bombarding seeds with chemicals or radiation. In each of these techniques, dozens, hundreds, even thousands of genes of unknown function are transferred or modified to produce new food varieties.
Most so-called organic foods are no exception. The claims of no genetic modification really refer to foods that contain no ingredients that are produced through the highly refined technique of gene splicing, in which one or a few genes are transferred to an organism. But alarmist warnings about the possible hazards of gene splicing have made the public extremely wary of this selective form of genetic modification.
Such warnings have so far been groundless. "Americans have consumed more than a trillion servings of foods that contain gene-spliced ingredients," said Dr. Henry I. Miller, a fellow at the Hoover Institution and author, with Gregory Conko, of "The Frankenfood Myth," a new book that questions the wisdom of current gene-splicing regulations.
"There hasn't been a single untoward event documented, not a single ecosystem disrupted or person made ill from these foods," he said in an interview. "That is not something that can be said about conventional foods, where imprecise methods of genetic modification actually have caused illnesses and deaths."
[Well, we are having epidemics of obesity, early puberty, asthma and diabetes. Who knows what the causes are. But since there is no tracking of GE food, there is little way of checking.]
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