Mostly everything you eat contains ingredients whose genes have been modified. Why does that matter? Well, they could be hurting you and the Earth. They could change your genetic makeup or cause mental issues in your children. Genetically modified organisms, GMOs, can trigger negative adaptation in crops and harm the environment. Biotechnology companies want to monopolize the food industry and make more money at the cost of human deaths and suffering. GMOs are a hazard to human health and can hinder development or halve human life. Genetic engineering has become very prevalent in our society over the last 20 years. The first GMO food to appear in supermarkets was the Flavrsavr tomato (Hemphill). A grocery story in California introduced it in 1994. People who ate it had no idea what they were actually eating because it was not labeled as genetically modified. Hidden …show more content…
There are several obligations that the government holds to lessen the health impacts of GMOs. For example, Article 24 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child says that children have the right of the “highest attainable standard of health” (Peters). The government is not heeding this obligation because they are allowing every child in America to have a diet that includes 80% GMO foods that cause mental and physical health disorders. Farmers haven’t been using genetically modified crops in ways that don’t cause harm and our country’s leaders haven’t been making them (Ronald). Consumers also have freedoms and rights that are not being respected. Everyone has a right to know what is in their food, a right to decide what ingredients they want to eat, and a right to be able to exercise informed consent on their own (Bobe). These rights should be a motivation to require labeling at the very least. The government and food producers are more concerned with economics than with human rights and human