The Pros And Cons Of Genetically Modified Organisms

The popularity on Genetically Modified Organisms, also referred to as GMOs has grown significantly over the past few years. The main question being. Are GMO’s as bad as they are said to be? “GMOs are organisms whose genetic make-ups have been changed by mutating, inserting, or deleting genes, by using genetic engineering techniques or biotechnology”(Goldbas 20). Recently, companies have been taking advantage of advertising there non-gmo products as healthier than products from other companies containing gmo’s. But is this actually the case? Genetically modified organisms are thought to be detrimental to one's health, the environment, and the economy, however this is only the case when GMO’s are used in excess or irresponsibly. Derived from

This is due to the fact that the process of modifying genetics is not as extreme as many believe it to be ”Animals have been genetically modified since they were first domesticated around 12,000 BCE and altered plants were available around 10,000 BCE” (Root, 2007). As stated GMO’s have the same process as cross breeding plants or animals in hopes of transferring a trait of one of the organisms to the other. But the genetic modification process can be between organisms of different species. Most believe this process to be unnatural due to the crossing of barriers between species. However, “horizontal-gene transfer does happen in nature between unrelated organisms”(Lynas 132) an example being viruses, often mutate and pick up genes from organism to become stronger . Most do not know enough about biology to understand the coding system of DNA or that “DNA is the same between all organisms”(Lynas 133). This means that moving genes around between organism is not detrimental as long as the effects are well understood.

This transferring of traits has been used to greatly improve our standard of living. GMOs have been used to benefit plants by reducing the use of agrichemicals like insecticide, while producing higher yields of crops with better nutritional quality. Furthermore, genetically modifying organisms has given us the option to improve characteristics of crops such as enhancing disease resistance, nitrogen efficiency, salt, drought, and pest tolerance. There are many cases

When as stated, it is the opposite, due to the modification of organisms they have become more pest resistant, resulting in reduction of the use of agrichemicals like insecticide meaning less hazardous crops and soil. The modification of organisms has also improved the nutritional quality of crops, as shown, this increase in the amount of vitamins and other nutrients in crops makes them even healthier :

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, approximately 94% of the soybeans grown in the U.S. are genetically modified (Dupont, 2013). It has been shown that Roundup-Ready soybeans are nutritionally inferior to non-GMO soybeans. In addition, they have more chemical residues, including the herbicide glyphosate, a possible contributor to chronic diseases and female hormonal imbalances (Bohn et al., 2014).(Goldbas