Science is a double-edged sword. Although transgenic technology is still in its infancy in the world, its advantages and disadvantages have long been the topic of many countries and health centers. This paper will briefly analyze the advantages and disadvantages of the development of genetically modified food.
According to the "Global Hunger Index 20 10", there are 65,438 billion people in the world suffering from malnutrition, most of whom are children in Africa and Asia. Statistics in 2009 show that more than 654.38 billion people around the world are starving. The development of genetically modified food can improve the nutritional value of agricultural products, produce food faster and more efficiently, and make it no longer just an unreachable dream to eliminate malnutrition and hunger on a global scale.
Facing the environmental changes caused by the expanding world population and human activities, the frequent occurrence of extreme climate and the decreasing land area suitable for planting existing crops have greatly threatened the food production safety of human beings. Uneven distribution in the middle of the road increases the long-distance transportation loss of food. The application of transgenic method can change the genetic information of organisms, and form new genes by splicing, which can make the produced crops have excellent characteristics such as high nutrition, storage resistance, pest resistance, aging resistance, drought resistance and adverse growth environment, effectively solve various corresponding problems faced by food production, ensure human food supply, and make videos that do not exist in nature according to people's wishes to enrich people's table food types.
In addition, scientists use biological genetic engineering to turn ordinary crops such as vegetables, fruits and grains into magical "vaccine food", which can prevent diseases. Scientists have cultivated an alfalfa plant that can prevent cholera. Feeding this alfalfa to mice can greatly enhance their disease resistance. Moreover, this cholera antigen can withstand the corrosion of gastric acid without being destroyed, which can stimulate the body's immune ability to cholera. Therefore, more and more disease-resistant genes are transferred to plants, so that people can taste delicious fresh fruits and achieve the purpose of preventing diseases.
Generally speaking, genetically modified food has the following advantages: it can increase the yield per unit area of crops; The production cost can be reduced; Transgenic technology can enhance the ability of crops to resist pests and viruses; Improve the storage resistance of agricultural products, extend the shelf life, and meet the increasing demand of people's living standards; Can greatly shorten the time of crop development; Can get rid of the influence of seasons and climate, and supply at low prices in four seasons; Breaking species boundaries, constantly cultivating new species and producing food beneficial to human health.
Everything has two sides. Genetically modified food not only brings infinite possible benefits to human production and life, but also makes people pay more attention to its disadvantages. Among them, people are most concerned about and most controversial about its safety, and there has been evidence that genetically modified food is potentially dangerous.
First of all, there are some hidden dangers that cannot be confirmed but are extremely harmful, including threats to the ecological environment and public health. In terms of ecology, if the foreign genes of transgenic crops are transferred to related wild species, the whole gene pool of seed resources will be polluted. During the period of 1997, transgenic components were detected in the wild corn in the mountainous area of Mexico, but the transgenic corn was planted in the United States hundreds of miles away from the mountainous area. People feel that the negative ecological impact of genetically modified organisms must be paid attention to. In terms of food health, people are worried that crops with other genes contain ingredients that are harmful to the human body. In particular, the Monarch Butterfly incident in the United States and the release of Professor Pusta's research report on the toxicity of genetically modified potatoes have made people more worried about the safety of genetically modified crops and their products.
Some people think that we don't know enough about how genes work at present. We are not completely sure about the result of gene adjustment. Critics worry that sudden changes will lead to toxic substances or stimulate allergies. Others criticize that the DNA used by scientists will be taken from some plants and animals that carry viruses and bacteria, which may lead to many unknown diseases.
In fact, as early as 1998, Professor Pupitai of Aberdeen Rotter Institute in the United Kingdom found in his research that young rats would damage their internal organs and immune system after eating genetically modified potatoes. This has aroused great concern in the scientific community. Then, the Royal Society reviewed the report and announced in May 1999 that the study was "full of loopholes". From 65438 to 0999, Nature, an authoritative British scientific magazine, published a paper by john rossi, a professor at Cornell University in the United States, pointing out that beneficial insects in the field, such as butterfly larvae, will be stunted after eating leaves sprinkled with some transgenic corn pollen, and the mortality rate is particularly high. At present, there is still some evidence to point out the potential dangers of genetically modified foods.
In addition, genetically modified food only appeared in 1O for many years from 1993, and has not undergone long-term safety tests. There are still many uncertain factors: gene technology uses antibiotic resistance genes to identify genetically modified crops, and genetically modified foods may affect the efficacy of antibiotics on human body after entering human body, and mutant genes in crops may lead to new diseases; Protein transfer in transgenic technology may cause people to be allergic to non-allergic foods. Whether the segmented recombinant new protein [1] can fully meet our envisaged needs remains to be verified. Artificial extraction and addition of genes may increase and accumulate trace toxins in food, lead to unpredictable biological mutation, and even increase the original toxin level or produce new toxins; As far as the ecosystem is concerned, genetically modified foods interfere with specific species and artificially give them a competitive advantage in the living environment, which will inevitably destroy the timeliness of natural survival laws and cause changes in ecological balance. Moreover, it is impossible for genetically modified organisms, bacteria and viruses to enter the environment, which is more serious and irreversible than chemical or nuclear pollution.
Generally speaking, the safety problems of genetically modified food mainly include: genetically modified crops themselves may become weeds, wild species of genetically modified crops may become weeds or super weeds, genetically modified crops may produce new virus diseases, harm non-target organisms, destroy biodiversity, the impact of genetically modified crops on ecosystems and ecological processes, and other unpredictable risks. Exogenous genes introduced by genetically modified organisms can often express protein, and protein may cause changes in biological metabolism and nutrients. Changes in the composition of genetically modified organisms, especially the contents of toxic substances, anti-nutritional factors and allergens, will affect the safety of the organisms as food. Possible harm of genetically modified food to human body: toxins in genetically modified crops can cause acute and chronic poisoning or have carcinogenic, teratogenic and mutagenic effects, and immune or allergenic substances in crops can cause abnormal or allergic reactions in human body. The changes of main nutrients, micronutrients and anti-nutritional factors in genetically modified food will reduce the nutritional value of food and make its nutritional structure unbalanced.
Nowadays, voices against genetically modified foods are also rising all over the world. In August 2006, Japan banned the import of genetically modified rice from the United States. 2065 438+00. 2. 6 Indian Minister of Environment (Jairam Jairam Ramesh) said on September 9th that banning the commercial planting of genetically modified eggplant requires independent safety testing to assess its long-term impact on human health and environment, and it has been recognized by the public and professionals.
According to my personal opinion, the production of genetically modified food is beneficial to our employees and progress. First of all, a large number of scientific experiments have been carried out before any genetically modified food goes on the market. The state and the government have relevant laws and regulations to restrict it, and scientists also have a very strict academic attitude. In addition, farmers will use pesticides to ensure the quality when planting traditional crops, while some insect-resistant genetically modified foods do not need to be sprayed with pesticides. Also, whether a food can cause poisoning depends mainly on whether it has receptors in the human body and whether it can be metabolized. After screening, the transformed genes have clear functions, so the transgenic components will not accumulate in the human body, so there will be no harm. For example, an insect-resistant corn cultivated by us, which is transformed into corn with the gene of Bacillus thuringiensis, can only lead to the death of LEPIDOPTERA insects, because only LEPIDOPTERA insects have the specific receptor of protein encoded by this gene, while humans and other animals and insects do not have this receptor, so there is no toxic effect.