Genetically Modified Food: Human Health Risks
Despite the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's (FDA's) approval of many genetically modified foods, questions persist about the safety of eating them. Safety concerns should result in a halt to all sales of genetically modified foods until these questions are addressed. At the very least, consumers should have the right to know if the foods they are buying and eating have been genetically modified.
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Despite the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA’s) approval of many genetically modified (GM) foods, questions persist about the safety of eating these foods or using them for animal feed. These safety concerns should result in a halt to all sales of genetically engineered foods until these safety concerns are addressed. At the very least, consumers in the United States should have the right to know if the foods they are buying and eating have been genetically engineered, as they do in Europe.
GM crops are modified by transferring genetic material from one organism to another to create specific traits, such as resistance to treatment with herbicides or to make a plant produce its own pesticide to repel insects. As of now, most GM food crops are genetically engineered to produce a soil bacterium called Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) that repels insects, or to allow the crop to withstand treatment with an herbicide, such as glyphosate (often sold as Roundup).