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 Could GM foods contain new toxins?

Part II: Are GM foods safe to eat.  Is DNA safe to eat?.  Could antibiotic resistance genes transfer?.  Could GM foods contain new toxins?.  Could GM foods cause allergies?. Part II: Are GM crops safe to grow?.  Could genes escape from crops to cause problems?.

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 Could GM foods contain new toxins?

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  1. Part II: Are GM foods safe to eat  Is DNA safe to eat?  Could antibiotic resistance genes transfer?  Could GM foods contain new toxins?  Could GM foods cause allergies?

  2. Part II:Are GM crops safe to grow?  Could genes escape from crops to cause problems?  What kinds of problems does gene flow cause?  Will GM crops reduce crop diversity?  Will GM crops reduce biodiversity?

  3. Are GM foods safe to eat?  Is DNA safe to eat? All foods contains DNA -- about a teaspoon of DNA in a pound of food Adding one gene adds roughly 1 part in a million or ~0.0001% DNA is digested starting in your mouth Tiny fragments gets through the digestive process This is always happening when we eat food It doesn’t change our genes

  4. Are GM foods safe to eat?  Could antibiotic resistance genes get into people? No, DNA is broken down into tiny pieces in our digestive tracts  Could they get into other bacteria in the gut? Bacteria take up DNA very rarely Transfers to gut bacteria have been looked for, but not found

  5. Are GM foods safe to eat?  Could GM foods contain new toxins? Plants contain chemicals that are toxic -- in large amounts The FDA requires chemical analyses and toxicity studies GM foods are better analyzed than any in human history

  6. Are GM foods safe to eat?  Could GM foods cause allergies?  Allergy facts Most food allergies are caused by about half a dozen proteins Foods contain more than 100,000 different proteins The FDA requires developers to identify allergenicity potential

  7. Are GM crops safe to grow?  Could genes escape from crops to cause problems? Gene transfer from crops to other plants is now called “gene flow” Gene flow occurs between members of the same species Gene flow is not a new problem in agriculture  What kinds of problems does gene flow cause? It depends on the crop

  8. Bt genes in Mexican land races http://www.newsroom.ucr.edu/images/releases/997_0.jpg Are GM crops safe to grow?  Will GM crops reduce crop diversity? The monarch butterfly incident http://www.scu.edu/cas/research/images/smecology.jpg

  9.  Will GM crops reduce biodiversity? “Nothing has driven more species to extinction or caused more instability in the world’s ecological systems than the development of an agriculture sufficient to feed 6.3 billion people.” “To assert that GM techniques are a threat to biodiversity is to state the exact opposite of the truth.” http://www.botany.org/plantsciencebulletin/images/54-2_raven.jpg “The less focused and productive this agriculture is, the more destructive its effects will be.” Peter Raven Director of the Missouri Botanical Garden

  10. Rapid acceptance of GM crops Fusarium ear rot (fumonisins) Kernel rot (aflatoxin) http://www.isaaa.org/default.asp

  11. GM crop statistics 2008 http://www.isaaa.org/default.asp • GM crops were grown on 125 million hectares in 25 countries in 2008 GM crops were grown on 125 million hectares in 25 countries in 2008

  12. Biological pest control is better than using chemical pesticides http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evosite/relevance/images/pestspray.jpg http://www.communityipm.org/toxictrail/issue2-Poisoning.htm • There are 25 million cases of pesticide poisoning/year • Pesticides kill both beneficial and harmful insects

  13. Resistance to molecular crop enhancement cujtokyo.files.wordpress.com/2007/10/gmo-prot... www.greenpeace.org/raw/image_full/france/ http://www.bayweekly.com/year01/issue9_38/images9_38/lead04protestors.jpg

  14. Indirect effects of anti-biotech attitudes https://www.penelopebokhandel.no/bookcovers/978/0/6/7/4/0/2/9780674029736.jpg Rob Paarlberg

  15. Resistance to molecular crop enhancement news.bbc.co.uk/media/images/38455000/gif/_384.. http://news.bbc.co.uk/media/images/38232000/jpg/_38232577_levy150.jpg Famine areas high-lighted in yellow Zambia’s President Levy Mwanawasa gbgm-umc.org/.../lisutuagdeadfarmfield.jpg

  16. Molecular methods of crop improvement: why the resistance? www.nlm.nih.gov/.../smallpox/sp_vaccination.html A cartoon about smallpox vaccination from 1802 by British satirist James Gillray

  17. Are GM foods safe to eat? What’s the bottom line? A GM food is no more likely to cause a problem than the same non-GM food

  18. Are GM foods safe to grow? What’s the bottom line? A GM crop is no more likely to cause a problem than the same kind of non-GM crop

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