Should genetically modification be applied when producing food?
...s have been called gthe great fluttering pandas of the insect worldh (Fedoroff 203). It is one of the North Americafs most colorful and familiar natives that they are much loved and much photographed. The Monarch butterflies depend on the leaves of milkweed plants, which are commonly found in both natural habitats and cultivated fields. They lay their eggs on the undersides of the weedfs upper leaves; when the larvae hatch, the caterpillars eat the milkweed leaves, grow and thus turn into a cocoon, in which they transform into butterflies later on (Fedoroff 203). However, a research which was conducted recently found that the Monarch larvae are poisoned by the leaves they eat, and the poisons persist in the butterflies and thus they died. John Losey and two colleagues in the entomology department of Cornell University has conducted a laboratory testing in which they dusted the pollen from the transgenic crops, which is also called the Bt corns, onto milkweed leaves and gave the leaves to some Monarch caterpillars to eat; while they fed the other Monarch caterpillars leaves which dusted with conventional corn pollen. Four days later, more than half of the caterpillars that were fed by the Bt-dusted leaves died, however, none in the other two groups, which were fed by the leaves that dusted with conventional corn pollen. Finally, five replications of experiments gave an evidential data to prove that the pollen of the transgenic crops is highly toxic to Monarch larvae and thus, this experiment indicates how transgenic crops affect the ecosystems (Monarch). Even though the larvae feed only on the leaves of milkweed plants, not the corn plants, which means the Monarch butterflies are the non-target organisms, yet, being ga member of the insect order Lepidoptera (butterflies and moths), they are susceptible to poisons that affect Lepidopteran pestsh(Monarch), such as the other butterfly species: the black swallowtail. Obviously, once the transgenic plants poison and make the organism die, not just the ecosystem of Lepidoptera will be affected, but also the whole ecological system. Since the Lepidoptera is the main source of food of birds and other predators, therefore, if the Lepidoptera were poisoned and killed by the Bt plants continually, the ecocide of Lepidoptera may occur, and the amount of food of the birds and other predators may decrease; while birds are the food source of the other predators, such as eagles; thus, if the birds become extinct because of the lack of food, the eaglesf ecosystems will also be affected. Therefore, the effects which were brought up within the food chain may diffuse and more and more organisms will be affected and thus the long-term effects will damage the whole ecological systems of the nature. 2. Increasing the food wasting level and the uneven distribution of wealth i) Food wasting level increase Eventually, companies which are involved in the genetically modified food business claim that production of the genetically modified food can solve the problem of famine in the developing countries, however, this statement is absolutely wrong. The fact is that production of genetically modified food could not solve the problem of famine in the third-world countries, but increase the wasting level of food. The world actually has enough food to satisfy peoplefs need; however, the food distribution is unevenly distributed. Besides, poverty and inefficient economic status and political policies have somehow stopped the sufficient production of food or isolated the people from reaching to the food sources (GE Technology). These are all the main causes which lead to the problem of famine in the developing countries but not the insufficiency in the supply of food. Moreover, a recent survey indicates that food wastage is high in most developed countries: There is ga shocking 30-40% of all food is never eaten;h (Causes) in the United Kingdom, and the amount of food British people which had been threw into the bin in the last decade went up by 15% (Causes); While in the U.S, 50% of all food which are ready for harvest never gets eaten (Causes); therefore, it is for sure that there is actually a sufficient supply of food, but food are mostly distributed within the developed countries. Thus, more food is produced by applying the genetic modified technology, higher wasting level of food will be; as a result, the natural resources will be wasted seriously. ii) Uneven distribution of wealth become even more serious gThe financial benefits from genetic modification will flow mostly to the very largest agricultural producers, putting local agricultural economies at a tremendous disadvantage. That is really the central issue here,h argues Jonathan Kimmelman, a bioethicist at Yale University. (Causes). Indeed, the poor countries will never get the benefits from the business of the production of genetic modified food, but the developed countries. While the rich countries are able to provide some rest bite for the poor counties through such technologies, they would maintain, even increase, the developing nations' dependencies upon them: the production of the genetically modified food actually needs to have a huge capital to support; however, the third-world countries are still developing, they are so poor that they cannot even provide enough food for themselves, so there is definitely no way for them to invest in the production of the genetically modified food and turn their countries become wealthy, but depends on the rich countries and only the developed countries will be able to invest capital in this business and benefit from it. Therefore, producing the genetically modified food could not solve the famine problems and improve the uneven distribution of wealth; actually, it just increase the wasting level of food, waste the natural resources and make the rich become richer, poor become poor. In order to solve the problems of famine, we need to even out the distribution of food, solve the poverty problem, impose more safe and low costing planting techniques. Just like what the Physicians and Scientists for Responsible Application of Science and Technology said, gWorld hunger is extensive in spite of sufficient global food resources. Therefore increased food production is no solution.h (GE Technology). 3. Unknown risks when eating the genetially modified food i) Risk of cancers Recently, there is a concern that genetically modified food would cause cancers. In 1994, the U.S. FDA proved that the use of a GE hormone (rBGH) to increase the quantity of cowfs milkfs may increase the level of IGF-1, which is a key factor in gprostate cancer, breast cancer, and lung cancerh (Verzola 40). And a recent research found that the genetically modified milk drinkers have a 10% IGF-1 levels higher than in non-drinkers. This statement implied that the GE milk exposes its drinker to a higher cancer risks. (Verzola 40). ii) Higher risks for fetuses and babies Since the risk of eating genetically modified food is very high, some scientists are afraid that if a substance in genetically modified food harms adults, it will also harm the babies, in which gif ingested by nursing infants, these isoflavones can produce circulating levels equivalent to 13,000 to 22...