Gmo Labeling Research Paper

As heated debates continue about the labeling of Genetically Modified Organisms, little does the general US population know that they eat GMOs every day. Over thirty thousand different products on grocery store shelves are GMOs, including daily products such as milk, corn, and soy (Chien). While the illustration of a butterfly sitting on a blade of grass shaped like a check mark could subconsciously reassure people that a genetically modified food product is "safe," such labeling is not needed as GMOs are not only healthy to eat and economically advantageous, rather they may be a sustainable solution to world hunger. “In the mid-1940s, [American agronomist] Norman Borlaug started the Green Revolution on a small farm in southern Mexico.

Genetically engineered crops could spur economic growth in developing countries through a combination of eco-friendly practices such as organic farming with genetic modification to create, “a system that slashes pesticide use, insulates crops against floods and drought, and protects the livelihoods of poor farmers in the developing world” (Vance). In addition to providing a means of steady income for such farmers, these crops could be altered to exhibit qualities of environmental resilience to account for greater production of food- enough to feed the world. An example of such produce is flood- proof rice, developed by Pam Ronald and her team to compensate for the predicted increase in frequency and duration of flooding in Southeast Asia as global warming occurs (Vance). This flood- proof rice was created with consideration of accessibility to poor farmers, using marker-assisted breeding to perform the genetic transfer, a cost-friendly and money-saving method, and through Ronald and her team developing a rice crop able to survive two weeks underwater (Vance). As such research and projects continue, through hundreds of more teams such as Pam Ronald’s, a positive outlook emerges on the horizon in terms of supplying the global population’s nutritional needs without increasing

Anti- GMO activists raise many health concerns, including that research, “... identified the presence of pesticides associated with genetically modified foods in maternal, fetal and non-pregnant women's blood” (Walia), but such claims are now disproven by numerous studies and publications examined by the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine. Moreover, media reports convincingly asserted that, “... antibiotic resistant genes might transfer from the residue of the GMO during digestion… to microbes living in the gut, thus providing the bugs with immunity ...” (McHughen 183), but the antibiotic resistant marker genes in GMOs were chosen because, “... they worked well and were readily available… common in nature… [having] little therapeutic value in the first place’ (McHughen 184). Therefore, any arguments conveying a danger to human health from GMOs are