Thursday, February 23, 2012

"Foreign" Genes In GMO Crops

"The biggest difference between the foreign genes in GMO crops and the foreign genes that find their way into food by other mechanisms is that the GMO genes are much more of a known entity.  Unlike the cocktail of microbes that come along in an uncontrolled, unknown, and almost unknowable way with all food, the microbial genes and gene products in a GMO crop are very well understood. We know the exact sequence of the gene, its location in the plant’s chromosomes, what the gene does.

We know which proteins are made because of that gene and we have been able to study those proteins in detail to determine their safety. With most of the other microbial genes that we are eating we can’t say with certainty what is there, how much is there and what all the possible gene products are or what they do. The
foreign genes in GMO crops are different from all the other foreign genes mainly in that we know so much more about them.  So in reality, the genes in a GMO crop are the least creepy
of such elements in our food."

- More
Here


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