Handling Biotechnology: Why you need to ban GM foods and not so rigid when it comes to the use of medically derived products

Food Biotechnology- Public acceptance

In general, Public have a negative attitude towards the biotechnology based foods,particularly involving genetic manipulations. For,these reason, the application of genetic engineering techniques for food biotechnology is rather slow.

Several factors influence the public acceptance,these include type of biotechnology adopted,the regulatory procedures, economics of the people and consumer acceptance.

Recombinant foods and religious beliefs

Some of the ethical concerns of the use of recombinant foods are related to religious beliefs, besides of food habits, For instance,

Transfer of pig genes into sheep may offend the sentiments of Jews and muslims.
Introduction of animal genes in to food plants may invite opposition by strict vegetarians.
Transfer of human genes to food animals may be unacceptable to some people.
Feeding of human gene containing organisms to animals sounds in bad taste ( at present, the genetically modified yeast that produce recombinant proteins after their use, are fed to animals.

The religious group in general, are selective about the foods to be eaten.

However, they are not so rigid when it comes to the use of medically derived products. For instance, Jews and muslims may accept pig -derived insulin for use in diabetic patients.

This is due to the fact that all religions faiths consider human life is the most valuable, and its preservation the first priority.

Further, the general belief in that human body is violated only by oral consumption and not by injection or surgical interventions.

Everyday you eat genes !

"Everyday, we eat plants and animals and various products derived from them, besides a large number of bacteria".

In other words, we regularly consume genetic material, the DNA , organized into genes in various organisms! so far, no one has attempted to categorize genes as vegetarians and non-vegetarians, as we do for foods!!

Safety of GM foods

The production of transgenic plants and animals by genetic engineering technique has now become routine. These organisms will enter the food chain in the form of genetically modified foods (GM foods)

Some social and environmental groups are against the consumption of GM foods. These people insist that the GM foods should be specifically labelled.

As regards the safety of GM foods, opinions range from one extreme that they are absolutely safe, and improve human nutrition to the other that they should not be consumed at all. Most of the people have opinions somewhere between these two extremes.