What are the pros and cons of GMOs? Are GMOs safe?

Let’s take a look at what GMOs are and whether we can trust them.

 

First of all, GMO stands for Genetically Modified Organism. In other words, a GMO is an organism that has been modified by inserting genes from another organism into the genes of an existing organism so that it has new properties that didn’t exist in the original organism. This technology has allowed us to modify crop yields, nutrients, climate adaptability, disease immunity, or the size and circadian rhythms of livestock to suit our purposes. Although the technology was first used in 1973, it hasn’t been used in food since 1994. As a result, it has been difficult to verify, and GMO foods have been increasingly perceived as dangerous by the public. However, despite this perception, South Korea is the second largest importer of GMOs in the world, and it’s not hard to find GMOs in the food we eat. According to the Korea Biotechnology Research Institute, as of 2014, each person in Korea consumes 20 kilograms of GMO soybeans and 25 kilograms of GMO corn per year. So, are these GMO foods dangerous?
Many people are most concerned about the safety of eating GMO foods because they don’t know how the modified gene will be expressed, meaning that the insertion of a gene that is not the original gene will have a different effect than the intended function. There are also concerns that GMO crops that are biotoxic, or resistant to pests, may be toxic when consumed by humans, and that there are studies showing the dangers of GMOs.
But GMOs aren’t as dangerous as you might think. No, they’re safe. First of all, the way GMOs are genetically modified is not much different from traditional breeding. In fact, GMOs that modify only the genes that are needed may be safer than traditional breeding, where the results are unpredictable. Also, in the nearly 20 years since GMOs have been commercialized, there hasn’t been a single reported adverse event from GMO foods. Their safety is being proven inductively in both the short and long term.
Even if a dangerous GMO were to be created, we don’t have to worry about it reaching our tables because the safety review process is much more rigorous than for conventional foods. You only need to look at the GMO distribution system in Korea to see how tightly controlled it is. GMOs for healthcare, agriculture, forestry, and livestock, fisheries and marine, environmental cleanup, and industrial use are all subjected to detailed harmfulness tests, and the screening criteria are divided into human and environmental hazards, and are managed and supervised by national organizations for each.
GMO crops that are biotoxic are also safe for humans. To explain briefly, BT protein, a biotoxin in GMO crops, is toxic in the gut of insects, but unlike insects, it is not activated in our stomach, which is a highly acidic environment, and there are no receptors in the human digestive tract that can interact with BT protein, so there is no need to worry about its safety.
On September 9, 2012, a team led by Dr. Gilles-Eric Séralini from the University of Cannes, France, published a study showing that genetically engineered corn caused cancer in rats, a finding that is still used by anti-GMO advocates to this day. However, the study failed to follow even the most basic research principles: the rats were fed both GMO corn and a control, and no statistical guidelines were followed, such as the number of groups and the duration of the experiment. The results that anti-GMO advocates bring to the table are all “suggestive” and do not prove that GMOs are harmful.
Currently, most of the people who claim GMOs are dangerous are environmentalists and civil society organizations. The scientific community is already leaning toward the “GMOs are safe” camp. In 2016, 126 of the 290 surviving Nobel Prize winners issued a joint statement calling for an end to the anti-GMO movement, and the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) stated that “the claims that GMOs are harmful to humans are unfounded. Five related societies, including the Korean Breeding Society and the Plant Biotechnology Society, released a statement saying that they are concerned that the anti-GMO movement will lead to a decline in biotechnology research in Korea, and the Korean Academy of Sciences Hanlimwon released a statement titled “Voice of Hanlimwon – Calling for Creative Agricultural Innovation Using Biotechnology. Of course, safety research on GMOs should continue. However, I think we need to refrain from illogical opposition to things that have already been concluded to be safe. This is not what we should be worried about with GMOs.
The social and ecological impact of GMOs should be more of a concern than their safety for our bodies. Farmers are the ones who lose out from the monopolization of GMO crops by large corporations, as they pay higher seed prices every year. These companies acquire their peers to further their monopoly. Even if the GMO crops are more productive, if they are sold at a higher price, the farmers will not get anything out of it, and the diversity of food production methods will decrease, making them vulnerable to changes in the structure of food production. There are also ecological concerns: we don’t know what the consequences of crossing GMOs with wild species will be, and it’s possible that GMO organisms could gain an advantage in survival and disrupt the ecosystem.
To summarize, GMOs have tremendous benefits, including reducing pesticide use, reducing carbon dioxide, alleviating hunger, providing nutrition, and increasing farmer profits. I also believe that the safety of GMOs has been largely proven, and that we should refrain from criticizing them unconditionally for the sake of technological progress. However, seeing only the benefits can also lead us to downplay the challenges that GMOs still need to solve, so I think we should see the possibilities and recognize the benefits of GMOs, while addressing the obvious drawbacks through active debate.
In his book Sapiens, Yuval Harari said, “People today generally feel that the door to too many possibilities is being opened too soon, and that our capacity for genetic manipulation is outstripping our ability to use this technology wisely and with foresight.” He’s right that distrust of GMO safety is very high right now, combined with the public’s general fear of science and technology. However, he goes on to show in the following paragraphs that GMOs and genetic engineering have the potential to create a better world. I, too, am excited about the possibilities of creating a better future, and I hope this article shows that if you want to talk about the problems with GMOs, it would be more constructive and beneficial for everyone if you were to voice your scientific objections with more reasonable skepticism.