Genetically Modified Foods: Helpful or Harmful?
According to the expectation of the World Economic Forum (2018), the statistic has indicated that the worldwide population will be increased to 9.8 billion or calculated to 60 percent of demand in 2050 when people might be stressful with the deficiency of food sources. Here might be the reason why genetically modified foods remain produced and it illustrated the quality of life of the population in the future. In the 2018 Debate Show "Genetically Modified Foods: Helpful or Harmful?" by Dr. Mehmet Oz, there were a group of experts have questioned the benefits of GMOs. Some experts such as Hirshberg, Van, and Brody have against that genetically modified foods can damage humans' health and the environment; moreover, there is no confirmation of GMOs' effect in the long term. On the contrary, Bernhoft and other researchers have asserted that the valuable benefits of GMOs could possibly be the significant food sources for the world's population in the future. They have explained that genetically modified foods (GMOs) are solving the starving issue in many countries, developing the industrial pharmaceutic in curing many diseases, and being safe for the environment by reducing the use of chemicals in eliminating insects and undesirable pests. In our opinion, we agree with Bernhoft, Smith, and McGloughlin that GMOs could bring more effective advantages which are helpful to our daily life nowadays even though some people might have different points of view toward the using of GMOs.
The first main reason why we should support the use of genetically modified foods (GMOs) is that GMOs can provide many health benefits for consumers in general and worldwide. We realize that many people may worry about the risk of consuming GMOs which can affect health problem more than benefits, but GMOs is not that dangerous if people consume in proper amounts. Importantly, we believe that GMOs may be an important key to solving starvation concerns worldwide to standby the climate change that might affect arable lands in the future. The UN Food and Agricultural Organization has approved that GMOs can improve the quantity of rice in terms of the deficiency vitamin A, which must need nutrition to our body (as cited in Smith, 2018). Moreover, GMOs might be the best choice of any type of food for consumers with more inexpensive and rich nutrients. As supported by Bernhoft (2018), the price of genetically modified foods (GMOs) is likely to low than natural plants, for example, blueberries and tomatoes, so people can take this chance to gain more nutrition with the little cost in their ordinary meal. Interestingly, as suggested by the Bulletin of European Health Phycology, genetically modified foods (GMOs) can reinforce people's good eating habits because of the particular properties changing of food to make it more appetizing (as cited in McGloughlin, 2018), so GMOs could encourage people's eating habits in a better way. This illustrates the importance of GMOs toward health benefits and people lifestyle in the future because we cannot deny that our lives could stay without consuming food but it is not every food added sufficient nutrition. Apart from that, GMOs are influenced in medical terms.
Another reason is that GMOs can be developed and adapted in the industrial pharmaceutic to treat illness. Nowadays the technology has been advanced so far when compared to the past as well as the diseases and bacteria that have been developed to be much more complicated and have less percent of chance in curing. We believe that even the diseases presently hard to cure or have a small chance in treatment but genetically modified foods (GMOs) may be the solution to this issue. GMOs maybe contain the specific substances that usefully for curing some unfixable disease or even delay the progression of the diseases. As experimented by the company, INB Biotechnologies in Philadelphia, a nontoxic anthrax vaccine from the genetically modified of petunias have been recently produced. From this point, it causes the new production of proteins that originate from the plants which can progress the antibodies in resisting the anthrax bacteria. The functions of genetically engineered plants operate as the nurturing of wounds and health treatment for unfixable diseases, for example, cystic fibrosis, cirrhosis of the liver and anaemia; antibodies to fight cancer and vaccines against rabies (as cited in McGloughlin, 2018). All of this may be the massive revolution of the pharmaceutical manufacturing industry and motivate the advancement of medical treatments. So far this paragraph has focused on medical terms. The following paragraph will discuss the environment and agriculture.
The last reason is that GMOs can promote the environment and agriculture by diminishing chemicals and pesticides. In present, there are many organizations aware of environmental issues not only in our country, Thailand but also in global organizations. They have established many campaigns to promote people in reducing and preventing the use of chemicals and pesticides especially in the group of agriculture. We believe that genetically modified foods (GMOs) could be an important role in solving this issue of overusing chemicals and pesticides in farming. Due to the properties of GMOs, it could protect the food or plant from insects and undesirable pests or even maintain the freshness of food without using the chemical. With these specific properties of GMOs, it may bring many positive effects in both the environment and agriculture. Bernhoft (2018) has mentioned that genetically modified foods (GMOs) can keep freshness without using chemicals while common food normally uses an artificial preservative to maintain the fresh or keep the food for the long periods. Briefly, with these kinds of benefits of GMOs, it reduces the use of chemicals which can harm the environment and make more profits for agriculture.
In conclusion, even though there are some concerns about the risk of GMOs that could possibly harm or damage humans and the environment, these information shown above could be the reasonable support for using GMOs. We believe that GMOs could build a strong supply foundation for humanity in the future. If genetically modified foods (GMOs) have been continually developing, the insecurity of lacking food in the next generation would not be problems anymore.
