Do genetically engineered foods provide any benefits?

Summary

As the environmental and health safety of present GE foods has not been scientifically established, they should all be withdrawn from the market. Likewise, no GE organisms should be allowed to be released into nature as this will give rise to irreversible spread of genes with very incompletely known and potentially harmful effects. This also includes trees, insects and fishes, now being released.

Unsubstantiated claims have lead to a liberal GE food policy

The advocates of biotech have given the impression that crops of significant value have already been developed. And they have been emphasizing the great potential benefits with GE foods. Especially, they have emphasized the possibilities of reducing world hunger. The governments of several countries, including the U.S. apparently bought this argument, as they believe that the claimed benefits justify a very liberal approval policy without requirements for careful health and environmental safety assessment of new GE foods.

Below we will explain that these claims do not have any scientific backing.

Do present GE food crops provide signficant benefits?

Even if GE foods could made increased yields possible, this would not be the solution to present world hunger. This is because poverty and not lack of food is the cause, see "It is a myth that world hunger is due to scarcity of food" [EL].

Moreover a recent UN report shows that GE is not needed for increasing global food production, see "FAO report reveals GM crops not needed to feed the world" [EL].

Recently it has been argued is that GE rice can be enriched with A vitamins, so called "golden rice", so as to alleviate deficiencies among poor people. However this is unsafe and potentially hazardous as explained in Vitamin A enhanced GE crops: potential problems. In addition, this is a pseudo-solution that will not amend the real cause of the vitamin deficiency which is poverty. Poor people in the Third World eat too one-sided food, depending mainly on rice (which is poor in vitamin A). As biotechnological crops are more expensive to culture (you have to buy new seed every year in stead of taking seed from the crop), this rice is likely to further enhance the poverty problems resulting in more hunger and deficiencies.

Future benefits?

But what about possible future developments? Is it not true that genetic manipulation might yield varietes of great value to mankind?

- The answer is we don't know.

Much too little is known about DNA and the effects of genetic engineering to be able to judge whether really valuable, safe and stable products can be developed, see  ""Is our knowledge sufficient for safe use biotechnology?""  [EL].

And, most importantly, there is very little knowledge about the safety of even the presently developed GE foods vis a vis human health and the environment, see "Is there sufficient scientific knowledge to ensure safe commercial exploitation of genetically engineered foods?"" [ML]

Potential benefits are irrelevant

Policy decisions should be based on an evaluation of present GE foods and not on hypothetical benefits of future products. Most importantly, no approvals should be made until their safety with regard to health and ecology has been scientifically established. This is not the case in any of the presently approved GE foods. Therefore they should all be withdrawn from the market and should not be allowed to be cultured other than in the laboratory under carefully contained conditions. This also applies to all kinds of GE organisms now relased, including bacteria, fishes, insects and trees.

Conclusion

Present GE foods are of little if any benefit to mankind.

For the sake of unproven hypothetical benefits of future varietes, the global environment is now being exposed to a massive release of GE organisms that have little value and are possibly harmful. This may have potentially serious and irreparable ecological consequences. Therefore no GE organisms should be allowed to be released into nature. This includes trees, plants, bacteria, insects, and fishes.

The use of GE food now exposes hundreds of millions of people to unkown hazards because of incomplete knowledge about their health effects and and because of improper testing. Therefore, they should be withdrawn from the market immediately, see our Open letter to governments

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