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FAQ's
The following answers to these Frequently Asked Questions have been compiled from a variety of source materials, from the Internet to biotechnology books and magazines. In order to present a reasonable answer to very difficult questions, the responses have been formatted so that families may learn and understand together.
Are modified fruits and vegetables safe for people to eat?
What are some old and new techniques of biotechnology?
What is genetic engineering?
How is genetic engineering different from classic biotechnology?
What does the term GM stand for?
What kinds of products out on the market have already been genetically modified?
What are the pros and cons of biotechnology?
What are some crazy facts about DNA?
Why does corn come in different color varieties, and where do those varieties come from?
Why are the seeds produced from crops of genetically-modified plants often not planted the next year by farmers?
What do neon orange tulips look like?
Are modified fruits and vegetables safe for people to eat?
 Most people have actually been eating Genetically Modified foods for several years, without knowing the difference between "regular food" and GM food. And people can't tell the difference between "regular" and GM food because there is not much of a difference. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration does not treat GM food any differently than ordinary, non-modified food.
The American Medical Association, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, U.S. National Academy of Sciences and many other groups have wholly endorsed and commended the use of GM food in public venues.
As for the lurking fear of growing two heads after nibbling on a GM carrot, examining the science behind biotechnology can dismiss this worry. As The Children's Museum will help convey, foods produced through biotechnology do not present any health concerns and, in fact, may be able to alleviate food allergies. Soybean allergies, the number one children's allergy, followed by the ever-present peanut allergy, may be eliminated by genetically modifying soybeans and peanuts to stop production of the allergic ingredient in these foods.
Recently, The Council for Biotechnology Information published a related article.
Foods enhanced by science are wholesome
"Are biotechnology crops and the foods produced from them safe for human consumption?" Mary Lee Chin, a registered dietitian in Denver answers in the affirmative.
The next time you walk down the grocery aisle, remember about half of all the foods you see have been enhanced through biotechnology. Plant biotechnology has been under development for more than 20 years, and American families can be assured these foods are safe because they are among the most rigorously tested and reviewed products available.
Biotech crops undergo years of research and are monitored strictly by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, U.S. Department of Agriculture and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
In the past two decades, there has not been one allergic reaction or illness attributed to eating foods produced through biotechnology. Other regulatory agencies and scientific organizations from around the world-including the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, U.S. National Academy of Sciences and World Health Organization-also have declared their confidence in the safety of biotech foods.
Most recently, a 15-year, $64 million study released in October 2001 by the European research teams on 81 projects concluded biotech foods are as safe as or safer than conventional foods.
Health and medical expert organizations, like the American Dietetic Association and the Institute of Food Technologists, agree. In December 2000, the American Medical Association stated in its report on biotech crops and foods that it recognizes the many potential benefits offered by crops produced through biotechnology and encouraged ongoing research developments in food biotechnology.
Biotechnology also has the potential to help make foods safer. According to Steve Taylor, director of the Food Science and Technology department of the University of Nebraska, biotechnology is a promising tool for removing allergens from foods, thereby giving people a wider choice of safe foods to eat. For example, strategies are being developed to remove the allergy-causing protein from peanuts, allowing people normally allergic to enjoy this nutritious legume. Biotechnology is also a promising agricultural tool to increase the quantity and quality of foods produced.
For more information, visit plant biotechnology at www.whybiotech.com. |
What are some old and new techniques of biotechnology?
 Old techniques: selective breeding and crossbreeding. These concentrate on choosing visible traits and consciously trying to recreate these in later generations.
New techniques: recombinant DNA and genetic engineering; these use more recently designed molecular tools to transfer specific genes into a developing plant. Unlike the older techniques, most scientists will be able to predict exactly what change this will produce in a plant.
What is genetic engineering?
Genetic engineering, sometimes called recombinant DNA, is the process by which scientists use molecular tools to move genes from one organism to another, changing one or more traits of the receiving organism.
How is genetic engineering different from classic biotechnology?
 Genetic engineering differs from basic biotechnology by the use of a living organism. In basic biotechnology, a living organism moves the genes from one organism to the next. The bacterium acts as a truck, hauling changes from site A to site B. Genetic engineering uses molecular techniques by scientists to move the genes from one organism to the next.
What does the term GM stand for?
GM stands for Genetically Modified food and describes food products that have been changed through genetic engineering. Sometimes genes will be added to provide extra nutrients, such as in rice, apples and carrots; sometimes a gene may be removed to enhance other characteristics, such as removing the tear-producing element of onions. These have been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, among others.
What kinds of products out on the market have already been genetically modified?
 Foods produced through biotechnology have been sold in grocery stores in Europe since the 1980s and in the United States since the 1990s. Some of the well-known GM foods include corn, carrots, potatoes and tomatoes; upcoming products include golden rice and more fruits and vegetables.
What are the pros and cons of biotechnology?
 The arguments, pro and con, relating to biotechnology began a long time ago and continue to this day. Biotechnology can add additional components to our foods, create medicines and help us understand the world around us. However, there are many arguments that scientists should not change the world at their will. There are possible dangers, some sources relate, concerning adding genes to foods when the genes were not there before. These arguments explain that fruits and vegetables may be changed for the worse and may spread these changes to wild organisms, ruining the Earth's environment.
It is important to know both sides of the biotechnology argument and learn the science of biotechnology and the scientific limits before choosing a side. Respectfully listening to scientists, environmentalists, government officials, teachers and parents can be a good way to understand lots of different perspectives.
What are some crazy facts about DNA?
That's easy! Here are some wacky facts to tell your family at the dinner table (all courtesy of the Office of Biotechnology at Iowa State University):
- Humans share 50 percent of their DNA with bananas.
- DNA in all humans is 99.9 percent identical.
- Cells can contain 6 - 9 feet of DNA. In an average meal, you eat approximately 55,000,000 cells or between 63,000 - 93,000 miles of DNA.
- It took researchers nine years in the 1980s to discover the gene for cystic fibrosis, nine days in 1999 to discover the gene for Parkinson's disease and nine seconds in 2001 to discover the gene for Crohn's disease.
- DNA can store 25 gigabytes of information per inch and is the most efficient storage system known to humans.
- It's about one-tenth of one percent that makes us all unique, or about 3,000,000 nucleotides (base units) difference.
- Human DNA contains 3.1 billion nucleotides (A, T, C, G) base units; if each nucleotide represented a letter on an encyclopedia page, you could stack the pages 65 feet high.
Why does corn come in different color varieties, and where do those varieties come from?
Different types of corn are different colors because they have different DNA or genes that control the colors they produce. Corn ears with seeds that are all one color usually have all the same genes or DNA for color in their seeds. Corn with different colored seeds may have different DNA from different types of corn within its seeds. Each individual baby corn plant within a corn kernel can have a different parent plant, which has its own special gene for color that it can pass on to the baby plant in the seed. Individual varieties of corn that are all one color, such as blue corn, were created by years and years of careful breeding by people. Many of the brightly colored types of corn you see as decorations around harvest time were originally bred by Native Americans.
Why are the seeds produced from crops of genetically-modified plants often not planted the next year by farmers?
There are several different reasons why this could be. For crops such as corn, in which the farmers plant hybrid seed, farmers do not replant the seeds produced from their commercial crops. Crops grown from replanted hybrid seeds will have much lower yields than the original hybrid and will be highly non-uniform due to the segregation of traits (height, maturity, etc) from the parents of the original hybrid. In the case of open pollinated crops, such as soybean and cotton, growers will purchase new planting seed to ensure that the seed meets physical and genetic purity standards and will be truly representative of the variety they want to grow. In the case of hybrids and open pollinated varieties containing genetically-modified traits, the traits are usually patented by the developers to allow them to recover the high costs of developing these traits. When a crop variety contains a patented trait, the company can control how the seed containing that trait is used through a label license and/or grower agreement that usually restricts the use of the seed purchased by the farmer for planting a single commercial crop.
What do neon orange tulips look like?
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