Chelsea Avery Blog 16 Speech

In 1798, economist Thomas Malthus proposed the Theory of Population. He predicted that the population of the world would grow exponentially, while the food supply of the world would grow arithmetically. Now for those of us who are not quite as strong in the subject of math, this simply means that at some point, the resources of the world will no longer be able to sustain the ever increasing population, leading to famines, wars and disaster. However, this has not been the case thus far. This is largely due to the cultivation of genetically modified organisms. No discovery of the past century holds more promise—or raises more ethical questions than gene editing. Also known as "transgenic," genetically modified organisms or GMO's are the result of laboratory processes in which selective genes from the DNA of one organism are inserted into the DNA of another organism. These exchanges are used to greatly benefit the population of the world in a variety of ways.  

More than 40 years ago, scientists first discovered how to cut and paste desired traits of one organism into another.  For 25 million Americans diagnosed with diabetes, the work of geneticists has been lifesaving. By placing human genes in bacteria, scientists today can create sustainable amounts of insulin for the treatment of the disease that affects 8% of the US population.  

The reliability and success of genetically engineered medicine has allowed it to become widely accepted. However, this is not the case for genetically modified crops. In 1996, the agrochemical company Monsanto debuted their revolutionary herbicide tolerant crop—Roundup Ready Soybeans. The result of these genetic alterations simply was that when a farmer's field was sprayed with this strong herbicide, everything in the field was killed except for the crop. The year of the release, only two percent of the soybeans produced in the United States contained the altered gene. Today, more than 90 percent contain them. Altering the genetics of crops can be used in a host of ways, for example, in creating drought or freeze resistant crops or even changing the benefits of certain foods through a process known as bio fortification.  This process improves the nutritional value of a food crops through conventional or laboratory cultivation. This process grew in recognition with the growth of the golden rice project. In the past 10 years, over eight million children went blind due to a vitamin A deficiency, considered to be one of the most harmful forms of malnutrition, it causes not only blindness, but it limits growth, and weaken the body's immune system.  

With this potentially lifesaving crop bringing promise of survival to many malnourished children, it is hard to believe there would be resistance to the continuation of this project. However, the lack of knowledge on the topic brings much debate to the table. Many fear that a lack of long term testing makes GMO's unsafe for humans. However, a host of studies have shown these organisms to be safe for human consumption. In fact, over 1,700 scientific articles have been published on this subject—it would take you four hours to read just the titles of them all. The fear surrounding GMO's hinders the growth and release of their true potential. Activist groups such as Greenpeace continue to vandalize testing sites. Some call for mandatory labelling of all food products that contain GMO's, but the reality is that of all the food products in American supermarkets, an estimated 70% contain at least one or more GMO. Labelling foods with GMO's would spark an unnecessary fear in the general public as many will continue to be uneducated on the full truth behind GMOs.  

 A general distrust in science is prevalent in our society today. This can be found in those who refuse to accept the scientific acknowledgement of global warming safety of vaccinations. By educating the general public and fighting the propaganda war created by GMO skeptics, we can continue to develop our understanding and improve the lives of many around the world, perhaps continuing to prove Malthus’ Population Theory to be incorrect.