What are the possible consequences of genetically altered foods?

Answer 1

here is an example
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Insecticide sweet corn
Scientists have genetically modified sweet corn so that it produces a poison which kills harmful insects. This means the farmer no longer needs to fight insects with insecticides. The genetically modified corn is called Bt-corn, because the insect-killing gene in the plant comes from the bacteria Bacillus thuringiensis.

Advantages:

The farmer no longer has to use insecticide to kill insects, so the surrounding environment is no longer exposed to large amounts of harmful insecticide.
The farmer no longer needs to walk around with a drum of toxic spray wearing a mask and protective clothing.

Disadvantages:

This type of genetically modified corn will poison the insects over a longer period than the farmer who would spray the crops once or twice. In this way the insects can become accustomed (or resistant) to the poison. If that happens both crop spraying and the use of genetically modified Bt-corn become ineffective.
A variety of insects are at risk of being killed. It might be predatory insects that eat the harmful ones or, perhaps attractive insects such as butterflies. In the USA, where Bt-corn is used a great deal there is much debate over the harmful effects of Bt-corn on the beautiful Monarch butterfly.
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Just about everything we develop has intended and unintended and unexpected consequences.

In order for a genetically modified crop to be approved for agricultural use an environmental risk assessment has to take place. The assessment consists of several elements.

Environmental consequences: For instance, can the genetically modified plant spread in the environment and transfer genes to related species?
Consequences for farming: Is there a risk of pest-problems or of resistance developing to current pesticides?
Consequences relating to health: For instance, has the genetic modification caused changes so the crop has become poisonous or able to cause illness?

If the authorities consider there is a risk to the environment or people's health, the genetically modified crop will not be approved.

We all know how the "authorities" mess up from time to time.

IMHO something will go wrong eventually. One way is that mutations of these GM animals and plants can be more unpredictable than we can even imagine. The sweet corn poisoning insects could mutate and make toxin for humans as well.

We really do not have enough historical understanding or data to see where this is going. This is technology working for quick and fast profits.

The automobile allowed us to travel easily, it was fantastic! Now almost 100 years later, each year tens of thousands of people die in car accidents around the globe, more are injured for life, and many more die from pollution related illnesses.

Adding lead to gas to make engines run quiet and lead to paint to make painting easier, polluted the world with lead which is maybe the reason why we have so much cancer, autism, and learning disability today.

DDT was another miracle which turned out to be a huge environmental problem almost wiping out the bald eagles.

All of these miraculous inventions have turned out to have dire consequences and these were not detected nor understood until years later.

Our genome is full of bacterial and viral DNA junk which the scientists don't quite understand why and what it's there for; The junk DNA does not seem to code or activate anything but do they really know for sure???

if we eat food with some genetic variation it may produce allergies or other reactions in humans. That would not be as bad as if these genes somehow endup getting into our DNA or cause our DNA to mutate. We would not know of such things happening until years or decades later and how soon could they pin point the problem?

I'm not against GM. I will eat that stuff. My children are grown up. I am just curious to see when and how GM will fail the first time.

So did they find out yet why the bees are disappearing without trace and not pollinating plants on our farms?

Answer 2

The greatest danger is the fact that no one has the complete answer to your question. Habitats all over the world have been damaged, destroyed, or altered by invasion of non-native species. That's a hazard even without GM. By the time someone discovers a particular strain of GM corn is a hazard, it will have spread far beyond the area of its initial planting. Notice how hard it is to contain mad cow disease or avian flu or HIV.

Answer 3

Not as great as people assume. Your body doesn't know the difference.