Allergies: Immune System and Genetically Modified Organism

Adrian V. Perse Human Biology Dr. Lawrence C. Cwik * 19 November 2012 Allergies * We live in a world were technology is growing every day. We have new medical technology and are able to save more lives. With benefits come risks we have all this technology and we cant seem to stop genetically engineered foods from causing allergies. Ever wonder why people have allergic reactions to specific things? A lot of people don’t think about the foods they consume could cause them to have an allergic reaction.In this essay I will be talking about how genetically engineered foods can cause allergies or other adverse health effects. * Allergies are very common in the United States. Allergies affect over fifty million Americans and is the fifth leading disease in America. Different people also have different kinds of allergic reactions they could be more severe while some are mild. There are also different reaction times to allergies some take longer to develop while some only take a few se conds.If you have an allergic reaction that means you have something inside your body that could be harmful to you, this cause your immune system to have an over reaction to that hurtful/harmless substances. When this happens your body produces white blood cells to produce antibodies to eliminate the source of that threat. But what dose that have to do with GMOs? GMOs enter our body system directly through the foods that we eat. GMOs have a bigger effect on children then they do on adults because they are younger and their immune system isn’t as strong/resistant as an adults so they are more venerable.So what are GMOs you ask? GMOs stands for Genetically Modified Organism, which means a single celled organism that have been modified and put into foods to prevent pesticides. These are some of the GMOs that resulted from agricultural. One kind of GMO that has been approved out there is called Herbicide Tolerance, which is found in soybeans it builds tolerance to glyphosate allo wing crops that would normally have been destroyed to live. GMOs have a big impact not just on us but the environment to. Over eighty percent of GMOs grown are used to herbicide tolerance.GMOs pigs also affect animals; cows and chickens are some of the main few. GMOs remain in our system long after we stop eating GMOs. GM crops also produce toxins through milk or animals that were feed GMOs. Kids are also at risk by drinking a lot of milk. GMO’s can affects kids even before birth. Yea GMOs even affect pregnant mothers it harms the fetal development and future genes passed on. That’s a brief description of what GMOs are and what they do. * Now lets talk about plant breeding and how it affects us. Let me tell you what plant breeding is first.Scientists have a method to removing and adding new DNA to organisms. They remove a part of DNA from an organisms then they find the specific gene they want and remove that from the DNA. After that they bind they bind the DNA and ins erter it into a new organism. Scientists have been altering the genetics of plants trying to increase their value, they genetic alter crops by using unnatural breeding and use ultraviolet or gamma rays on these crops that we later consume. Genetically cross breeding decreases nutrition value then it normally would have been.Another disadvantages to plant breeding is antibiotic resistance. Plants are being inserted with antibiotics genes. When the plants receive the antibiotic and survives the antibiotic still remains inside the plant. When animals or humans consume this we could become immune to that antibiotic that we could of used later on being immune to a lot of antibiotic could prove harmful later in our generation. Increased toxicity is another disadvantage of plant breeding. Normally plants produce toxins but they are so mild that they do not have an affect on our health.By cross breeding plants this increases the toxicity level of plants and could prove to be harmful to our health that normally would have had been; before cross breeding. Those are some of the different affects of plant breeding. * After all you heard about your probably wondering why we still use GMOs. One thing scientists have been testing is to manipulate tree genes into absorbing CO2 to help reduce global warming. GMOs are needed to feed the growing population of the earth. We need more food cause were growing so fast we need to keep how much we produce higher then how much we consume.But who really needs the GMOs? Animals consume more GMOs then human do. More corn, soybeans, and other crops are feed to animals then humans. GMs are resistant to bacterial and viruses. GMs grow much faster then normal crops. GMs are resistant to harsh weather conditions such as colds making them able to grow in different environments. They can also add vitamins to the modified food, which could prove a good thing for third world countries that suffer from malnutrition. Another benefit to GMOs is that they last longer. They have a longer life expanse then they would of normally had. Now that you heard some of the advantages of GMOs let me tell you some of the disadvantages. Allergies are a big impact. In the past few years allergies has increased. This is cause by GMOs and cross breeding plants. Cross breeding plants mixes up the different genes in organisms combining different proteins that should have not been combined with that organism normally. These new proteins are produced from genetic engineering and our immune system hasn’t experienced this from of protein. This alerts the immune system to have an allergic reaction, which causes inflammation.This of course has a much more severe impact on children then it dose on adults and also has some long-term effects if you consume a lot of GMOs. GMOs don’t just affect humans they also hurt the environment. This could even affect babies before they are even born. We all know pregnant moms shouldn’t be eating sp ecific kinds of foods. If a protein from something she’s allergic to be mixed with another species and she consumes it could be harmful to herself but the baby as well. Changing different spices of plant could hurt the natural cycle of life.If they don’t think GMOs are such a bad thing why don’t they label it? The FDA refuses to put labels on food stating weather they have been genetically mortified or not. Americans have the right to know weather they are consuming genetically mortified food or not. People shouldn’t be eating foods that could prove harmful to them their children. Other countries around the world have labels on their food stating if they are GM or not. When they are cross-breading plants/fruit they could be transferring different viruses from one organism to another with out even realizing it.GMOs also decrease the genetic diversity. Another big problem with GMOs are toxic fiction of neighboring crops. Nature is a very complex being and e verything is linked together so altering the balance messes up nature’s cycle of life. There are a lot of advantages to using GMOs I’m not saying there aren’t. But that doesn’t change the fact that allergic reactions have increased substantially since the use of GMOs. A lot of countries already realized this and labeled their foods stating wither or not they contain GMOs. I think the United States should start labeling their foods.This isn’t going to stop the use of GMOs but it will reduce the allergic reaction rate in America. It’s a little scary to know that over seventy percent of the world’s population has been genetically modified. And how we don’t know what we’re consuming that we just consume. We don’t think about our health till the day we actually get sick and by then it’s to late. Around eighty six percent of the words GMOs are grown right here in the U. S. those are some of the ways I think genet ically engineered foods can cause allergies or other adverse health effects. *